The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently joined in the nationwide celebration of the Department of Labor’s 10th annual National Apprenticeship Week, spotlighting the progress and diversity of its apprenticeship program that spans 27 occupations.

Click here to watch a video highlighting the SRS Apprenticeship Program.

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced last week that unfueled test rods featuring the company’s SiGA fuel cladding—made of a silicon carbide composite material—successfully survived 120 days of irradiation in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory.

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

Several questions loom after federal and state elections: What does the future hold for nuclear science and technology? Will there be a shift in direction? How do we continue and expand our impact on energy and nonenergy initiatives? The American Nuclear Society is an organization of people, policies, and products. We innovate, educate, and facilitate collaboration. We advance the field, serving our members and engaging with communities. With every travel assignment, I have witnessed the collective passion and action of our members toward fuller participation and societal enhancement based on nuclear technology. The work is not done, but there is forward momentum.

We have never been a field that does not answer the call, and at this year’s Winter Conference and Expo, we explored the very apt theme “Now comes the hard part.”

Among the plenaries and technical sessions were panels about engaging and educating the next generation of nuclear professionals, the growth of nuclear engineering departments in higher education, a student design competition, and—as one might expect in November during an election year—keeping nuclear out of the political fray.

Tokamak Energy’s ST40 experimental fusion facility will receive a $52 million upgrade under a joint public-private effort with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.K. Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) aimed at advancing the fusion science and technology needed to deliver a future pilot plant.

David Wright

There is a modern-day parable that NRC commissioner David Wright likes to reflect on from time to time, the story of a janitor on a mission. On a visit to NASA in the 1960s, or so the story goes, amid all the action and excitement and VIPs, President Kennedy stopped a janitor who was pushing his broom down the hallway. Kennedy asked the man what he was doing and he said, “Well, I’m putting a man on the moon.”

Wright believes people—all the people—are how jobs get done. And the people of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have a very big job ahead of them. Whether it is meeting the requirements of the ADVANCE Act, bringing 10 CFR Part 53 closer to the finish line, or working with its counterparts in other countries toward climate goals and international agreements, the NRC is moving mountains, one sweep of the broom at a time.

Welcome to the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40! A year in the making, this list was a difficult undertaking for the NN staff, there being so many qualified and enthusiastic candidates to review. The task was further complicated by the great diversity of roles that exist within the nuclear community—from academia to labs and from utilities to government positions. Whatever their specific niche, those selected represent the exceptional talent, vision, and drive that is transforming the nuclear sector across the community. These 40 young professionals have shown remarkable commitment, innovation, and leadership in advancing nuclear science and technology, paving the way for a future in which nuclear power and applications will continue to play a vital role in addressing global challenges.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking for public feedback on the environmental report for a subsequent license renewal (SLR) request from Dominion Energy, the owners of V.C. Summer nuclear power plant in South Carolina.

Serbia’s National Assembly has approved legislation that overturns the nation’s decades-old moratorium on nuclear power plants as the nation looks to reduce pollution.

Minister of mining and energy Dubravka Đedović Handanović posted on social media after the November 27 vote, “History has been written today. Many will inherit what has been done today!”

TitletownTech, a venture capital firm formed out of a partnership between Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers, has invested in Realta Fusion, a private fusion startup company that was spun out of an ARPA-E-funded fusion project at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2022. Realta is developing modular, compact, magnetic mirror fusion energy generators as an economic, zero-carbon solution to power AI-driven infrastructure and other industrial applications. TitletownTech did not disclose the details of its investment.

Jeffrey King

In August, the College of Engineering at Tennessee Technological University welcomed ANS member Jeffrey C. King as the founding director of its new nuclear engineering program. King, a leading force within the American Nuclear Society and a space enthusiast, is tasked with developing a new Department of Nuclear Engineering at Tennessee Tech after a more than 20-year absence of such a program at the university.

King comes to Tennessee Tech from the Colorado School of Mines, where he had been a professor of metallurgical and materials engineering for 15 years, leading the development of the nuclear science and engineering program and serving as director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Research Center.