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The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Nuclear News 40 Under 40 discuss the future of nuclear
Seven members of the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40 came together on March 4 to discuss the current state of nuclear energy and what the future might hold for science, industry, and the public in terms of nuclear development.
To hear more insights from this talented group of young professionals, watch the “40 Under 40 Roundtable: Perspectives from Nuclear’s Rising Stars” on the ANS website.
Erich A. Schneider, William C. Sailor
Nuclear Technology | Volume 162 | Number 3 | June 2008 | Pages 379-387
Technical Paper | Miscellaneous | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3963
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We address the long-term uranium supply from first principles, summarizing estimates of the abundance of uranium in the crust of the earth as a function of concentration and accessibility. Defining the supply curve as a functional relationship between the cumulative quantity of uranium extracted and the cost of extracting the next unit of uranium, we note that a supply curve requires a crustal abundance model plus a correlation between ore grade and extraction cost. Surveying a number of supply curves that appear in the literature, we observe that while estimates vary widely (we observe an order of magnitude difference in forecasts of the quantity of uranium available at $100/kg U or less), they generally reflect expectations that uranium availability will be significantly greater than the Red Book numbers imply. Furthermore, by comparison with historical data for more than 40 other minerals, we show that the assumption of time invariance when formulating a supply curve is not borne out by experience. In fact, the price of most other minerals has decreased with time as well as with cumulative quantity extracted. Neither the Red Book nor the other supply curves we survey explicitly accounts for the unit-based technological learning that fosters this behavior.