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Conference Spotlight
2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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Reality of the road ahead
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
As 2025 winds down, it seems nuclear energy in the U.S. is now well on its way toward a renaissance, or resurgence, or whatever optimistic term you may use in your daily conversations.
New reactor designs, projects, and partnerships are being announced on a near-weekly basis; valuations of publicly traded nuclear companies are hovering near all-time highs; and AI’s thirst for reliable, clean electricity remains largely unquenched. The overall investment climate for nuclear energy has thawed dramatically. These days, it seems everyone from big Wall Street banks to individual investors is trying to get a piece of the nuclear action.
It’s the perfect time to talk about failure.
Yes, I know “nuclear failure” is not a topic on which we in the nuclear community like to dwell. For those of a certain age, it brings back bad memories of events beyond our control that shifted the trajectory of companies, careers, and lives for decades.
January 27, 2021|12:00–1:30PM (1:00–2:30PM EST)
ANS Members Only
ANS Members, please log in to watch this webinar.
Learn about the long-range plan DOE Fusion Energy Sciences has created to accelerate the development of fusion energy and advance plasma science. This plan is based on substantial input from the research community, which conveyed a wealth of creative ideas and its passion to accelerate fusion energy development and advance plasma science over an intensive two-year process. The FESAC Long Range Planning Report provides a decade-long vision for the field of fusion energy and plasma science, presenting a path to a promising future of new scientific discoveries, industrial applications, and ultimately the delivery of fusion energy.
Presenter: Troy Carter
Troy Carter, Professor of Physics at UCLA
Troy is a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is the Director of the Basic Plasma Science Facility (BaPSF), a collaborative research facility for plasma science supported by DOE and NSF. He is also the Director of the Plasma Science at Technology Institute (PSTI) at UCLA. His research focuses on experimental studies of fundamental processes in magnetized plasmas and is motivated by current issues in magnetic confinement fusion energy research and in space and astrophysical plasmas including magnetic reconnection, turbulence and transport in magnetized plasmas, and the nonlinear physics of Alfvén waves.
He was a co-recipient of the 2002 APS DPP Excellence in Plasma Physics Research Award and is a Fellow of the APS. Prof. Carter received BS degrees in Physics and Nuclear Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1995 and a PhD in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University in 2001.
The webinar is moderated by Lauren Garrison, Weinberg Fellow, Nuclear Structural Materials Group, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and ANS Fusion Energy Division Vice Chair.
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