ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
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!
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Nuclear Technology
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Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Allen G. Croff, Steven L. Krahn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 2 | May 2016 | Pages 271-280
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-46
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper compares the radiotoxicity of thorium-based and uranium-based spent nuclear fuels and reprocessing wastes to inform evaluation of whether thorium-based fuels are significantly less radiotoxic than uranium-based fuels, as has been claimed at times in the technical literature. A consistent approach for calculating the radiotoxicity is established for four oxide fuel types in a pressurized water reactor: low-enrichment uranium, uranium with plutonium fissile material, thorium with 233U fissile material, and thorium with plutonium fissile material. The results of the calculations are presented to display the radiotoxicity trends and are analyzed to determine (a) what underlies the indicated radiotoxicity trends for decay times from 1 year to 20 million years and (b) factors that may have led to erroneous conclusions concerning the comparative radiotoxicity of thorium- and uranium-based fuels. The overall conclusion is that the ingestion radiotoxicity of thorium-based fuels containing 233U or plutonium fissile materials is similar to the radiotoxicity of uranium-based fuels containing 235U or plutonium fissile materials but that within this overall similarity there are significant differences in radiotoxicity in specific eras during decay.