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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
60 Years of U: Perspectives on resources, demand, and the evolving role of nuclear energy
Recent years have seen growing global interest in nuclear energy and rising confidence in the sector. For the first time since the early 2000s, there is renewed optimism about the industry’s future. This change is driven by several major factors: geopolitical developments that highlight the need for secure energy supplies, a stronger focus on resilient energy systems, national commitments to decarbonization, and rising demand for clean and reliable electricity.
Sadao Uchikawa, Tsutomu Okubo, Yoshihiro Nakano
Nuclear Technology | Volume 172 | Number 2 | November 2010 | Pages 132-142
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10900
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The FLWR is a boiling water reactor type with a core consisting of hexagonal-shaped fuel assemblies with a triangular-lattice fuel rod configuration, which has been proposed in order to ensure a sustainable energy supply in the future based on well-established light water reactor technologies. This paper proposes a new concept of fuel assembly design named FLWR/MIX. The first stage of FLWR is designed to conserve plutonium effectively with a fissile plutonium conversion ratio of around 1.0, keeping negative void reactivity characteristics. Enriched UO2 fuel rods are arranged in the peripheral region of the assembly, surrounding the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel rods in the central region. Performance evaluation shows that the FLWR/MIX concept is effective for controlling the void reactivity characteristics in the tight-lattice fuel rod configuration and is promising under the framework of the UO2 and MOX fuel technologies and related infrastructures that have been established for the current LWR-MOX utilization.
