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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
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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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.
Baofu Lu, Eric Williams, Jerry Mauck, Michael Howard, Richard Wood, Edward L. Quinn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 202 | Number 2 | May-June 2018 | Pages 101-105
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1416878
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the development and assessment of the Diversity and Defense-in-Depth (D3) strategy for the TerraPower Traveling Wave Reactor-Prototype (TWR-P) advanced nuclear power plant. The TWR-P digital control system (DCS) is currently being designed by TerraPower. The instrumentation and control (I&C) design and configuration were based on standard digital control products. The control systems making up the DCS were selected because of their applicability to the functions required by TerraPower and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The installation of a digital-based plant protection system and other systems throughout the TWR-P enhances safety in many areas when compared to the previous generation of analog-based instrumentation systems.
Nuclear facilities have increased their use and reliance on digital technology in systems and equipment (e.g., I&C, electrical systems, and fluid systems). In addition to I&C, examples of safety-related equipment that may use digital technology include emergency diesel generators, pumps, valve actuators, motor control centers, breakers, priority logic modules, time-delay relays, and uninterruptible power sources.
In the United States and around the world, engineering and licensing activities in standards and guidance have been, and are being, developed to address this important consideration in protecting safety-related systems. This paper addresses the latest in standards and guidance development as well as a review of the application of this guidance in the specific case cited.
