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
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
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jan 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
January 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
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?
Edwin M. Larsen, S. I. Abdel-Khalik, Mark S. Ortman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 41 | Number 1 | November 1978 | Pages 12-26
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT78-A32129
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The 1000-MW(electric) laser fusion reactor design of the University of Wisconsin, SOLASE, is fueled by inserting cryogenic deuterium-tritium pellets containing a milligram of fuel into a spherical cavity having a 6-m radius at a rate of 20 Hz. The cavity is surrounded by a honeycomb graphite structure divided into 16 longitudinal segments through which lithium oxide particles (100 to 200 µm in diameter and with a pore length of 1 µm) flow by gravity. The total oxide inventory is 1 mg. The lithium oxide, which contains 0.1 wt% water, serves as both a tritium breeder and a heat transport medium. The oxide enters the blanket at 673 K and exits at 873 K except for a 2% side stream exiting at 1123 K, from which the tritium is recovered. At this temperature, a residence time of 300 s at a flow rate of 163 kg/s is required to condense the daily tritium supply as HTO on a cold surface. The 873 K lithium oxide is transported to a steam generator fabricated from Croloy tubes. In addition to the fuel, the container, either borosilicate glass or polyvinylalcohol (PVA), and a polymer ablator, the pellets contain a high-Z material, here xenon. Also, ∼30 mg of neon are frozen on the outside surface to ensure cryogenic conditions during flight. Some pellet constituents will react with the wall, resulting in erosion. Unburned hydrogen species will react with graphite to form acetylene at a rate estimated to be 63 pm/s (2 mm/yr) for glass and PVA shells at pumping speeds of 6.4 and 8.4 Pa · m3/s (4.8 × 104 and 6.3 × 104 Torr · ℓ/s) at 300 K, respectively. The oxygen debris will erode the graphite by carbon monoxide formation at maximum rates of 6.3 and 25.4 pm/s, respectively, for glass and PVA shells. The total erosion rate is within the expected lifetime of the blanket (1 yr) based on radiation damage studies. The reactor exhaust is predominantly neon, so that hydrogen isotope recovery and recycle is essentially a neon purification process. The fill time for glass pellets is estimated to be 5 days and for PVA pellets, 1 day. This results in a total tritium inventory of 26 and 11 kg, respectively, for a lithium oxide blanket containing 1 kg of tritium. Anticipated tritium losses include 1.5 to 2.2 kBq/kg H2O (40 to 60 nCi/ℓ H2O) of tritium to the water in the reheaters and steam generators and <400 kBq/s (1 Ci/day) for atmospheric losses. This study shows the necessity for experimental work on the thermodynamic properties of well-characterized lithium oxide.
