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2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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NRC looks to leverage previous approvals for large LWRs
During this time of resurging interest in nuclear power, many conversations have centered on one fundamental problem: Electricity is needed now, but nuclear projects (in recent decades) have taken many years to get permitted and built.
In the past few years, a bevy of new strategies have been pursued to fix this problem. Workforce programs that seek to laterally transition skilled people from other industries, plans to reuse the transmission infrastructure at shuttered coal sites, efforts to restart plants like Palisades or Duane Arnold, new reactor designs that build on the legacy of research done in the early days of atomic power—all of these plans share a common throughline: leveraging work already done instead of starting over from square one to get new plants designed and built.
20th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-20)
Dr. Per Peterson is a Co-Founder & Chief Nuclear Officer of Kairos Power. Dr. Peterson also holds the William and Jean McCallum Floyd Chair in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
He is an expert in topics related to high-temperature fission energy systems, safety and security of nuclear materials, and waste management. As a member of the Evaluation Methodology Group, he participated in the development of the Gen IV Roadmap while serving as co-chair for the Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection Working Group. His research has contributed to the development of the passive safety systems used in the General Electric ESBWR and Westinghouse AP1000 reactor designs. With Charles Forsberg and Paul Pickard, in 2003, he proposed the FHR concept of a molten-salt cooled, solid fueled reactor.
Dr. Peterson graduated from the University of Nevada at Reno with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Last modified July 28, 2023, 2:17pm EDT
