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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
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.
Wolfgang Heni
Nuclear Technology | Volume 121 | Number 2 | February 1998 | Pages 120-127
Technical Paper | German Direct Disposal Project | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2824
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Reprocessing is not a method of spent-fuel disposal but merely an intermediate step that may precede final disposal to save resources. Based on physical and economic factors, it may prove reasonable to directly dispose of spent-fuel assemblies according to their individual burnups, i.e., according to the quality of the residual materials they contain, either through direct final disposal or via reprocessing and recycling. Currently, higher burnups are making reprocessing impractical.Even if spent fuel is to be disposed of directly, the German concept provides that it must be kept in interim storage for as long as 40 yr after discharge from the reactor before it is brought into a repository. During this period, economic aspects must be continuously considered to decide whether the residual materials in the fuel assemblies could be economically used under circumstances other than those prevailing at present.