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Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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The busyness of the nuclear fuel supply chain
Ken Petersenpresident@ans.org
With all that is happening in the industry these days, the nuclear fuel supply chain is still a hot topic. The Russian assault in Ukraine continues to upend the “where” and “how” of attaining nuclear fuel—and it has also motivated U.S. legislators to act.
Two years into the Russian war with Ukraine, things are different. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, authorizing $700 million in funding to support production of high-assay low-enriched uranium in the United States. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy this January issued a $500 million request for proposals to stimulate new HALEU production. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 includes $2.7 billion in funding for new uranium enrichment production. This funding was diverted from the Civil Nuclear Credits program and will only be released if there is a ban on importing Russian uranium into the United States—which could happen by the time this column is published, as legislation that bans Russian uranium has passed the House as of this writing and is headed for the Senate. Also being considered is legislation that would sanction Russian uranium. Alternatively, the Biden-Harris administration may choose to ban Russian uranium without legislation in order to obtain access to the $2.7 billion in funding.
Pedro Mena, R. A. Borrelli, Leslie Kerby
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 2 | February 2022 | Pages 232-245
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1905470
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Artificial intelligence is becoming a larger part of operations for many industries. One industry where this is occurring rapidly is the nuclear industry. Researchers from around the world are looking to implement this technology in various areas of the nuclear industry. This paper explores the use of machine learning to diagnose problems. This project makes use of synthetic data collected from a Generic Pressurized Water Reactor (GPWR) simulator on whether a reactor is operating normally or experiencing one of four different transient events. A dataset was created consisting of over 30 000 reactor operational states. The data were explored and wrangled using Python and the Pandas package, using a variety of methods. Once ready, the data were randomly shuffled, with half the data being used for training and the other half being used for testing. Six different machine learning models were created using scikit-learn and the AutoML package Tree-based Pipeline Optimization Tool (TPOT). These models were created using six data scaling methods along with six feature reduction/selection methods. These models were validated using accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score. The accuracy of the individual transients was also calculated. All six of the models had validation scores above 95%, with the decision tree and logistic regression models performing the best. These results are promising for the possible future use of machine learning in reactor diagnostics.