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
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
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.
Henry Makowitz, James R. Powell, Richard Wiswall
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 78 | Number 4 | August 1981 | Pages 395-404
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A21374
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new concept for the transmutation of fission products and transuranics is studied. This concept, termed HYPERFUSE, allows one inertial reactor to transmute objectionable fission products (137Cs and 90Sr) from a large number (e.g., ∼30) of light water fission reactors, while at the same time generating electric power from the HYPERFUSE plant at a reasonable net plant efficiency (e.g., ∼30%). The cost of transmutation should be relatively low compared to other fission waste transmutation concepts due to the high support rate (number of fission reactors per HYPERFUSE reactor) and the effective generation of power by the HYPERFUSE reactor. Although the HYPERFUSE concept offers the possibility of a very effective means for waste transmutation and significant reductions in both high-integrity waste storage (burial) time and long-term risk potential, hazards will be introduced by such a system due to chemical processing and handling of radioactive materials in the recovery, partitioning, and fabrication stages as well as process and accidental losses. Such process risks need to be quantified for both conventional and advanced, chemical, and isotopic separation methods in order to evaluate the overall advantages and disadvantages of such a system. A system such as HYPERFUSE, however, leads to a quantifiable set of near-term risks for the nuclear waste problem, and a possibility of the elimination of a need for long-term nuclear waste disposal over a time scale of 106 years.
