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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Robert Schleicher, Christina Back
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 144-149
Fission | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13411
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
General Atomics (GA) is developing a new nuclear concept called Energy Multiplier Module (EM2), which is a helium (He) cooled fast reactor with a net electrical output of 240 MW. It employs a “convert & burn” core design which converts fertile to fissile and burns it in situ over a 30-year core life. It can burn SNF from LWRs with no reprocessing, only refabrication. The core can be recycled using an AIROX-based method to remove a fraction of the fission products (FPs) but no heavy metals. The reactor is passively safe and sited below grade. It can sustain a Fukushima type station blackout or even a station blackout combined with a loss of coolant accident using only passive safety systems without radioactivity release or loss of plant. The afterheat is rejected directly to the air. It is a high temperature reactor and employs a direct closed-cycle gas turbine for 48% net efficiency. The reject heat can be released directly to air so that siting near a large water source is not required. GA is targeting a power cost in the range of 6-7 cents/kW-hr, which would make it a competitive power source even with low-cost natural gas. This ambitious power cost is achieved through high efficiency, simplicity of the direct cycle gas turbine power and relatively small subsystems that can be shop fabricated and shipped by road to the site.
