The Future of Advanced Nuclear Technologies : Interdisciplinary Research Team Summaries

The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI) Conference in 2013 focused on the Future of Advanced Nuclear Technologies to generate new ideas about how to move nuclear technology forward while making the world safer and more secure. Beyond the public's apprehension concerning the safety of nuclear power, which calls out for better communications strategies, several challenges lie ahead for the nuclear enterprise in the United States. The workforce in nuclear technology is aging, there is an overreliance on large, high-risk reactor designs, and the supply of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine remains unstable—all problems crying out for solutions. The Future of Advanced Nuclear Technologies summarizes the 14 Interdisciplinary Research (IDR) teams' collaborations on creative solutions to challenges designed to propel the policy, engineering, and social aspects of the nuclear enterprise forward. Table of ContentsFront MatterConference SummaryIDR Team Summary 1: Identify improvements in technology and other approaches that will ensure the future development and supply of radionuclides and radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging and therapy. IDR Team Summary 2: Develop a transformational fuel for Light Water Reactors - advanced and current. IDR Team Summary 3: Develop innovative approaches to make special nuclear materials (SNMs) more easily monitored and more detectable if stolen. IDR Team Summary 4: Design and fund a 3-year public/private initiative to better understand and bridge the perception/reality gap between the public and nuclear experts on the risks of the nuclear enterprise and to restore the public trust. IDR Team Summary 5: Define the means to promote U.S. interests in the international nuclear power field in an era of diminishing U.S. and Western European influence. IDR Team Summary 6: How might the widespread use of civilian nuclear power and associated fuel cycle facilities be made compatible with a world free of (or with a small number of) nuclear weapons?IDR Team Summary 7: Identify a new and practical application of nuclear phenomena for the benefit of humankind. AppendixesList of Advanced Nuclear Technologies Preconference TutorialsAgendaParticipant List