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
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
Jun 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
July 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC engineers share their expertise at the University of Puerto Rico
Robert Roche-Rivera and Marcos Rolón-Acevedo are licensed professional engineers who work at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They are also alumni of the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez (UPRM) and have been sharing their knowledge and experience with students at their alma mater since last year, serving as adjunct professors in the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. During the 2023–2024 school year, they each taught two courses: Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Nuclear Power Plant Engineering.
Charles Forsberg
Nuclear Technology | Volume 189 | Number 1 | January 2015 | Pages 63-70
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-137
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Advances in laser enrichment may enable relatively low-cost plutonium isotopic separation creating a new unexplored dimension in fuel cycle options. This may have large impacts on light water reactor (LWR) closed fuel cycles and waste management. If 240Pu is removed before recycling plutonium as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, it would dramatically reduce the buildup of higher plutonium isotopes, americium, and curium. Plutonium-240 is a fertile material and thus can be replaced by 238U. Eliminating the higher plutonium isotopes in MOX fuel increases the Doppler feedback, simplifies reactor control, and allows infinite recycle of MOX plutonium in LWRs. Reducing production of 241Pu by removal of 240Pu reduces production of 241Am—the primary heat generator in spent nuclear fuel after several decades. Reducing heat-generating 241Am would reduce repository size, cost, and waste toxicity. Avoiding 241Am avoids its decay product 237Np, a nuclide that partly controls long-term oxidizing repository performance. The 240Pu could be added to the high-level waste for disposal. Some of these benefits also apply to plutonium recycled into fast reactors. However, the benefits are fewer because in a fast neutron spectrum, 240Pu is both a fissile material and a fertile material. There would be incentives to separate 242Pu and dispose of it as a waste.