ANS News

For more than 50 years, the ANS Honors and Awards Program has recognized outstanding achievements and meritorious service in the various fields served by our Society.

The recipients of the national awards listed below will be honored on November 30 during the opening plenary of the ANS Winter Meeting. Honorees will be notified of their selection by October.

All members are encouraged to review the nomination requirements for these awards and consider nominating a qualified colleague. Many ANS awards are open to non-ANS members, and nominating colleagues who are not members is one way to foster new ANS relationships.

Craig Piercy

Historically, we have used the May issue of Nuclear News to analyze capacity factor data for U.S. nuclear plants. Once again, the topline story is the continuation of a 20-year period of outstanding operational performance. In 2020, the U.S. nuclear fleet generated about 789.9 TWh of electricity, surpassing coal to become the second-largest source of electricity in the nation. Overall, the fleet recorded a median three-year capacity factor of 91.33, besting the three-year median of 91.20 published just last year. With some of our most venerable plants among the top performers, it’s no wonder that several utilities are investing now to ensure their plants can generate clean energy into their eighth decade or beyond.

Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar

I recently participated in a webinar focused on the impact of premature shutdown of nuclear power plants, specifically, the announced closure of the Byron and Dresden NPPs in Illinois. The impacts will permeate at local, national, and international levels. In their communities, the Byron and Dresden NPPs are embraced as good neighbors, providing quality jobs and a strong tax base while efficiently feeding competitively priced power to the grid. Yet, with the significant subsidies and portfolio standards that benefit renewables, it’s still difficult for nuclear plants to compete.

ANS celebrated the launch of the newest Navigating Nuclear virtual field trip, “Nuclear Frontiers: Powering Possibility,” with a special watch party held on May 19. The video, which was viewed more than 70,000 times in the first week alone, explores the amazing ways that nuclear science is fueling earthly innovation and deep space exploration.

Join ANS on May 21 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (EDT) for a webinar that provides a deep dive into the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam. Register now for the webinar.

Help ANS celebrate the launch of our newest virtual field trip, “Nuclear Frontiers: Powering Possibility,” by attending tomorrow's online watch party!

The virtual field trip explores the amazing ways that nuclear science is fueling earthly innovation and deep space exploration. The field trip video, which was made available earlier this month, is part of ANS’s Navigating Nuclear: Energizing Our World program The Navigating Nuclear program, which was started in August 2018, has already reached more than 1.5 million K-12 students.

Register now for the watch party for the virtual field trip, to be held tomorrow, May 19, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (EDT).

Help ANS celebrate the launch of our newest virtual field trip, “Nuclear Frontiers: Powering Possibility,” which explores the amazing ways that nuclear science is fueling earthly innovation and deep space exploration. The video is part of the Society’s Navigating Nuclear: Energizing Our World program, which has reached more than 1.5 million K-12 students.

Register now for this special event, to be held on Wednesday, May 19, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (EDT).

The American Nuclear Society has named the recipients of six awards that will be presented during the 2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting, which begins on June 14. The Society has also named eight new Fellows, who will be honored during the opening plenary session.

Part 2 of the ANS Board of Directors board-onboarding sessions is scheduled for Friday, May 21 from 12:00 to 2:00 pm EDT. The first hour will be a continuation of the diversity, equity, and inclusion training.

For the latest installment of its webinar series—Spotlight on National Labs—the ANS Young Members Group focused on Sandia National Laboratories. The webinar, which took place on May 11, is available to view on demand.

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.