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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
G. P. Lawrence, R. A. Jameson, S. O. Schriber
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 20 | Number 4 | December 1991 | Pages 652-656
Accelerator/Reactor Waste Transmutation | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A11946914
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Powerful proton linacs are being studied at Los Alamos as drivers for high-flux neutron sources that can transmute long-lived fission products and actinides in defense nuclear waste, and also as drivers of advanced fission-energy systems that could generate electric power with no long-term waste legacy. A transmuter fed by an 800-McV, 140-mA cw conventional copper linac could destroy the accumulated 99Tc and 129I at the DOE's Hanford site within 30 years. A high-efficiency 1200-McV, 140-mA niobium superconducting linac could drive an energy-producing system generating 1-GWc electric power. Preliminary design concepts for these different high-power linacs are discussed, along with the principal technical issues and the status of the technology base.
