ANS Annual Conference: Workforce issues highlighted

June 24, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The workforce development panel, from left, moderator Amanda Bachmann of Argonne, Lori Brady of NEI, Joseph Stainback of Roane State, Ilana Bowen of Constellation, and Nicole Hughes of Thor Thomas. (Source: ANS)

Industry leaders met this week to discuss the importance of shoring up nontraditional workforce pipelines to support growth in nuclear energy generation in the coming decades.

An executive panel discussed this issue last week at the American Nuclear Society’s 2024 Annual Conference in Las Vegas The industry is working to target community colleges, trade schools, vocational programs, nontraditional students, and a wider variety of educational backgrounds.

Annual Conference 2024: Know before you go

June 14, 2024, 6:52AMANS News

The American Nuclear Society’s 2024 Annual Conference starts this Sunday, June 16. We are looking forward to welcoming more than 1,000 members of the nuclear community in Las Vegas. This meeting is set to be one to remember, with a spectacular group of speakers lined up for our plenary sessions, executive sessions, technical tracks, and two embedded topicals—Advanced Reactor Safety and the International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants.

Venue, date changed for ANS’s Annual Conference

February 26, 2024, 3:00PMANS News

The American Nuclear Society’s 2024 Annual Conference is moving the venue in part to accommodate a higher-than-expected number of submissions for the Annual Conference and embedded topical meetings—the most received for an annual meeting in over a decade! The conference venue was changed to Mandalay Bay at the beginning of the Las Vegas strip. However, the change in accommodation comes with a change in dates: The meeting has been moved one week later than originally scheduled, to June 16–19.

Meet the 2024 candidates for ANS vice president/president-elect and the Board of Directors

November 3, 2023, 1:55PMNuclear News

Candidates have been nominated for the 2024 American Nuclear Society national election. Terms will begin in June 2024, following the Annual Meeting. The six national positions open are vice president/president-elect and five seats on the Board of Directors—four U.S. members at-large and one Young Member. Ballots will be sent electronically on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, and must be submitted by 1:00 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, April 9, 2024.

Changing of the guard for Nuclear Technology journal

August 10, 2023, 7:02AMANS News

Immediate past president Steven Arndt announced at the ANS Annual Meeting that Yassin Hassan, Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor, and the L. F. Peterson ’36 Chair II in Engineering at Texas A&M University, will be the next technical editor of ANS’s Nuclear Technology journal.

Following the 2022 Annual Meeting, ANS past president Andrew Klein (2016–2017), professor emeritus of nuclear science and engineering at Oregon State University and the current editor of NT, announced that he would retire at the end of his term in June 2023. That started the clock for ANS’s Technical Journals Committee to begin the search for a new technical editor. After numerous virtual meetings and interviews, the committee, chaired by ANS members Robert Little and Elia Merzari, recommended Hassan to Arndt per the ANS bylaws.

Twenty years ago, utility execs tried to predict the future

July 6, 2023, 12:01PMNuclear News

In January 2003—early in the “nuclear renaissance” of the 2000s—around 70 nuclear utility executives attended an ANS Utility Executive Conference, which was organized around the theme “Future Vision.” They traveled to Scottsdale, Ariz., to discuss how the nuclear community could achieve the bright future they envisioned just ahead—does that sound familiar?

ANS Annual Meeting: Focus on the merits of advanced nuclear fuel cycles

June 29, 2023, 3:01PMNuclear News
Pictured, from left, are Steve Nesbit, Christina Leggett, John Kessler, Paul Dickman, John Mattingly, and Craig Hansen. Edwin Lyman, who joined the panel remotely, is not pictured.

Advanced reactors may be key to a clean energy future, but to prove it they’re going to need fuel—and that fuel will be derived from limited uranium resources and managed throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, whether that cycle is open (like the current fuel cycle) or closed (with reprocessing). Six panelists convened on June 12 during the Annual Meeting of the American Nuclear Society for the executive session “Merits and Viability of Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles: A Discussion with the National Academies.” They discussed those fuel cycles and the findings of a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus committee released as a draft report in November 2022 and published earlier this year.

ANS Annual Meeting: Mapping the winding road to used fuel disposal

June 19, 2023, 12:09PMRadwaste Solutions

The question “What about the waste?” is typically thrown out by the antinuclear crowd as an attempt to bog down the discussion of nuclear development. However, with renewed interest in nuclear power—and new advanced reactors in particular—what to do about used nuclear fuel is coming to the fore as a question that needs resolving.

