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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
Standards Program
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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July 2025
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Latest News
Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Ben Frisk, Christopher Hope (NuScale Power)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 290-295
The purpose of this paper is to describe gaps found in programmatic verification activities for safety-critical systems based on field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology; specifically, by comparing the more mature methods used by other regulated industries that commonly use FPGAs and those mandated in the traditional software-based framework of the legacy commercial nuclear power generating industry. This paper also describes the strategies used by NuScale Power, LLC (NuScale) to fill the identified gaps, while maintaining its conformance to IEEE 1012-2004. In addition, the purpose of this paper is to inform and encourage consideration of why the 2004 version of IEEE 1012 is outdated for its application to the commercial nuclear power industry, especially as adoption of non-microprocessor based digital technology becomes widespread. Currently, the regulatory process for ensuring quality and safety for digital plant protection systems specifies independent verification and validation (IV&V) as outlined in IEEE 1012-2004 and endorsed by Regulatory Guide 1.168, Revision 2. Simply put, the reason to move away from the 2004 version and adoption of the 2016 version is due to the holistic systems-based life cycle that is inclusive of hardware, software, and their interfaces, which is now specified in the new version of IEEE 1012 (version 2016). The systems-based strategy is a key factor needed to ensure functional safety and quality throughout the verification and validation process. This is especially true for FPGA-based systems, as there is a tendency to think this technology should be treated only as hardware. This paper will identify critical differences between the versions of IEEE 1012 and explain why the NuScale IV&V program is looking outside of the commercial nuclear industry for methods better suited to FPGA-based I&C systems. In closing, this paper is intended to describe portions of the NuScale IV&V program that meets the requirements specified in IEEE 1012-2004, but also combines innovation with lessons learned from nonnuclear industries used to develop FPGA-based safety I&C systems.
