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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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Latest News
Ho Nieh, TVA board members, and nuclear fuel recycling bill head to Senate floor
Nieh
Ho Nieh, the Trump administration’s nominee to be a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and four new board members of the Tennessee Valley Authority were approved in a vote today by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and head to the Senate floor for a final vote.
The committee also voted to advance to the Senate floor the Nuclear REFUEL Act of 2025 (S. 2082), which would smooth the regulatory pathway for recycling used nuclear fuel.
President Donald nominated Nieh on July 30 to serve as NRC commissioner for the remainder of a term set to expire June 30, 2029, which was held by former NRC commissioner Chris Hanson, who Trump fired in June.
Charalampos Andreades, Anselmo T. Cisneros, Jae Keun Choi, Alexandre Y. K. Chong, Massimiliano Fratoni, Sea Hong, Lakshana R. Huddar, Kathryn D. Huff, James Kendrick, David L. Krumwiede, Michael R. Laufer, Madicken Munk, Raluca O. Scarlat, Nicolas Zweibaum, Ehud Greenspan, Xin Wang, Per Peterson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 195 | Number 3 | September 2016 | Pages 223-238
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The University of California, Berkeley (UCB), has developed a preconceptual design for a commercial pebble-bed (PB), fluoride salt–cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) (PB-FHR). The baseline design for this Mark-I PB-FHR (Mk1) plant is a 236-MW(thermal) reactor. The Mk1 uses a fluoride salt coolant with solid, coated-particle pebble fuel. The Mk1 design differs from earlier FHR designs because it uses a nuclear air-Brayton combined cycle designed to produce 100 MW(electric) of base-load electricity using a modified General Electric 7FB gas turbine. For peak electricity generation, the Mk1 has the ability to boost power output up to 242 MW(electric) using natural gas co-firing. The Mk1 uses direct heating of the power conversion fluid (air) with the primary coolant salt rather than using an intermediate coolant loop. By combining results from computational neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and pebble dynamics, UCB has developed a detailed design of the annular core and other key functional features. Both an active normal shutdown cooling system and a passive, natural-circulation-driven emergency decay heat removal system are included. Computational models of the FHR—validated using experimental data from the literature and from scaled thermal-hydraulic facilities—have led to a set of design criteria and system requirements for the Mk1 to operate safely and reliably. Three-dimensional, computer-aided-design models derived from the Mk1 design criteria are presented.