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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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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.
Marius Zamfirache, Liviu Stefan, Anisia Bornea, Ioan Stefanescu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 3 | April 2015 | Pages 677-680
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T108
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
ICSI Rm. Valcea has developed an experimental pilot-scale installation for tritium and deuterium separation. The main objective of this pilot was to demonstrate the water detritiation technology and further to transfer this technology to CANDU nuclear power plant from CNE Cernavoda, in whose development program there is the achieving of a Tritium Removal Facility (since 2004).
The installation design was initiated in 1992, and in 1997 its construction was completed. Design and construction of this installation was performed similarly with chemical plants, specifically for hydrogen. Separation of isotopes was addressed in the first phase only regarding hydrogen and deuterium. In the next stage we started to transform it in a nuclear plant for processing tritium. Moving to tritium separation imposed the technological change of cryogenic distillation module aiming the tritium extraction at high concentrations.
Changes have been made with great efforts and consisted mainly of: redesign of the technological systems for nuclear material processing, applying specific codes and standards (ASME, Romanian nuclear specific pressure boundary prescriptions for code classification); design and implementation of new systems, classified as safety systems; redesign and implementation of command and control systems, complying with the requirements of reliability and maintenance required for the project promoted; revaluation of auxiliary systems (utilities, power supply, including UPS); introducing radiation protection systems, including secondary barriers; implementing and maintaining environment operational program specific to the new nuclear plant; developing and conducting safety analyzes; development of specific documentation to obtain the necessary permits for construction, commissioning and operation of the plant.
This paper presents the implications of moving from a chemical plant towards a nuclear installation applying codes and standards specifically to nuclear field. It is a lesson for those who approaches their research in this regard.
