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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.
Wei Tang, Jian Chen, Brian Gibson, Roger Miller, Scarlett Clark, Mark Vance, Zhili Feng, Keith Leonard (ORNL), Jonathan Tatman, Benjamin Sutton, Gregory Frederick (EPRI)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 67-75
Welding is widely used for repair, maintenance, and upgrade of nuclear reactor components. As a critical technology for supporting the extension of nuclear power plant service lifetimes beyond 60 years, there has been an industry need in further developing welding technology for highly irradiated materials. During welding of irradiated materials, Helium, which is a transmutation byproduct from Boron and Nickel contained in the structural alloys, can coalesce into bubbles along grain boundaries in the material under driving forces of high temperature and thermal tensile stress. This leads to embrittlement and potential intergranular cracking in the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) of the weld. In this paper, irradiated 304 stainless steel coupons containing 5, 10 and 20 ppm Boron prior to radiation were successfully welded by advanced laser beam welding (LBW) and friction stir welding (FSW). Facilities and welding machine design, welding processes development, cold material welded joints evaluation, process safety control and documentation, and irradiated material welding are discussed. Both laser and friction stir welded coupons of the irradiated material exhibited high welding quality and surface finish. No Helium induced welding defects were observed on the weld surfaces or adjacent base metals.