ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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May 2025
Nuclear Technology
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Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
David A. Pickett, William L. Dam
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 151 | Number 1 | September 2005 | Pages 114-120
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE05-A2533
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is independently evaluating technical issues such as colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport in preparation for reviewing an anticipated license application from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a potential high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. For performance assessment computer simulations of evolving conditions many years into the future, the influence of colloids in enhancing radionuclide transport is difficult to estimate and highly uncertain. NRC staff is conducting a multipronged approach to assessing whether or not these uncertainties are sufficiently represented by performance assessment models. Preliminary simplified calculations providing a conservative estimate of calculated dose from colloidal Pu suggest that an effect on dose is plausible. A more sophisticated effort involves analytical modeling of colloidal Pu transport that uses laboratory and field data to represent more accurately processes such as kinetic controls on sorption (attachment) and desorption (detachment) of radionuclides at colloid surfaces. This modeling effort shows that slow desorption of radionuclides from colloids is a factor that could enhance radionuclide migration. Finally, an abstraction of colloidal transport is being implemented in the NRC total-system performance assessment model in order to integrate potential colloidal effects at the system level. This implementation is flexible enough that a variety of sensitivity studies can be conducted that will aid identification of the model parameters most significant to transport.