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
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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August 2024
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.
Randall K. Cole, Jr., James H. Renken
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 58 | Number 4 | December 1975 | Pages 345-353
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE75-A26790
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
There is current interest in the possibility that symmetric irradiation of a small pellet of fissionable material by intense laser beams may produce sufficient compression to cause the pellet to become supercritical and thus produce a fission microexplosion. It has been proposed that a repetitive series of such explosions in a suitable chamber could be the basis for an alternative means of generating commercial power from nuclear energy. We present an analysis of this scheme that shows that the energetics do not appear favorable for power generation purposes. Although an input of several hundred megajoules of radiation energy is necessary to trigger a microexplosion, the idea appears to be an interesting physics experiment. Such microexplosions would be unique short-duration sources of nuclear radiations.