ANS News

ANS President Steven P. Nesbit has submitted comments to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on behalf of the Society, regarding the commission’s proposed amendments to regulations on the decommissioning of production and utilization facilities. The NRC’s proposed regulatory changes address numerous areas, including emergency preparedness, physical security, cybersecurity, irradiated fuel management, decommissioning funding assurance, environmental considerations, low-level waste transportation, spent fuel management planning, and drug and alcohol testing.

ANS is set to host a virtual event titled “Turbulence Modeling and Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes,” the first in a new four-part lecture series on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) presented by the Society. The webinar runs from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (EDT) on Wednesday, May 25, and is open to ANS members only. Advance registration is required.

ANS will host its first fully in-person national meeting since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when the 2022 ANS Annual Meeting takes place in Anaheim, Calif., June 12-16.

In anticipation of the event, ANS is putting on a webinar titled ”Annual Meeting Preview: Getting back to what we do best.” This hourlong sneak peek is on May 24 at 2:00 p.m. (EDT) and is free and open to everyone. The program will feature organizers who have been planning the many technical sessions for ANS Annual as well as the three embedded topical meetings:

• Nuclear Criticality Safety Division Topical Meeting (NCSD 2022)
• Advances in Thermal Hydraulics (ATH 2022)
• Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE 2022)

Earlier this month, the ANS Board of Directors approved the creation of two new student sections—Reed College in Portland, Ore., and Boise State University in Boise, Idaho.

ANS’s student sections represent the next generation of nuclear—they are critical to the Society’s goal of aiding the next generation in their pursuit of advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies for the benefit of humankind. Student sections provide students with the knowledge, tools, and opportunities required to achieve success in or out of the nuclear field.

The deadline for applications to the ANS's Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship has been extended. All ANS members are invited to apply to help the Society fulfill its strategic goal of informing nuclear public policy.

All applications and supporting documents are now due by 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on Monday, May 23.

ANS has recently published a new standard:

ANSI/ANS-2.21-2022, Criteria for Assessing Atmospheric Effects on the Ultimate Heat Sink (revision of ANSI/ANS-2.21-2012 [R2016]).

The standard is available for purchase from the ANS Store.

Stout

Newly elected ANS board member Daniel Stout has been named chief nuclear officer of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation, based in Seattle, Wash. In the CNO position, Stout will oversee and support USNC’s nuclear operations, including licensing and regulatory compliance efforts, reactor and power plant manufacturing planning, and management of client support operations and fleet services. Previously, Stout was director of nuclear technology and innovation for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

A long résumé: Stout has worked in the nuclear energy sector for more than three decades in planning and budgeting, licensing, and developing reactors and associated infrastructure. At TVA, he managed the organization’s small modular reactor project, recently obtaining an early site permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the potential deployment of SMRs at TVA’s Clinch River site.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

Laurence J. Peter, author of The Peter Principle, said, “An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.” By that definition, I guess we are all economists now.

As I write this column, it’s still too early to know exactly how the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the world’s response to it, will shape the long-term economics of energy production, and specifically the economics of nuclear energy. But we can make a few logical guesses.

First, I think we will see a stronger security “overlay” to every energy policy decision we make in the next few years. Energy security is a potent motivator. France’s decision to go nuclear wasn’t a decarbonization play; it was a direct result of the Arab oil embargo of 1973, when most of its electricity was generated by oil-fired power plants.

Steven P. Nesbit
president@ans.org

I often say that nuclear energy will play a key role in our clean energy future, and I believe that is true. However, it won’t happen automatically. There is no “divine right” behind nuclear energy. We like to admire the fascinating aspects of nuclear technology, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the money, and that’s where we stubbed our toe badly over the past two decades.

The “Nuclear Renaissance” foundered when advanced light water reactors turned out to be much more expensive than their marketing claimed, while alternatives—primarily natural gas—plummeted in price. We tend to point to impediments to nuclear technology, such as overly restrictive licensing requirements and adverse public opinion, but these matter only to the extent of their impact on the bottom line. Again, it comes down to the money.

