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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC unveils Part 53 final rule
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has finalized its new regulatory framework for advanced reactors that officials believe will accelerate, simplify, and reduce burdens in the new reactor licensing process.
The final rule arrives more than a year ahead of an end-of-2027 deadline set in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), the 2019 law that formally directed the NRC to develop a new, technology-inclusive regulatory approach. The resulting rule—10 CFR Part 53, “Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors”—is commonly referred to as Part 53.
C. Colterjohn, S. Nagasaki, Y. Fujii
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 1 | January 2024 | Pages 23-45
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2217390
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper performs a detailed analysis of the optimized Ontario power mix under impending load and emissions constraints with the consideration of small modular reactor (SMR) deployment. The target of minimizing the total cost of the 2055 power mix while retaining real-world energy requirements was achieved using a semidynamic, recursive linear optimization model with hourly time resolution for the accurate consideration of wind and photovoltaic variable renewable energy. Utilizing IBM’s ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio’s Flow Control method, dynamic factors such as forecasted demand growth, increasing capacity installations, learning curve applications, and reactor refurbishment and decommissioning schedules were applied to the modeling scenarios. Optimized scenarios have demonstrated that SMR-based capacity should play a vital role in the provincial energy mix in order to minimize cost while meeting emissions reduction goals and responding to increasing demand. Simulations show ideal cost reductions when approximately one-third of generated energy is produced by SMRs in the future energy mix and that the absence of SMRs may lead to up to 29% higher spending. Additional cases have considered the benefits of early SMR investment and direct SMR-CANDU cost comparisons.