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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
Empowering the next generation: ANS’s newest book focuses on careers in nuclear energy
A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.
When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.
R. Paul Drake
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 3 | Number 3 | May 1983 | Pages 405-415
Technical Paper | First-wall Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A20864
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Data from the Tandem Mirror Experiment (TMX) and other recent research show how to control plasma/wall interactions in tandem mirrors (TMs). Based on current knowledge, plasma/wall interactions will not limit the performance of TM reactors—either at the end walls or the radial walls. Magnetic field expansion and gas pumping can be used to regulate the plasma conditions at the end wall. Specifically, in TMX the plasma density at the end wall was found to be ≈2 × 109 em −3, whereas the end-plug density was ≈2 × 1013 cm−3; also, the sheath potential at the wall (8 V) was <10% of the end-plug electron temperature. The "natural divertor" effect-by which positively charged plasmas in magnetic mirror machines exhaust particles and energy to the end wall—can be used to both control the plasma conditions at the radial walls and divert impurities to the end wall. These techniques, the data that support them, and needed areas of further research are discussed.
