ANS News

Kandasamy

Jhansi R. Kandasamy, vice president of engineering at GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), will be the featured guest at the next edition of the ANS Young Members Group’s Rad Talks series.

Register now for the event on Tuesday, May 18, 6:30–8 p.m. EDT. Please note that participation is limited to allow for an interactive discussion.

Details: Kandasamy joined GEH in September 2015 as vice president of engineering, having overall responsibility for operating nuclear plant technical support, modifications, and design, and for small modular reactor design and development. Over the past 30 years, she has held positions in virtually all disciplines of the nuclear power industry. She has worked at the Limerick, Palo Verde, Oyster Creek, Salem, and Hope Creek nuclear power plants. Prior to joining GEH, she worked for Bechtel, Philadelphia Electric Company, Exelon, and PSEG.

In partnership with Discovery Education, ANS launched its third virtual field trip on May 6. “Nuclear Frontiers: Powering Possibility” takes students on a journey to learn how Earth-based nuclear science and technology are paving the way in space exploration. It is available on-demand on the Navigating Nuclear website.

The ANS Young Members Group will focus on Sandia National Laboratories for the latest installment of its webinar series, Spotlight on National Labs, on May 11 at 10:30 a.m. CT.

Register now for the free event.

ANS’s latest webinar on April 22—Earth Day—posed that question to a panel of five young leaders in the nuclear community representing a broad spectrum of environmental, social, and advocacy perspectives. The event was moderated by ANS’s Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy, who introduced each of the five panelists and the issues they are concerned about. The panelists’ presentations were followed by an engaging Q&A portion with the audience.

The program is available for viewing online.

Listed below are the ANS professional divisions’ 2021–2022 officers and newly elected Executive Committee members. All terms begin during the 2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting in June. (Executive Committee members whose three-year terms are continuing are not included.)

More information about ANS’s 19 professional divisions and two working groups is available online.

Arndt

Wharton

The results are in. Steven Arndt, ANS Fellow and member since 1981, has been elected the next ANS vice president/president-elect, and W.A. “Art” Wharton III, ANS member since 2004, was elected for a second two-year term as treasurer.

Four candidates were elected to serve three-year terms as at-large members of the Board of Directors.

To fulfill the strategic goal of enhancing nuclear public policy, the American Nuclear Society invites its members to apply for the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship. Applications and supporting documents for the 2022 fellowship are due to ANS no later than 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Sunday, May 2. The one-year fellowship term begins on January 1, 2022.

Dickman

Paul Dickman, former senior official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who served as the study director for the ANS Special Committee on the Fukushima Daiichi accident, discussed Japan’s plans to dispose of Fukushima wastewater during an appearance on CNBC’s Street Signs Asia with hosts Amanda Drury and Tanvir Gill on April 16.

Appearing on the show as an ANS spokesman, Dickman assured the hosts that there will be no negative environmental impact from releasing the advanced liquid waste processing system (ALPS)-treated water into the Pacific Ocean. “The Japanese government has done an extraordinary effort to mitigate any harm that would be from the release of this water,” Dickman said. “Frankly, they’ve diluted it to such an extent that it would hardly be detectable above background (radiation).”

Starkey

ANS government relations director John Starkey was a recent guest on the podcast The New Republican. Starkey discussed a range of topics with podcast host Lincoln Wallis in the 30-minute episode, “All Things Nuclear.”

“In 2020, nuclear energy became the second-largest source of electricity in the United States,” Starkey said in response to Wallis’s first question, adding, “That would entail nearly 20 percent of electric generation in the U.S. Nuclear energy has also operated at 90 percent capacity rate for the past 20 years or so. No other source of electricity can touch those [capacity] numbers.… I really see [nuclear energy] being a leader in decarbonization in the country and the world.”

The future of nuclear technology is bright and affords ample opportunities for today’s students to make an impact. That was the message given by the three plenary panelists on Saturday, April 10, during the final day of the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference. The three-day event was hosted by North Carolina State University and had nearly 500 registered attendees.

Registered attendees can view the entire session on demand.

