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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Erich Wieland, Benjamin Z. Cvetkovi?, Dominik Kunz (Scherrer Inst), Gary Salazar, Söenke Szidat (Univ of Bern)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 506-511
Carbon-14 is an important radionuclide in the inventory of radioactive waste. In Switzerland, the 14C inventory in a cement-based repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (L/ILW) is mainly associated with activated steel (?85 %). In light water reactors (LWR) 14C is the product of 14N activation in steel parts exposed to thermal neutron flux. 14C has been identified a key radionuclide in safety assessments. Release of 14C occurs due to slow corrosion of activated steel in the near field of a deep geological repository. While the 14C inventory is well known, the speciation of 14C upon release from activated steel is only poorly understood. The present study is aimed at investigating the formation of carbon species during the anoxic corrosion of iron and steel and determining the 14C species formed in a corrosion experiment with activated steel. The experiments were carried out in conditions similar to those anticipated in the near field of a cement-based repository.
