The Standard American National Standard (ANS) 19.3.4 provides guidance for performing calculations to predict the thermal energy deposition rates in nuclear reactors. It also provides guidance for demonstrating the adequacy of the design calculations. In this paper, a review of the original guidelines contained in the Standard are discussed. The changes made in the 1999 revision, which now make the Standard applicable to CANDU reactors are presented. The changes affected the acceptable approximations used in making energy deposition calculations. In addition, in view of the current programmatic activities of accelerator driven devices, the need and necessary considerations for expanding the Standard to encompass higher particle energies than found in reactors is discussed. The paper concludes that it would be prudent to expand the Standard to cover such devices.