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November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Empowering the next generation: ANS’s newest book focuses on careers in nuclear energy
A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.
When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.
David B. Harris, Norman A. Kurnit, Dennis D. Lowenthal, Russell G. Berger, John M. Eggleston, James J. Ewing, Mark J. Kushner, Lester M. Waganer, David A. Bowers, David S. Zuckerman
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 11 | Number 3 | May 1987 | Pages 705-731
Technical Paper | KrF Laser | doi.org/10.13182/FST87-A25044
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The development of KrF lasers has proceeded from the small lasers invented in 1975 to the 10-kJ large amplifier module at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The future KrF laser-fusion drivers required for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) development and commercial applications, starting with single-main-amplifier laser systems in the 100- to 300-kJ range, through multimegajoule single-pulse target demonstration facilities, to repetitively pulsed drivers for electric power plants are examined. Two different types of KrF lasers are currently being analyzed as potential laser-fusion drivers: large electron-beam (e-beam)-pumped amplifiers using pure optical multiplexing for pulse compression and small e-beam sustained discharge lasers using a hybrid pulse compression technique. Both types of KrF lasers appear able to satisfy all of the requirements for commercial-applications ICF drivers, including cost, efficiency, pulse shaping, energy scaling, repetition rate, reliability, and target coupling. The KrF driver can effectively operate at efficiencies >10% and can contribute < 10 mill/kWh to the cost of electric power production, with the total estimated cost of electricity from either KrF laser system being comparable (25 to 50 mill/kWh, 1985 dollars) with the cost from other methods of electric power production.
