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N.S. Savannah and the American Nuclear Society

September 12, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear NewsErhard W. Koehler and Anne Jennings
N.S. Savannah docked in Baltimore in May 2024. (Photo: MARAD)

The American Nuclear Society was formed in 1954 in the wake of President Eisenhower’s seminal Atoms for Peace speech. Around the same time that Congress was debating the Atomic Energy Act and John Landis was helping establish ANS, the National Security Council began deliberating about adding a nuclear-­powered merchant ship to the nascent Atoms for Peace program. We like to imagine that the idea germinated after Mamie Eisenhower christened the U.S.S. Nautilus, but the truth seems much drier. Regardless, Ike championed the project and announced it to a surprised crowd in an April 1955 speech in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Landis would become the principal architect of the ship’s nuclear power plant. Although Savannah’s reactor now rests in the low-level radwaste repository in Clive, Utah, the ship’s prospects are as bright as the future of ANS itself.

HALEU without hyperbole: ANS speaks up for science and transparent risk assessment

September 11, 2024, 3:05PMNuclear News

The American Nuclear Society recently issued an open letter in support of a science-based approach to the regulation of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuels for commercial nuclear energy, voicing member concerns about hyperbole in a recent article published in Science, which advocated for restrictions on the use of HALEU despite decades of effective safeguards and security. This is not the first time ANS has stepped in to present the measured opinion of its membership on the value and appropriate regulation of HALEU.

Kickoff event coming on codes and standards for advanced reactors

March 25, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Idaho National Laboratory are hosting a hybrid event on April 4 to launch a coordinated effort focused on leveraging consensus codes and standards to support deployment of new and advanced reactor technologies.

The meeting will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (EDT) at the NRC’s Rockville, Md., headquarters and will be accessible online through Microsoft Teams. Participants must register to attend either in-person or virtually.

ANS Winter Meeting: The momentum equation

December 1, 2023, 6:54AMNuclear News

While the featured speakers of the American Nuclear Society’s 2023 Winter Meeting and Expo opening plenary—West Virginia senators Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin and Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson—generated a lot of buzz, the rest of the session provided constructive insights into the current state of nuclear technology and a glimpse of what the future may hold.

W.V. senators Capito, Manchin address ANS Winter Meeting

November 14, 2023, 7:01AMNuclear News

The American Nuclear Society’s 2023 Winter Meeting and Expo opened on November 12 and its packed opening plenary the next day generated a lot of buzz. Featured speakers included West Virginia senators Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin as well as Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson. They each addressed top issues facing the nuclear enterprise to a full house of more than 1,000 members of the wider nuclear community.

ANS names 2024 Congressional Fellows

September 8, 2023, 6:33AMNuclear News

For the second consecutive year, the American Nuclear Society has selected two of its members to receive the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship. The 2024 Congressional Fellows, Emily Caffrey and William Murray, will help the Society fulfill its strategic goal of enhancing nuclear policy by working in the halls of Congress, either in a congressional member’s personal office or with a committee, when their fellowship term begins in January.

ANS works to promote K-12 nuclear education program in North Carolina

June 28, 2023, 12:04PMNuclear News
The PULSTAR reactor at North Carolina State University. (Photo: N.C. State)

The American Nuclear Society is collaborating with the Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership (KFP) at North Carolina State University to introduce a nuclear science curriculum to Kenan Fellows and the K-12 students they teach.

ANS responds to DOE’s funding award for consent-based siting

June 16, 2023, 12:00PMRadwaste Solutions
(Image: DOE)

American Nuclear Society Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Craig Piercy responded to the Department of Energy’s awarding the Society about $2 million to lead a team of universities in developing a replicable model for community engagement on nuclear storage, saying the work will help the DOE determine what consensus decision-making looks like in the siting process for facilities storing commercial spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

ANS names 2023 Congressional Fellows

September 8, 2022, 9:31AMANS News

For the first time in the 23-year history of the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship, the American Nuclear Society has selected two members to spend a year as “Beltway insiders.” The 2023 Congressional Fellows are Sarah Stevenson, a Ph.D. candidate in nuclear engineering at the University of California–Berkeley, and Joseph Orellana, an engineer at GE-Hitachi.

ANS Annual Meeting: Moving the needle on the grand challenges

June 15, 2022, 12:00PMNuclear News

The President’s Special Session of the 2022 American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., offered members a chance to revisit the Society’s Grand Nuclear Challenges. Introduced in 2017 and put forth by the members and the ANS professional divisions, the nine challenges identify cross-cutting technical issues to be resolved by 2030 to help address the economic, sociological, or political concerns facing nuclear energy.

ANS Annual Meeting: Comments from the opening plenary

June 14, 2022, 12:01PMNuclear News

Speaking on June 13 at the opening plenary of the 2022 American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Ted Nordhaus, founder and executive director of The Breakthrough Institute, said that the nuclear community has a “generational opportunity to reset both public opinion and policy with regard to nuclear energy.”

Driving the change in the discussion, Nordhaus said, are three items: the growing concern over climate change, a broader recognition that renewable energy sources are insufficient, and a “post-pandemic price shock” over rising energy prices.