Petersen

The results of the 2022 ANS national election are in. The next vice president/president-elect will be Kenneth Petersen, recently retired from Constellation (formerly Exelon Generation). In addition, five new members were elected to the Board of Directors, and 12 proposed changes to the ANS bylaws and rules were approved.

Petersen will succeed current ANS vice president/president-elect Steven Arndt, who will assume the office of president following the upcoming ANS Annual Meeting. The current president, Steven Nesbit, will remain on the board for a one-year term as immediate past president.

“I am honored that the ANS members elected me as their next vice president/president-elect at this exciting time for nuclear technology," Petersen said. "The nuclear community is at a point where the full potential of nuclear technology can be realized. Nuclear is being recognized for its clean air and zero-carbon, baseload power attributes, while SMRs and advanced reactors are gearing up for deployment.”

The American Nuclear Society and the Health Physics Society are collaborating to combat misinformation on radiation and nuclear science.  As part of this effort, ANS’s Rapid Response Taskforce and HPS’s “Ask the Experts” have partnered to monitor the radiological and nuclear situation in war-besieged Ukraine and are available to answer media inquiries. 

ANS is hosting a webinar titled “Budgeting for the Future of Nuclear” on Wednesday, April 27, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. (EDT). Representatives from the Department of Energy will discuss the president’s fiscal year 2023 budget request.

Register Now. The webinar is for ANS members only.

The ANS Reactor Physics Division is hosting a webinar titled “A Reactor Physicist’s Explanation of Chernobyl” from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, April 26, the 36th anniversary of the accident at the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Register Now. The webinar is exclusively for ANS members.

Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2022) will be held May 8–12 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Register now. ANS members are encouraged to register for the conference and reserve their hotel rooms as soon as possible.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

This month’s issue of Nuclear News highlights the contributions of university-based programs in advancing nuclear science and technology and preparing the next-generation nuclear workforce.

In addition to the scholarly work they do, our university programs increasingly serve as an important public-facing component of the U.S. nuclear enterprise.

When you think about it, a lot of what goes on with nuclear happens within a security perimeter—“behind the fence,” if you will. Obviously, this is by necessity, as the technology involved is inherently sensitive. However, because the “magic” of nuclear remains out of view, something will always get lost in translation to the public. Yes, tours of commercial nuclear plants are still available to the interested and enterprising, but there is nothing quite like staring down into the core of a university TRIGA reactor and seeing the Cherenkov glow to stoke a person’s imagination.

The Naval Academy ANS student section, with support from the Washington, D.C., local section, held its semiannual dinner on March 29 in Annapolis, Md. The event was attended by more than 100 people, including midshipmen, professors from the U.S. Naval Academy, local ANS members, and ANS President Steve Nesbit.

The evening’s program was hosted by the student chapter president, Midshipman First Class Sara Perkins, and was headlined by the director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, Rear Admiral (retired) Samuel Cox.

The Department of Energy’s new consent-based process for siting an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel faces many challenges, but it could be successful if correctly implemented by the department, according to the panelists of the American Nuclear Society’s webinar “Spent Nuclear Fuel Management: Wasting Away or Chance for Progress?” ANS President Steve Nesbit moderated the webinar, held on March 23.

The next opportunity to earn professional engineer (P.E.) licensure in nuclear engineering is this fall. Now is the time to sign up and begin studying with the help of materials like the online module program offered by the American Nuclear Society.

According to Joshua Vajda, chair of the ANS Professional Engineering Examination Committee (PEEC), it is important for ANS as a technical society to continue to encourage professional licensure. “Emphasizing the importance of obtaining nuclear credentials is a Society initiative to maintain high ethical standards in the industry and to provide career advancement for the next generation of young practicing nuclear engineers,” Vajda said.

The ANS Education, Training and Workforce Development Division hosted a webinar titled “Securing a Strong Workforce for the Next Generation of Reactors” on March 16. The webinar covered actions being taken to prepare the future nuclear workforce for the construction and operation of next-generation reactors in the late 2020s and early 2030s.