Be the change you want to see in the worldANS Nuclear CafeAugust 20, 2019, 6:00AM|Dr. Matthew Jasica and Alyse HuffmanWhat does it mean to be a leader? That question is at the heart of the Young Professionals Congress 2019 (YPC19).YPC19 is a one-day event, organized by the ANS Young Members Group (YMG) and the North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NAYGN). It occurs biannually the day before the start of the ANS Winter Meeting in Washington, DC. Sessions focus on a wide range of topics that may be of special interest to students and other young professionals. YPC19 takes place on Saturday, November 16.This year's YPC19 is going to see a stronger emphasis on professional development. The focus of the day's sessions will be on the topics that do not usually get as much attention at other ANS meetings but are crucial for being able to step up as the next generation of leaders."Be the change that you wish to see in the world," is a mantra that many of us grew up hearing. Our keynote address on Crucial Conversations, given by motivational speaker Ms. Candace Bertotti, is directed towards being that change in the workplace-specifically focusing on high-stakes conversations where emotions and opinions can be strong. Additional leadership discussions and workshops will explore what it means to be a trailblazer in the workplace, the community, the world of policymaking, as well as how to learn to adapt from mistakes to improve team dynamics. The day will also offer ways to learn to navigate the professional landscape, including breaking into a career in the fast-paced realm of startups and managing career transitions while maintaining work-life balance.YPC19 will also feature sessions educating attendees about contemporary topics and the state of the industry. Ideas such as big data analytics, machine learning, and additive manufacturing are shaping numerous technical fields, but how are they leaving their mark on the nuclear industry? How do the needs of domestic and international customers differ, and how should that shape vendors' approaches to different emerging reactor technologies? What are the economic realities of building and operating a nuclear plant, and what needs to happen for nuclear to become competitive in the energy marketplace?The biggest benefit of attending YPC19 is the connections to be made with other students and professionals, both seasoned and new. It's been said one of the most important phrases for getting anything done in Washington is, "Let's grab a coffee." Just 10-15 minutes of meeting face-to-face to exchange ideas can make all the difference in finding the right collaborator to make your project idea a reality or landing the next job. Outside of coffee, the YPC19 luncheon, featuring experts from the ANS technical divisions, is a great place to make connections in the technical field or to facilitate further involvement in the Society. Evening socials on Friday and Saturday provide opportunities to discuss ideas from earlier in the day and make new friends. Finally, never underestimate the value of a quick handshake with a speaker after a session.There is tremendous value in attending YPC19 as new participants or as veteran attendees, whether it is honing your professional skills, learning something new, or making valuable connections.We're very proud of our planning team for putting together this program and for their many hours crafting content, fundraising, and recruiting a wide range of speakers from all facets of the nuclear community. This year's YPC will truly be an exciting event, and we look forward to seeing all of you there!Register today! The add-on cost to the Winter Meeting registration is only $5. If you are unable to attend ANS Winter, the cost for the one-day event is $40 (ANS members) or $80 (non-members).And please use the hashtag #ANSMeeting whenever posting to social media or to follow along on the conversation. Alyse Huffman is the recipient of the 2019 ANS Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship currently working on the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Alyse is program cochair for YPC19 and is also involved with YMG, the Nuclear Criticality Safety Division, and the Membership Committee.Tags:american nuclear societyans student sectionsans winter meetingans winter meeting and expoans young members groupcandace bertotticraig piercydcdc perspectivediversity & inclusion committeehuffmanjasicanaygnnorth american young generation in nuclearnuclearnuclear industrypublic policyreactorsscurlockunited stateswashingtonypc19ypc2019Share:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
