SANE Annual Meeting 2025

The SANE Annual Meetin 2025 was a big success and the bar has been set high

Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), located just a few minutes’ drive west of Zurich, hosted the Safety Assessment of Non-Electric Uses of Nuclear Energy (SANE) Annual Meeting for the year 2025. During the three days, all participants of the project came together, in person or online, to share their successes and headways, to try and overcome obstacles and to innovate the future solutions for non electric uses of nuclear energy.

Every work package had their assigned time slot in which its members presented their research and

discoveries:

• Starting with Work Package 1 which focuses on potential non-electric uses of nuclear energy over a wide range of future applications such as district heating, agricultural nuclear heating, hydrogen and E-fuel production, ship propulsion, urban waste treatment and others.

• The 2nd Work Package assesses safety of non-electric uses of nuclear energy with specific cases; they include studies of safety concepts and criteria applicable to the general case of non-electricity producing reactors, applicability of existing safety analysis tools, studies of severe accidents and radiological consequences and, finally, focuses on probabilistic assessments.

• Work Package 3 explores other industrial applications, primarily the idea of a desalination plant and its fruition into reality. This way, various desalination techniques/technologies can be studied. Putting safety first, this package verifies that the coupled system design does not adversely affect nuclear reactor safety.

• Communicating about nuclear technology demands a nuanced approach, which is why Work Package 4 aims to understand the needs of key stakeholders: utilities, urban planners, regulators, and residents. It develops improved risk communication methods specifically for these groups, exploring how communicating radiological risks shapes nuclear regulatory policy. This involves using Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) studies, safety metrics, and comparing radiological risks between large Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) and Low-Dose Radiation (LDR)-lite concepts.

• In order for the work to be seen, dissemination, exploitation, communication are key. Work Package 5 handles those tasks by creating and maintaining the project website, publishing project results, organizing workshops, training courses and a summer school. All with the intent of keeping both the scientific and public worlds informed about the SANE project.

• And last, but definitely not least, Work Package 6 – management. The final work package focuses on managing and coordinating the project to ensure everything proceeds according to plan and that the objectives outlined in the grant agreement are met.

The works of all six work packages are closely intertwined and they all rely on each other’s research to move the project along, together. Human relations are thus of great importance, so it was made sure that there was enough time for all members to socialize, interact and discuss whatever topics came up; from an organized swim in a private part of the Aare River to an evening working BBQ at its riverside, the bar was set high by the PSI.

This way, we would like to express gratitude to the Paul Scherrer Institut for organizing such an insightful conference and thank everyone who attended. It was both a productive and joyful meeting and we very much look forward to everything the SANE project and its members have to offer. We are excited to move together towards innovative solutions for non-electric uses of nuclear energy.

Over the following months, we plan to bring a more detailed insight into each Work Package and their preliminary results, so stay tuned for that!