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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
Anders Wörman, Björn Anders Dverstorp, Richard Andrew Klos, Shulan Xu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 148 | Number 2 | November 2004 | Pages 194-204
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3559
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An approach is described for hydrological, geochemical, and ecological process modeling in assessing the migration pathways of radionuclides from a repository for radioactive waste in crystalline bedrock back to the surface environment where dose to individual humans can occur. The approach is based on the characterization residence times in geologic media of a unit pulse of 135Cs released from the repository. Performance assessment modeling of geosphere transport processes generally focuses on the properties of the host rock (crystalline bedrock in this case). Our approach includes a detailed representation of the quaternary deposits that overlie the bedrock. Although water residence times in quaternary deposits can be short, geochemical reactions, predominantly sorption, can increase solute residence times significantly. Moreover, the quaternary deposits govern the pathways to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and are of utmost importance for the assessment of doses to individual humans.