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The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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Utility Working Conference Virtual Summit (UWC)
August 11, 2020
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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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Penfield and Enos: Outage planning in the COVID-19 era
Penfield
Enos
Energy Harbor’s Beaver Valley plant, located about 34 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, Pa., was one of many nuclear sites preparing for a scheduled outage as the coronavirus pandemic intensified in March. The baseline objective of any planned outage—to complete refueling on time and get back to producing power—was complicated by the need to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.
While over 200 of the plant’s 850 staff members worked from home to support the outage, about 800 contractors were brought in for jobs that could only be done on-site. Nuclear News Staff Writer Susan Gallier talked with Beaver Valley Site Vice President Rod Penfield and General Plant Manager Matt Enos about the planning and communication required.
Beaver Valley can look forward to several more outages in the future, now that plans to shut down the two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors, each rated at about 960 MWe, were reversed in March. “The deactivation announcement happened in the middle of all our planning,” Enos said. “It’s a shame we haven’t had a chance to get together as a large group and celebrate that yet.”
While the focus remains on safe pandemic operations, the site now has two causes for celebration: an outage success and a long future ahead.
S.N. Thomson, R. Carson, A. Ratnayake, C. Muirhead, H. Li, I. Castillo, H. Boniface, S. Suppiah, J. Robinson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 2 | March 2015 | Pages 443-446
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T50
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
AECL is currently exposing various commercial Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) materials to both gamma (Cobalt-60 source) and beta (tritiated water) radiation to study the effects of radiation on these materials. This paper summarizes the testing methods and results that have been collected to date. The PEMs being studied range in thickness and production method. These studies provide a baseline for AECL to determine if a correspondence between gamma and beta radiation effects exists and to produce improved radiation resistant membranes.
