The General Chair’s Special Session of the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting was held on November 17. Moderated by Paul Kearns, director of Argonne National Laboratory, and Bryan Hanson, executive vice president and chief generation officer of Exelon Nuclear, the session, titled “Nuclear Science and Industry: The next transformation,” featured a panel of science and industry experts discussing how innovation is transforming both the current fleet of reactors and preparing for a future with advanced reactors, integrated systems, and smarter grids.

In addition to the session’s respected panel members, the Zoom meeting included appearances from some top names in nuclear, including Holtec International’s Kris Singh, Sama Bilbao y Leon of the World Nuclear Association, Warren Miller, Jr. from Kairos Power and Texas A&M University, Terrestrial Energy’s David Hill, and many more. In a short, prerecorded video, these experts discussed many of the issues facing the nuclear industry today, which were then expounded upon by the panel members.

The 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting opened on November 16 with a plenary session moderated by ANS President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar and more than 700 people in attendance. The opening plenary session was followed by nearly 40 panel and technical sessions. Recordings of all the sessions are posted on the meeting platform and can be view by all registered attendees at any time.

Two sessions held in the afternoon of opening day were centered around the 50th anniversary of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Both sessions featured distinguished experts on the NPT to discuss its successes, challenges, future, and the role of the United States in international nonproliferation.

Presented as an embedded topical meeting at the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting, the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) 2020 meeting opened on November 16 with the first of four plenary sessions to be held during the week: “Looking Back and Looking Forward in Fusion.” (TOFE 2020 also features 29 technical sessions through November 19.)

The plenary session, chaired by Savannah River National Laboratory’s Greg Staack, featured two speakers: Melissa Hanson, curator for the Savannah River Site Cold War Historic Preservation Program, and Heather Lewtas, a technical lead for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production program.

The 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting kicked off on Monday, November 16, with an opening plenary moderated by ANS President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar. The session, delivered via Zoom, featured two keynote speakers—Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress and Jessica Lovering of the Good Energy Collective.

Chosen with deliberation, the two speakers represented two very different political and philosophical views of energy production, but each made the case why nuclear is the best choice for a better world.

The Monday session “Advancement in Medical Isotopes Production and Applications” of the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting was sponsored by the Isotopes & Radiation Division and co-chaired by Lin-Wen Hu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and James Bowen of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Radioisotopes produced from nuclear reactors and accelerators are widely used for medical diagnostics and cancer therapy. Technetium-99m (decay product of molybdenum-99), for example, is used in more than 80 percent of nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures. The session featured speakers who discussed the advancement and status of domestic production and applications of medical isotopes.

The "Hybrid and Integrated Energy Systems" session on Monday during the ANS 2020 Virtual Winter Meeting was sponsored by the Operations and Power Division and chaired by Piyush Sabharwall of Idaho National Laboratory.

American Nuclear Society Fellows hold the highest grade of membership in the Society. The following new Fellows were recognized Monday during the opening plenary session of the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting.

The American Nuclear Society honored seven award recipients on Monday during the Opening Plenary of the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting.

With the theme “Nuclear is Good for You,” the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting kicks off on November 16 with the opening plenary session. The plenary features two keynote speakers—Alex Epstein, of the Center for Industrial Progress, and Jessica Lovering, of the Good Energy Collective—in a discussion about why nuclear is the right choice for the benefit of all humankind.

The Winter Meeting features more than 35 panel sessions, 100-plus technical sessions, and more than 440 paper presentations.

More than 2,100 registrants have already signed up. That tops the preregistration total of 1,700 for the 2020 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting, which was the largest ANS meeting in modern history.

If you haven’t registered yet, do so now! Registration is open through Thursday, November 19.

The American Nuclear Society has named the recipients of seven awards that will be presented during the 2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting, which begins on November 16.