ANS News

Last week, the American Nuclear Society and the Nuclear Energy Institute jointly hosted the second annual Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo in Dallas, Texas. NECX serves as both a combination and evolution of ANS’s Utility Working Conference and NEI’s Nuclear Energy Assembly.

For the second year in a row, NECX brought together utilities, advanced reactor developers, suppliers, regulators, policymakers, investors, engineers, and innovators for a wide range of discussions pertaining to the present and future of the industry.

Two new American Nuclear Society standards recently received approval from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The new standard ANSI/ANS-56.2-2026, Containment Isolation Provisions for Fluid Systems After a LOCA, is a revision of historic ANS-56.2-1984 (W1999). ANS-GS-30.1-2026, Integrating Risk and Performance Objectives into Standards for New Reactor Designs, is a new guidance standard.

Both standards are available for purchase in the ANS Online Store.

The second annual Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX 2026), hosted in Dallas, Texas, kicked off this morning with an exciting opening plenary that saw leaders from government, regulation, and industry discussing the unprecedented opportunities now open to the nuclear sector.

NECX, the premier nuclear industry conference cohosted by the American Nuclear Society and the Nuclear Energy Institute, is all about leveraging those opportunities.

American Nuclear Society President Mark Peters visited Idaho National Laboratory on August 12 to unveil the plaque that officially designates the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF) a Nuclear Historic Landmark.

Landmark status was conferred on HFEF last October. It is INL’s 10th landmark on the list and one of 101 the Society has honored since 1985. ANS’s Nuclear Historic Landmark Award memorializes sites and facilities where outstanding physical accomplishments that advanced the peaceful uses of nuclear energy have taken place. The award recognizes facilities that were in service at least 20 years ago.

A recent American Nuclear Society webinar featured an extended one-on-one conversation between ANS CEO Craig Piercy and Marla Morales, the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and high-level waste disposition at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The two discussed the future of the fuel cycle in the United States, especially as it relates to the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses program launched by the DOE earlier this year.

This summer, two American Nuclear Society student members were supported by the Society in the Washington Internship for Students of Engineering (WISE) Program.

Those student members were Bradford Arnold and Blake Bird, each of whom had the opportunity to spend nine weeks in Washington, D.C., learning about the complex intersection between technology and policy.

The American Nuclear Society is hosting a Supplier Showcase webinar, “Advancing DVR for MUR: Lessons from First-of-a-Kind Projects,” tomorrow, August 18, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (CDT) on recent advancements in data validation and reconciliation (DVR). The conversation will also focus on how these advancements have reduced core thermal power measurement uncertainty and enabled measurement uncertainty recapture (MUR) uprates.

The webinar is free for all viewers and requires registration.

In February, a study published in Nature Communications found a correlation between proximity to nuclear power plants and rates of cancer mortality. While the authors acknowledged that causation could not be established, they nonetheless said that calculations supported evidence of 115,586 “cancer deaths attributable to nuclear power plants proximity.”

On its release, this study garnered significant media attention—sparking worry among the public and immediate pushback from radiation experts. ANS recently hosted a webinar taking a deeper look at what that study (and other similar proximity studies) got wrong, the science behind what we do and do not know, and why these conversations matter.

Global is a series of international conferences covering aspects of nuclear technology including the full nuclear fuel cycle and reactor systems. This year, Global 2026—which is sponsored by the American Nuclear Society’s Fuel Cycle & Waste Management Division—is taking place August 16–20 in Chicago, Ill.

The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) recently held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series. Former RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the meeting with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C and the need for new approaches to nuclear design that go beyond conventional and deterministic methods. He then welcomed this month’s speaker: Jon Facemire, senior project manager of new nuclear at the Nuclear Energy Institute, who presented “New Regulatory Frameworks: Part 53, Proposed Part 57, and Considerations for Licensing.”

The American Nuclear Society submitted comments earlier this month to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Financial Management, urging the OMB to reconsider a proposed rewrite of federal grant regulations that ANS said could restrict scientific publishing, conference participation, and long-term nuclear research.

The second annual Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX 2026)—which promises to bring together the full nuclear energy ecosystem to focus on real-world progress in the sector—will be held August 24–27 in Dallas, Texas.

Now is a good time to register for the 15th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 23rd American Nuclear Society Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (ICRS15-RPSD2026), which will be held October 25–29.

On July 9, the American Nuclear Society hosted the third installment of its “Nuclear in the States” webinar series. This time, the webinar looked to the current landscape of Utah’s nuclear sector—from its policy developments to ongoing projects to workforce needs.

ANS CEO Craig Piercy, who led the discussion, was joined by Chris Hayter, cofounder of Hi Tech Solutions and founder of Fulcrum Point Energy; Emy Lesofski, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s energy advisor and director of the Utah Office of Energy Development (OED); and Jeff Richardson, president of D&D and chief projects officer at EnergySolutions.

The American Nuclear Society recently opened a draft standard for public review.

ANS-8.22-202x, Nuclear Criticality Safety Based on Limiting and Controlling Moderators, is a revision of ANS-8.22-1997 and provides criteria for limiting and controlling moderators in operations with fissile materials.

The American Nuclear Society has just announced its fourth professional development course: Foundations of Nuclear Economics, a practical introduction to the financial principles that shape the long-term value of nuclear power.

The first offering of the course will be held on August 24 in Dallas, Texas, in conjunction with this year’s Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX 2026), the nuclear industry conference hosted jointly by ANS and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The American Nuclear Society has released the official study guide for the Certified Nuclear Professional (CNP) examination. The comprehensive 149-page document explains each major knowledge area covered by the CNP exam, and it is now available for purchase on the ANS website.

Last week at the American Nuclear Society’s Annual Conference in Denver, Colo., the ANS Board of Directors approved the creation of six new ANS student sections and one new local section. Including these new additions, the Society now boasts 37 local sections and 70 student sections, which together represent ANS members across every region of the United States.

Twice per year, the American Nuclear Society confers Presidential Citations on individuals who have demonstrated outstanding efforts benefiting ANS or the broader nuclear community.

Last week at the opening plenary of the 2026 ANS Annual Conference in Denver, Colo., immediate past president of ANS Hash Hashemian named this season’s recipients of the award.