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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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NRC commissioners talk reforms, roles at Day 1 of RIC 2026
Even a last-minute cancelation from Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright could not derail the optimism permeating day 1 of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual Regulatory Information Conference (RIC).
The optimistic theme came up several times during the morning plenary sessions that highlighted Tuesday’s agenda. The NRC commissioners who spoke said the optimism was a result of the “nuclear renaissance” they are encountering that feels different from past nuclear-related revivals that didn’t materialize.
Steven Krahn, Timothy Ault, Bethany Burkhardt (Vanderbilt Univ), Andrew Sowder (EPRI)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 217-223
Subject matter expertise has been applied to support a preliminary roadmapping exercise for the near-term implementation of thorium fuel cycles. Background presentations and a panel-facilitated discussion were used as mechanisms to identify and document key implementation challenges in the areas of resources, fuels, reactors, reprocessing/recycle, and safeguards. Participants identified the challenges which they believed should receive the greatest priority in terms of deploying thorium commercially. Reactor-related challenges were deemed to be the most important, followed by those related to reprocessing/recycle and fuels. Individual challenges that were deemed to merit a particularly high priority included fuel qualification, reactor code development and assessment, remote fuel fabrication, and reprocessing flowsheet optimization. These priorities build on those documented in other assessments.