Hash Hashemian
president@ans.org

I am deeply honored and grateful to have been elected president of the American Nuclear Society. Your support and confidence in me are truly humbling, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you.

As president, my top priority is to expedite the deployment of new nuclear reactors, beginning with small modular reactors and eventually progressing to Generation IV systems. I will also work to ensure that the United States keeps its global leadership in this field. For the U.S. to do that, the federal government must maintain and expand its financial support of the nuclear industry by preserving critical incentives, tax provisions, and infrastructure investments.

SNC-Lavalin and Moltex Energy are partnering to advance the development and deployment of small modular reactor technology in Canada, the companies announced last week at the Canadian Nuclear Association’s 2022 conference in Ottawa, Ontario. The partnership will support Moltex as it pursues the licensing and construction of its 300-MW Stable Salt Reactor–Wasteburner (SSR-W), a molten salt reactor that uses nuclear waste as fuel.

A report published last week by Energy Systems Catapult, a U.K.-based clean energy nonprofit, concludes that adding double-digit gigawatts of new nuclear is a “low-regrets option” for the United Kingdom as it strives to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. (Legislation establishing the 2050 target date was signed in June of last year, making the United Kingdom the first of the world’s major economic powers to take that step.) The report also stresses, however, that costs for new nuclear must decrease significantly for the technology to meet its potential.