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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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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.
George H. Miley
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 368-394
Technical Paper | Special Section Content / Compact Fusion Concept | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22831
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
If technically feasible, small, low capital cost pilot plants would accelerate fusion development. The ultimate economic issue associated with this approach is whether or not these plants can then be developed into commercial power plants without a significant increase in size, i.e., power level. It is concluded that, to be competitive, small [ 500-MW(electric)] fusion plants would require new techniques (for the power industry) such as modular construction with factorycentered mass production of modules and minimum on-site construction. Otherwise, the economy-of-scale favors as large a power level as possible within limits imposed by constraints associated with institutional structures, siting restrictions, and electrical grid sizes—all of which could undergo radical changes by the time fusion is introduced.