Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visited Idaho National Laboratory on August 3 to meet with INL staff, including director John Wagner, as she toured key research facilities on INL’s 890-square-mile site and the lab’s campus in Idaho Falls.

Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA), the management and operating contractor for Idaho National Laboratory, has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding with the State of Wyoming to collaborate on the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of advanced energy technologies and approaches, with a special focus on advanced nuclear.

Kandasamy

Daunting tasks are nothing new for Jhansi Kandasamy. Her record of accomplishments over three decades suggests that she is often the first to succeed where others fall short. “I like to be the first,” she said with a laugh.

Her latest first? Kandasamy was recently named Idaho National Laboratory’s net-zero director. She is charged with achieving net-zero carbon emissions for INL within the next 10 years and her plan is to be 75 percent toward that goal within the next five years.

John Wagner, INL director, announced the Net-Zero initiative on Earth Day 2021, and he acknowledged it won’t be easy. “I understand this is an audacious goal,” he said, “but overcoming significant national challenges is exactly what national laboratories were established to do.”

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.

Wagner

John C. Wagner, ANS Fellow and member since 1991, has been named as the next director of Idaho National Laboratory, Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) announced on Thursday. BEA manages and operates the laboratory for the Department of Energy.

Wagner will begin his new role on Dec. 11. He has been at INL since 2016 and has been an associate laboratory director for Nuclear Science and Technology since 2017.