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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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.
G. W. Shuy, D. Dobrott
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 252-257
Alternate Fuels | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22877
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual tandem-mirror reactor (TMR) configuration consists of a solenoidal central-cell with its ends plugged by a combination of electrostatic and magnetic fields. The magnetic fields in the end plug also provide MHD stability. The electrostatic plugs for ions and electrons are created by combining hot electron plasmas and neutral beams for fueling and pumping. A large negative potential may be formed in the end plug to contain central cell electrons, but the central cell floating potential ϕf is driven negative as charge neutrality is maintained. Cat-d TMR plasma performance is assessed with respect to standard (positive), neutral and negative central cell potential operating modes. It is determined that the plasma. Q for a 2000 MW fusion power reactor is peaked for central cell potential ϕf near zero. This is because on one hand, the ion-loss cone is bigger for positive ϕf and the ion plug electrons must overcome larger ϕf + ϕc and hence more ECH is required to build the ion plug, and, on the other hand, the electron loss-cone is bigger for negative ϕf and synchrotron losses are severe. A zero-dimensional plasma physics model for the density and power balance of a Cat-d TMR has been developed from an existing code that models a d-t TMR operating with a positive central cell potential. The new Cat-d code models all potential operating modes and has been benchmarked.