ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Kamron Fazel, Qi Li, Kostadin Ivanov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 469-474
Other Concepts and Assessments | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13465
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research explores fusion cross section enhancements from electron screening within superconductors, and the feasibility of engineering a system to extract the energy from a superconductor fusion system. There have been claims that superconductors will exhibit superscreening which could significantly increase fusion cross sections. However, there is currently no widely accepted theory to explain superconductor electron screening. This research evaluated if a net energy gain could result from fusion events within superconducting PdD. With the widely accepted critical temperature of 11 K for PdD, no net energy gain would be expected from fusion reactions. However, net energy gain may be possible if a superconductor were developed with a transition temperature above 75 K. With the uncertainty of superconductor electron screening and the possibility of fusion energy extraction, an experiment was designed to close the knowledge gap. By bombarding deuterons onto PdD below the superconducting transition temperature, the superconductor screening contribution can be determined with a 38% average uncertainty of the screening energy with 95% confidence.