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
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Latest News
New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
M. Salvatores, I. Slessarev, M. Uematsu
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 120 | Number 1 | May 1995 | Pages 18-39
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE95-A24103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper considers ways to approach radiologically clean nuclear power (RCNP), i.e., an energy production technology based on a natural nuclear fuel transmutation with a simultaneous fission product transformation into stable or short-lived nuclei. Ways to limit the long-term radiotoxicity accumulation in the fuel cycle, both related to actinides and to long-lived fission products, and to limit the radiological risk related to the in-core nuclear fuel inventory are defined. Criteria and guidelines are defined in that perspective, and they are applied to the evaluation of different options such as open or closed fuel cycles, burnup extension, type of neutron spectrum, use of thorium or uranium fuel cycle, and subcriticality in the multiplying region. Meanwhile, understanding the physics implications of the requirements for an RCNP reveals that there are promising ways to improve current systems. Ideal systems, which are defined to exploit all the desirable physics features to make them better in terms of environmental impact, show potential advantages, but they are never so spectacular—and certainly are to be taken extremely carefully—in view of the need of complementary technological feasibility and cost and safety analyses, Moreover, the problem of radiation doses, which is essential for fuel cycle management and could appreciably influence the choice of the appropriate fuel cycle, have not yet been taken into account. This last aspect and more specific safety analyses, together with cost-benefit evaluations, will be the subject of future investigations.