A reactor physicist explains Chernobyl

April 28, 2022, 7:00AMANS Nuclear Cafe
A screen shot from the ANS webinar, “A Reactor Physicist’s Explanation of Chernobyl,” featuring Christopher Perfetti (inset). (Source: ANS)

On the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the American Nuclear Society held the webinar, “A Reactor Physicist’s Explanation of Chernobyl,” led by Christopher Perfetti, an assistant professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico. (Here we use the more common Russian spelling of Chernobyl, rather than the Ukrainian spelling, Chornobyl.)

An invitation to list in the 2022 Nuclear News Buyers Guide

February 28, 2022, 9:30AMANS News

For more than 50 years, the Nuclear News Buyers Guide has been the most comprehensive goods and services resource used worldwide by the nuclear community. Submissions are now open for this year’s edition: the American Nuclear Society invites all companies that perform or seek nuclear-related work to participate by identifying your areas of expertise and providing your contact information. There is no charge to be listed—simply visit the Buyers Guide dedicated web page by March 8 to create a new company listing or to verify your company’s information.

ANS Winter Meeting: Addressing the spent fuel dilemma

December 3, 2021, 11:59AMRadwaste Solutions

The President’s Special Session at the 2021 ANS Winter Meeting and Technology Expo, held Thursday morning, explored the current impasse over the management of spent nuclear fuel in the United States, with leaders from Congress and representatives from the Department of Energy and the U.S. Government Accountability Office sharing the work they are doing in an effort to break that impasse.

ANS Winter Meeting: What it will take to “Fuel our Nuclear Future"

December 1, 2021, 3:01PMNuclear News

The 2021 ANS Winter Meeting and Technology Expo began this morning with a Opening Plenary Session chaired by Winter Meeting general chair Amir Vexler, president and chief executive officer of Orano USA. It was an opportunity to both celebrate achievements that are already building a “Nuclear Future” and to identify needs and challenges ahead.

Influential speakers from the U.S. Congress, the Department of Energy, and the Nuclear Energy Institute joined ANS president Steven Nesbit and ANS CEO/executive director Craig Piercy to explore key issues associated with the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including supply and demand for high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU). They didn’t stop there, however. They took questions from an in-person and virtual audience that probed other requirements of a sustainable nuclear future, including fueling a human resources pipeline.

ANS COP26 delegates spread the message in Glasgow: Net zero needs nuclear

November 22, 2021, 11:59AMANS News
Volunteers staff the Nuclear for Climate booth in the COP26 conference center. (Photo: Raquel Heredia Silva)

ANS sponsored 10 young nuclear professionals from the Young Generation Network, a branch of the U.K.’s Nuclear Institute, to attend COP26, the 2021 United Nations climate change conference, held in Glasgow, Scotland, where they helped deliver what was “by all accounts nuclear’s best representation at the COP ever,” according to George Burnett, one of four U.K.-based attendees sponsored by ANS.

Countdown to the ANS Winter Meeting

November 18, 2021, 6:52AMANS News

Excitement is building for the 2021 ANS Winter Meeting and Technology Expo, which will be ANS’s first-ever completely hybrid event. The Winter Meeting will take place at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., from November 30 to December 3, which is later than normal because the original venue for the Winter Meeting closed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spotlight On: The ANS Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences Division

October 28, 2021, 7:02AMRadwaste SolutionsANS

“A group of professionals having fun in the fields of decommissioning and environmental sciences for the nuclear industry.”

That’s how the ANS DESD describes itself on its website. The focus of this professional division is the development and use of skills and technologies needed for the optimal management of the end-­of-­life care (decommissioning, decontamination, and remediation), long-­term surveillance, and maintenance of nuclear installations, materials, facilities, and sites.

How will you celebrate Nuclear Science Week?

October 19, 2021, 9:26AMANS Nuclear Cafe

It’s the third week of October, and Nuclear Science Week, first recognized in 2009, has arrived! Nuclear Science Week is an annual opportunity to celebrate nuclear science; recognize the professionals who apply it to solving the world’s most pressing problems; encourage nuclear professional development and networking; and share information with students, educators, and community members about the vital role of nuclear science in the lives of all people.

Panel shares tips to empower women to succeed in the nuclear field

September 27, 2021, 3:00PMANS News
The panelists at the September 22 Empowering Women to Succeed webinar. Clockwise from top left: Yeremian, Edwards, Rekola, Kandasamy, Camba Lynn, and Von Ruden.

Six women who shared personal stories and tactics to help others succeed in their careers in the nuclear field hope they have ignited a conversation that will continue far beyond a single webinar.

“Empowering Women to Succeed” was hosted by the American Nuclear Society on September 22, presented by a group of four nuclear organizations—ANS, North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NAYGN), U.S. Women in Nuclear (U.S. WIN), and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)—which have pledged to work together as #AtomicAllies.

Moderated by Rosemary Yeremian, vice president of corporate strategy for X-energy Canada, who recently published a book titled Step Up: The Key to Succeeding in Male-Dominated Businesses, the panel included five other established and emerging nuclear leaders who spoke about their own experiences in the nuclear workforce and the importance of reflection and self-determination.

Yeremian was introduced by Timothy Crook, incoming chair of the ANS Operations and Power Division, who also coordinated the Q&A session that wrapped up the webinar. If you missed it you can watch the recording now, and be sure to check out this Young Members Group Twitter thread.