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
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
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.
Başak Saraç-Lesavre
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 9 | September 2021 | Pages 1366-1376
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1884492
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Making new nuclear investments is a challenging task. Their “value” is neither given nor stable: It is constantly being reformulated through processes of evaluation and, therefore, of valuation. The paper follows the specific uses of a standard method, the levelized cost of electricity, by different centers of calculations during a period marked by the intense scrutiny of nuclear energy policy and of the adoption of alternative nuclear fuel cycle technologies: from the George W. Bush administration through the beginning of the Barack Obama administration. Rather than concentrating on the finality of those calculations and their subsequent effects on the reordering of spent nuclear fuel as “waste” or “value,” the author develops the notion of “style of revaluation” and shows how concerned actors enacted different logics of valuation and embedded different audiences in their uses of the same calculative device. The paper characterizes two styles of revaluation related with this period. In the first style, referred to here as the “monetary figures of dissent,” a multitude of disagreements over political and moral values associated with alternative fuel cycle technologies are translated into into the language of economic expertise and monetary figures, while policy makers are designated as the audience for the calculations. In the second style, which the author refers to as the “return-on-investment,” financial investor at large is considered as the audience for the calculations, and investment is to be guided by the morality of the return-on-investment. Such assessments are critical for science and democracy. It is crucial that their designers and users, whether those are academics, practitioners, or policy makers, acknowledge and articulate moral and political values they inscribe in them.