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
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
January 2025
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Latest News
Reboot: Nuclear needs a success . . . anywhere
The media have gleefully resurrected the language of a past nuclear renaissance. Beyond the hype and PR, many people in the nuclear community are taking a more measured view of conditions that could lead to new construction: data center demand, the proliferation of new reactor designs and start-ups, and the sudden ascendance of nuclear energy as the power source everyone wants—or wants to talk about.
Once built, large nuclear reactors can provide clean power for at least 80 years—outlasting 10 to 20 presidential administrations. Smaller reactors can provide heat and power outputs tailored to an end user’s needs. With all the new attention, are we any closer to getting past persistent supply chain and workforce issues and building these new plants? And what will the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president mean for nuclear?
As usual, there are more questions than answers, and most come down to money. Several developers are engaging with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or have already applied for a license, certification, or permit. But designs without paying customers won’t get built. So where are the customers, and what will it take for them to commit?
Dong H. Nguyen, Robert G. Bennett
Nuclear Technology | Volume 14 | Number 3 | June 1972 | Pages 284-291
Technical Paper | Instrument | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A31118
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A crystal detector system, composed of a small LiI(Eu) crystal, highly enriched in 6Li, and a flexible light pipe, has been used to determine the fast- and thermal-neutron distributions resulting from a Pu-Be neutron source. The thermal-neutron flux is determined by the cadmium difference technique. It is found that the thermal flux thus determined agrees well with the two-group diffusion solution and with absolute foil measurement, but gamma-ray backgrounds cause serious problems in the fast flux determination by crystal. It is also found that the non-rigid light pipe offers a great deal of flexibility in the measuring process. The high efficiency in thermal-neutron measurement obtained (41%) implies that smaller crystals or longer light pipes can be used, thereby improving the accessibility of the detector. The crystal detector used is also sufficiently sensitive to follow the small change in flux magnitude with increasing temperature.