ANS leaders’ op-ed urges New York Gov. Cuomo to keep Indian Point-3 operatingDunzik-GougarPiercyThe scheduled premature shutdown of Indian Point-3 will all but guarantee a massive increase in fossil fuel use, according to an op-ed written by American Nuclear Society President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar and Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy that was published in the New York Daily News on November 30.Indian Point-3 is slated to be shut down in April 2021, four years before its operating license expires.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: More on advanced nuclear reactors and power systemsThe third part of the“Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Power Systems” sessions during the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting featured an examination of the status of various advanced reactors. The sessions were sponsored by the Operations and Power Division and chaired by Piyush Sabharwall of Idaho National Laboratory. Here is an article on the first "Advanced Nuclear Reactors and Power Systems” session.Presentation topics in the third and final session included using Modelica for system-level modeling and simulation of advanced reactors; the testing of fast-spectrum reactors’ gears and bearings in liquid sodium; and the creation of a simple core analysis tool called the Thermal hydrAulic COre Calculations using the single heAted channel meThod (TACOCAT) code. Here are some of the highlights: Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: President’s Special SessionANS President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar took to the video screen on November 18 during the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting for the President’s Special Session on radiation risk, echoing a comment by Exelon Nuclear’s Bryan Hanson, the Winter Meeting’s general cochair, who earlier in the week characterized radiation as one of the most misunderstood aspects of nuclear.“I think that’s very true,” Dunzik-Gougar said. “So much misconception and misunderstanding. I have always had a passion for communicating about such things as radiation, helping people understand the nature of radiation and the relative risks of nuclear, but mostly about its benefits. But I think we in the industry can better prepare ourselves with knowledge about radiation and its impacts and also educate ourselves on how to talk about the risks of radiation with people not in our own echo chambers to help change the perception among a broader scope of people.”The panel of experts assembled to help impart some of that knowledge to session attendees included Amir A. Bahadori, assistant professor at Kansas State University; Donald A. Cool, a technical executive at the Electric Power Research Institute and a former senior executive at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Paul Locke, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Shaheen Dewji, assistant professor at Texas A&M University.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: Energy storageThe session titled “Energy Storage Integration with Nuclear Power Plants,” held on November 17 during the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting, was sponsored by the Operations and Power Division and chaired by Piyush Sabharwall, of Idaho National Laboratory.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: Fusion technology start-ups showcased at TOFE 2020The Fusion Enterprise-I and -II sessions, held on November 18 as part of the TOFE 2020 embedded topical meeting at the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting, were chaired by Ales Necas, principal scientist at TAE Technologies, and featured presentations by speakers representing companies in the commercial fusion area.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: Preview of NPIC&HMIT 2021The November 17 session titled “Preview of NPIC&HMIT 2021” was sponsored by the Human Factors, Instrumentation and Controls Division. The session was chaired by Pradeep Ramuhalli, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and featured four panelists: Ronald L. Boring, of Idaho National Laboratory; Jamie B. Coble, of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; Raymond L. Herb, of Southern Nuclear Operating Company; and Hyun Gook Kang, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.The panelists provided a preview of trends in I&C and human factors that are likely to be featured at the 12th ANS Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation and Control and Human-Machine Interface Technology Conference (NPIC&HMIT), which will be held in conjunction with the 2021 ANS Annual Meeting in Providence, R.I., in June. Ramuhalli said that the paper submission process has begun. The NPIC&HMIT 2021 call for papers is available online.HerbThe industry perspective: Herb, who works on digital modernization for Southern Nuclear’s reactor fleet, reflected on working early in his career with equipment that required daily calibration by I&C techs. “Operators running around the panels, checking here, checking there,” he said. “Now, I see a calm control room for operators at Vogtle-3 and -4 who can operate everything from one chair.”Herb added that he is not a human factors expert. “All I can do is communicate the needs of the U.S. nuclear industry from my perspective,” he said. Among those needs are realistic task analysis and effective change management. While the U.S. fleet’s original analog control systems were “biased toward ‘no change,’” he said, Southern’s current fleet strategy “is incremental change with every design we put in, to shepherd our existing fleet to something that is closer to Vogtle-3 and -4.”BoringNew modalities: Boring offered his take on what’s next for human factors. He pointed out that NPIC&HMIT 2019 had four sessions on validation, and that validation is critical because new digital