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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
March 5, 2024|3:00–3:30PM (4:00–4:30PM EST)
Available to All Users
The ANS Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division invites you to a special members-only event on the development of a US-based UNF recycling pilot facility featuring SHINE Technologies Chief Technology Officer Ross Radel on this new initiative.
SHINE Technologies, LLC (SHINE) is a nuclear technology company based in southern Wisconsin. Much of their current focus is on medical isotope production, but they have begun to leverage that expertise to investigate used nuclear fuel (UNF) recycling. Notably, SHINE has designed, built, licensed, and is in the process of installing process equipment within a 10 CFR Part 50 licensed facility, wherein aqueous uranyl sulfate will be irradiated and then harvested for short-lived fission products such as Mo-99.
Leveraging this experience, SHINE is leading a venture to address the nation’s UNF disposal challenge by developing a facility that incorporates a game-changing set of interlinked technologies that reduce the environmental and economic impact of nuclear energy generation via recycling and, ultimately, transmutation of UNF. This approach will reduce the longevity and long-term radiotoxicity of high-level waste, will improve reprocessing economics via value-added isotope extraction, and will advance technologies to enable fusion energy generation. SHINE is leveraging design, construction, and operational experience gained from commercializing its medical isotope production facility to design an end-to-end UNF processing, recycling, and transmutation system.
This event will provide background on SHINE’s proposed technical processes for UNF recycling and isotope recovery and discuss the regulatory, statutory, and non-proliferation implications for constructing and operating such a facility in the U.S.
Presenter
Ross Radel,Chief Technology Office,SHINE Technologies
Moderator
Shikha Prasad, Senior Nuclear Physicist, SLB, ANS Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division Vice Chair
Biographies
Ross Radel
Ross has served as SHINE’s Chief Technology Officer since April 2021. He has over 20 years of R&D experience on a variety of fusion, fission, and particle accelerator technologies that are directly applicable to SHINE’s core technologies and is licensed as a Professional Engineer. From 2011 - 2021, Ross served as the Chief Executive and as a member of the board of directors of Phoenix Nuclear Labs where he led dozens of technical projects related to neutron generation and neutron-based detection methods. Prior to joining Phoenix, he served as a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where he worked to develop space nuclear power systems. Ross holds a PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where his research focused on high-flux fusion neutron generation for detecting clandestine materials such as HEU.
