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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Latest News
DOE-NE’s newest fuel consortium includes defense from antitrust laws
The Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy is setting up a nuclear fuel Defense Production Act Consortium that will seek voluntary agreements with interested companies “to increase fuel availability, provide more access to reliable power, and end America’s reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium and critical materials needed to power the nation’s nuclear renaissance.” According to an August 22 DOE press release, the plan invokes the Defense Production Act (DPA) to give consortium members “defense from antitrust laws when certain criteria are met” and “allow industry consultation to develop plans of action.” DOE-NE is looking for interested companies to join the consortium ahead of its first meeting, scheduled for October 14.
Nathan Lau, Hao Wang (Virginia Tech), Shawn St. Germain, Andrea S. Harvey (INL), Matthew B. Weinger, Shilo Anders (Vanderbilt Univ Medical Center)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 664-673
Nuclear power plant (NPP) outage represents a major operational cost that must be minimized to sustain competitiveness in the US energy market. However, outage management can be challenging because myriad of interdependent activities may need adjustment over the course of the outage. We conducted a site vist to the Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory and a literature review to identify general directions for innovations in interactive visualization for outage management. First, new approaches are needed to represent task and scheduling uncertainty to better support estimates of effort and cost overruns as tasks change during outages. This would allow staff to project the likelihood of overruns and reallocate resources as appropriate. Second, outage support software should facilitate visualization of resource constraints whether hard (e.g., regulatory requirements) or ‘soft’ (i.e., those with cost, morale, or other consequences). When responding to emergent issues or unplanned work, the outage staff must be aware of all potential alternatives (e.g., overtime, additional staff, deferrable tasks) and the short- and longer-term implications of each choice. Third, there is currently limited understanding of how best to support outage staff’s ability to simulate the impact of potential schedule adjustments in response to new or reallocated work. Graphical “what if” scenario depictions should be an important component of future visualization capabilities. To realize the potential of AOCC, interactive visualization for outage management must better support situation awareness, decision-making and planning.