ANS annual meeting: “Failure is not an option”

June 12, 2023, 3:37PMANS News

Arndt

The American Nuclear Society’s annual meeting opened on Sunday, June 11, in Indianapolis, Ind., and will run through June 14. The meeting’s theme is “Failure Is Not an Option.”

ANS president Steven Arndt, who ends his yearlong term at the meeting’s end, addressed the audience at the opening plenary on Monday, June 12, noting that nuclear science and technology’s road has been long, but it is up to ANS members and other advocates to push forward the nuclear enterprise’s momentum for a sustainable future.

Before announcing ANS chief executive officer and executive director Craig Piercy to the stage, Arndt thanked the volunteer members, meeting sponsors, and ANS staff, among others, for making ANS meetings happen.

ANS names Annual Meeting award winners, five new Fellows

June 2, 2023, 7:01AMANS News

The American Nuclear Society 2023 Annual Meeting will kick off on June 11 in Indianapolis, Ind., and will run through June 14. ANS has named the recipients of six awards that will be presented at the meeting. Five new Fellows will also be honored at the opening plenary session. Additionally, the Tuesday's plenary session will include the presentation of five presidential citations and a recognition and show of appreciation for Steven Arndt, ANS's outgoing president.

Nuclear FOMO

August 4, 2022, 2:49PMNuclear NewsSteven Arndt

Steven Arndt
president@ans.org

At the June ANS Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., our Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy used an interesting acronym: he said, “This meeting is so exciting we are going to give nuclear professionals FOMO with respect to ANS meetings going forward.” The term “fear of missing out” was common a few years ago, but I had not heard it recently. So when Craig used it, it really caught my attention. Craig was, of course, correct that the Annual Meeting was great: technically interesting, productive, and great fun, as well. It provided a wonderful opportunity to learn, network, and advance both academic and business goals. However, in thinking about this phrase I realized that in a lot of ways, getting people to realize how important nuclear science and technology is for making the world better is a lot like trying to get people to understand that they are truly missing out.


ANS Annual Meeting: A new outlook for fusion

June 16, 2022, 12:01PMNuclear News
Session moderator Scott Hsu (left) led a discussion with (from left) Troy Carter, Kathy McCarthy, Artem Smirnov, Satoshi Konishi, and Jane Hotchkiss during an ANS Annual Meeting executive session on “The New Fusion Outlook.”

A “bold decadal plan” to accelerate fusion research, development, and demonstration in partnership with the private sector emerged from a March 2022 White House Fusion Summit and inspired the June 14 ANS Annual Meeting executive session titled “The New Fusion Outlook.” Moderator Scott Hsu, who is leaving a role as a program director for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) to become a senior adviser to the DOE’s undersecretary for science and innovation as well as lead fusion coordinator for the DOE, ably led a panel of fusion stakeholders representing universities, national laboratories, private fusion companies, and public policy and communication. The discussion intended to bring attendees with fission experience up to speed on the rapidly accelerating area of fusion energy and explore how the fusion energy community can work toward a unique path for fusion energy regulation and public engagement.

ANS names Annual Meeting award winners, two new Fellows

June 9, 2022, 3:00PMANS News

The American Nuclear Society 2022 Annual Meeting starts next week in Anaheim, Calif., and will run through June 16. ANS has named the recipients of five awards that will be presented at the meeting, as well as two new Fellows, who will be honored during the opening plenary session. Additionally, over a dozen presidential citations will be awarded during the president’s special session at the meeting.

2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: CEO roundtable

June 18, 2021, 9:37AMNuclear News

The 2021 ANS Annual Meeting brought together three leading chief executive officers from the nuclear industry on June 16 for a discussion centered on the future role of nuclear energy deployment and the challenges of portfolio management during a time of net-zero carbon goals.

ANS 2021 Annual Meeting going virtual

March 2, 2021, 3:11PMANS News

The ANS 2021 Annual Meeting will be conducted virtually. This decision comes after ANS received word the Rhode Island Convention Center, in Providence. R.I., will no longer be available for a face-to-face meeting during the scheduled dates.

Instead the meeting, which will take place June 14–16, 2021, will be transformed into an online conference, allowing ANS to deliver quality content and technical exchange while ensuring health and safety. The event will be similar to ANS's 2020 Annual and Winter Meetings, which were held as virtual events because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Registration is now open for the ANS 2021 Annual Meeting. Please email ANS with questions.

ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: Thursday recap

June 11, 2020, 10:55PMNuclear News

ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: Wednesday recap

June 10, 2020, 10:02PMUpdated June 11, 2020, 10:20AMNuclear News