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2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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The transformation of the NRC: 50 years of commissioners
The dust is beginning to settle following the whirlwind of changes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the past year, and 2025 ultimately may be viewed as a transformative year, as well as the year the NRC celebrated its golden anniversary. The 12 months of that milestone year brought more change to the agency in its composition, its mandate, and its relationship to the executive branch than any comparable period in the preceding four decades.
Now at 51 years and counting, the NRC is working with a full commission and issuing new rulemakings to both regulate and support the next round of nuclear deployments. With the turbulence of 2025 still fresh in our minds, Nuclear News decided it was a good time to revisit the professional backgrounds of all 42 NRC commissioners who have served over the agency’s 50-year history to see how the composition of the commission has evolved over time.
D. Wootan, R. Omberg, A. Casella, N. Lahaye, B. Mcdowell (PNNL), W. Stokes (Columbia Basin Consulting Group)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 36-44
The accident scenarios that need to be analyzed within Chapter 15 of a safety analysis report may vary significantly between advanced reactors and the light water reactors that compose the current commercial fleet. In anticipation of identifying scenarios of concern and developing methods for their analysis, correlations may be made to calculations and tests performed in support of the liquid metal and molten salt reactors that have been operated previously within the US. In this paper, we discuss efforts made to compare Chapter 15 considerations for a proposed lead-bismuth cooled reactor to those developed previously for the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) and the GE-Hitachi PRISM reactor. Comparisons were also made with Beyond Design Basis Accidents for FFTF.