control rooms need to be proven. “Many of our current fleet have had the same control rooms for 40 years,” he said. “We can’t hope to have a digital control room for 40 years—we have to support evolution over time.” He predicted that NPIC&HMIT 2021 will see an emphasis on validation and interaction modalities for new plants, such as microreactors and small modular reactors, including automation.CobleUniversity support for data analytics: Coble talked about improving nuclear power economics through data-driven decision-making. Operating plants are being shut down, she said, and a big part of the problem is operating and maintenance costs. “How can we make nuclear more economical?” she asked. “The current approach of frequent equipment monitoring works to keep equipment reliability up but does not help with costs.”Coble said that there is a need for development in sensors and in models and algorithms that mine large data sets. University research and training can help solve identified problems, she said, but while there is a well-developed data set on light-water reactors, equivalent data is not yet available for advanced reactors that operate differently, making it more difficult to set a risk-informed approach.KangNew topics: Kang took attendees on a deep dive into the topics that were presented at NPIC-HMIT 2019 and made some predictions for 2021. Control platforms and status identification and decision-making were well represented in 2019, as were newer topics of cybersecurity and wireless communications. In 2019, Kang said, “Operation automation was discussed, but ‘autonomous operation’ was not discussed yet. . . . I expect we will have more papers regarding this issue in the coming conference.”That is just one of several topics Kang expects to see at the 2021 meeting, because, he said, I&C is a fast-moving area.Other anticipated topics include the decision-making process between machine learning applications and human operators and practical cybersecurity solutions.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: ANS honors more award recipients during President’s Special SessionAmerican Nuclear Society President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar recognized four Presidential Citation recipients and the Milton Levenson Distinguished Service Award winner on November 18 during the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting. The following awards were presented as part of the ANS President’s Special Session.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: General Chair’s Special SessionThe General Chair’s Special Session of the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting was held on November 17. Moderated by Paul Kearns, director of Argonne National Laboratory, and Bryan Hanson, executive vice president and chief generation officer of Exelon Nuclear, the session, titled “Nuclear Science and Industry: The next transformation,” featured a panel of science and industry experts discussing how innovation is transforming both the current fleet of reactors and preparing for a future with advanced reactors, integrated systems, and smarter grids.In addition to the session’s respected panel members, the Zoom meeting included appearances from some top names in nuclear, including Holtec International’s Kris Singh, Sama Bilbao y Leon of the World Nuclear Association, Warren Miller, Jr. from Kairos Power and Texas A&M University, Terrestrial Energy’s David Hill, and many more. In a short, prerecorded video, these experts discussed many of the issues facing the nuclear industry today, which were then expounded upon by the panel members.Go to Article
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting: Observing the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation TreatyThe 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting opened on November 16 with a plenary session moderated by ANS President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar and more than 700 people in attendance. The opening plenary session was followed by nearly 40 panel and technical sessions. Recordings of all the sessions are posted on the meeting platform and can be view by all registered attendees at any time.Two sessions held in the afternoon of opening day were centered around the 50th anniversary of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Both sessions featured distinguished experts on the NPT to discuss its successes, challenges, future, and the role of the United States in international nonproliferation.Go to Article
TOFE 2020 opening plenary: Looking back and forwardPresented as an embedded topical meeting at the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting, the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) 2020 meeting opened on November 16 with the first of four plenary sessions to be held during the week: “Looking Back and Looking Forward in Fusion.” (TOFE 2020 also features 29 technical sessions through November 19.)The plenary session, chaired by Savannah River National Laboratory’s Greg Staack, featured two speakers: Melissa Hanson, curator for the Savannah River Site Cold War Historic Preservation Program, and Heather Lewtas, a technical lead for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production program.Go to Article