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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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2027 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
October 31–November 4, 2027
Washington, DC|The Westin Washington, DC 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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Siting of Canadian repository gets support of tribal nation
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced that Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation has indicated its willingness to support moving forward to the next phase of the site selection process to host a deep geological repository for Canada’s spent nuclear fuel.
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.