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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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Latest News
El Salvador: Looking to nuclear
In 2022, El Salvador’s leadership decided to expand its modest, mostly hydro- and geothermal-based electricity system, which is supported by expensive imported natural gas and diesel generation. They chose to use advanced nuclear reactors, preferably fueled by thorium-based fuels, to power their civilian efforts. The choice of thorium was made to inform the world that the reactor program was for civilian purposes only, and so they chose a fuel that was plentiful, easy to source and work with, and not a proliferation risk.
Thomas Holschuh, Nicolas Woolstenhulme, Benjamin Baker, John Bess, Cliff Davis, James Parry
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 10 | October 2019 | Pages 1346-1353
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1559712
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility restarted transient operations in 2018 and has met or exceeded expectations for reactor experiments. TREAT’s flexibility in power shaping provides the ability to prescribe a variety of operating conditions for test specimens, including shaped transients, steady-state irradiations, natural pulses, and clipped pulses, to deliver the necessary energy deposition and energy deposition rate. The initial operations following the TREAT restart were designed to mimic historical operations to confirm TREAT’s capability. Then, studies were performed to evaluate the minimum pulse width possible in the facility as well as reactor power profiles characteristic of a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA); both were achieved with excellent results.
This paper highlights the following:
1. The TREAT facility has been restarted to resume nuclear fuel safety research.
2. Initial reactor operations have mimicked historical operations.
3. A minimum pulse width has been achieved by control rod reinsertion during pulse.
4. Power profiles characteristic of a LOCA accident were performed.