The second day of the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, on April 9, hosted by North Carolina State University opened with the plenary, “Student Opportunities within the Nuclear Community.” The session featured three panelists, each representing a different sector of the nuclear community.

North Carolina State University was finally able to host the ANS Student Conference, April 8 to 10. After the 2020 event was canceled due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 version is being held virtually for the first time.

The conference's opening session is available for registered attendees to view online.

Craig Piercy

Madam Secretary:

Congratulations on becoming America’s 16th secretary of energy! Welcome to one of the most misunderstood, confounding, yet important and underappreciated agencies in the federal government.

Even the name—the U.S. Department of Energy—is misleading. Given that the majority of its funding and operational focus is dedicated in some form or another to the splitting and fusing of atoms, the DOE should probably be called the Department of Nuclear Technology and Other Energy and Science Stuff.

Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar

Happy spring to you, my nuclear comrades. As I write this column (in early March), I’m glancing out the window at the 10 inches of snow still remaining in my backyard. By the time you read this, the snow may be gone, and spring flowers may be poking out of the earth. Every year, I look forward to gardening season, which is short but fun in Idaho.

Over the past year, unfortunately, many of the things we looked forward to didn’t happen. Hardest hit, of course, were the people who fell ill with COVID-­19 and those who lost jobs. But in the “disappointed” category, our students were especially vulnerable. Elementary school students, who most need face-­to-­face contact with their teachers, were isolated at home. Adolescents and teens had no dances, football games, or lunchtimes with their friends. High school and college seniors couldn’t celebrate graduation. University freshmen, who already cope with significant change and stress, added to their agendas the threat of a global pandemic and the complication of distance learning.

Five former assistant secretaries of energy for the Office of Nuclear Energy—a position given the designation “NE-1”—gathered for a virtual panel discussion hosted by the American Nuclear Society on March 26. Rita Baranwal, John Kotek, Peter Lyons, William D. Magwood, and Warren “Pete” Miller each participated in the free event that was moderated by Benjamin Reinke, the former executive director in the secretary of energy’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy.

The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.

The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.

To fulfill the strategic goal of enhancing nuclear public policy, the American Nuclear Society invites its members to apply for the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship. Applications and supporting documents for the 2022 fellowship are due to ANS no later than 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on Sunday, May 2. The one-year term begins on January 1, 2022.

The ANS Young Members Group will feature Brookhaven National Laboratory in the ninth installment of its popular webinar series, Spotlight on National Labs. Register now to participate in the webinar today at 1 p.m. (EST).

BNL, a multidisciplinary lab located in Upton, N.Y., which is home to seven Nobel Prize–winning discoveries, is one of 10 national labs primarily supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Learn how BNL delivers discovery science and transformative technology to power and secure the nation’s future.

The American Nuclear Society has a strong presence at the virtual Waste Management Symposia 2021 (WM2021), March 8-12, 2021. It is the first time the event is being held virtually, a decision made by the organizers with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in mind.

ANS’s involvement: ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy is among the presenters of awards, including those for the best oral and poster presentations/papers from last year’s event. ANS President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar is a featured speaker in a STEM panel. She will discuss ANS’s Navigating Nuclear program during the “Setting the Hook: Partnering to Reel in STEM Students Early” panel on Thursday. The presentation is one of three panels dedicated to STEM initiatives for younger students.

Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar

During my time as vice president and president of ANS, I have been advocating for a new approach to implementing dose limits across the nuclear industry. A lack of understanding and an unfounded fear of radiation has resulted in widespread efforts to minimize dose, rather than to optimize radiation protection in a holistic sense. I want to put the “reasonably” back into ALARA (“as low as reasonably achievable”). Such a paradigm shift, from minimization to optimization, while easily said, equates to a major cultural change spanning international government agencies, industry, nongovernmental organizations, professional societies, and even academia. It is essential to have the active participation of all stakeholders in a transparent process to effect such a change. This process will not only lead us toward a more level playing field for nuclear, it will also greatly impact public perception of nuclear and radiological technology.