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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Senate EPW Committee to hold Nieh nomination hearing
Nieh
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a nomination hearing Wednesday for Ho Nieh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as commission at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Trump nominated Nieh on July 30 to serve as NRC commissioner the remainder of a term that will expire June 30, 2029, as Nuclear NewsWire previously reported.
Nieh has been vice president of regulatory affairs at Southern Nuclear since 2021, though since June 2024 he has been at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations as a loaned executive.
A return to the NRC: If confirmed by the Senate, Nieh would be returning to the NRC after three previous stints totaling nearly 20 years.
Elia Puccinelli, Valerio Giusti, Angelo Pasini
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 7 | July 2025 | Pages 1473-1495
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2410637
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work proposes a new propellant management configuration for an ammonia-fueled nuclear thermal propulsion system. The suggested configuration maximizes the advantage deriving from the autogenous pressurization of ammonia by exploiting the thermal power lost by the nuclear reactor toward the vacuum space due to leaking radiation. In this layout, a tank containing ammonia in saturated conditions is placed near the nuclear reactor and receives an input thermal power proportional to the dose of gamma rays and neutrons absorbed by the tank walls and the ammonia itself. Such a thermal power accelerates the vaporization process of the saturated ammonia, thus increasing the pressure in the tank. A pressure regulator valve exploits this overpressure to pressurize the ammonia propellant contained in a run tank to the level required by the mission by connecting the two ammonia volumes. The pressure achieved inside the run tank pushes the propellant with an adequate mass flow rate inside the nuclear reactor. The developed lumped parameter analysis shows how this propellant management system can provide a constant mass flow to the nuclear reactor without using a turbopump assembly. Moreover, it is shown how the proposed concept allows for a reduction in the radiation shield mass.