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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
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February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
RIC panel discusses pathway to fusion commercialization
Fusion leaders at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual Regulatory Information Conference discussed the path forward for regulating the burgeoning fusion industry. The speakers discussed government and private industry initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom, with a focus on efforts shaping the near-term deployment of commercial fusion machines.
A recurring theme was the need to explain the difference between fission and fusion. Representatives from the Department of Energy and Type One Energy highlighted this as an important distinction for regulators, as it will allow fusion to undergo its own independent maturation process for developing standards and regulations in the same way that fission has. Lea Perlas, Fusion Program director at the Virginia Department of Health, said that confusion between fission and fusion has been a common cause for misplaced concerns among community members surrounding Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ proposed fusion plant site near Richmond, Va.
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2022) Plenary SPeaker
U.S. Senator, Ohio (D) and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
A lifelong Ohioan, Senator Sherrod Brown has spent his career fighting for the Dignity of Work – the idea that hard work should pay off for everyone, no matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of work you do.
He has held nearly 500 roundtables across Ohio, because he believes the best ideas don’t come out of Washington – they come from conversations with Ohioans. Senator Brown serves as Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Finance Committee, the Agriculture Committee, and is the longest serving Ohioan on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
In February 2022, Senator Brown and Ohio House members also sent a letter to Congressional leaders in the Senate and House Appropriation Committees, urging them to include Ohio’s NASA priorities in the final, conference appropriations bill. They successfully secured language that authorized NASA and DOD to partner to reconfigure Armstrong’s hypersonics test facility to allow better utilization of existing NASA assets, as well as funding to begin construction on a runway at Armstrong.”
And In March 2022, Senator Brown led an effort with the entire Ohio Congressional Delegation sent a letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson urging him to support the NASA Glenn Research Center’s Lewis Field Campus in Cleveland and the Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2023 budget request. The lawmakers highlighted in the letter specific areas where NASA Glenn is prepared to lead, including surface power; electric propulsion; space communications; flight hardware testing; and aeronautics, including hypersonics and sustainable aviation.
Sherrod was born and raised in Mansfield, Ohio, where he earned his Eagle Scout award and spent summers working on his family’s farm. He is married to author and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz. They live in Cleveland, Ohio, with their rescue dogs, Franklin and Walter, drive Jeeps made by union workers in Toledo, and have three daughters, a son, a daughter-in-law, three sons-in-law, and eight grandchildren.
Last modified April 29, 2022, 9:34am EDT
