The application period for the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship is now open. The American Nuclear Society invites its members to apply for the fellowship to help the Society fulfill its strategic goal of enhancing nuclear public policy.
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.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine today in what news sources are calling the largest military attack of one state against another on the European continent since World War II. These developing events follow an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission in Brussels on February 22, when NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia’s recent actions constituted “serious escalation” of tensions in the region and that Russia had shifted from covert attempts to destabilize Ukraine to overt military action. Well before this juncture was reached, news outlets had questioned the readiness of Ukraine’s nuclear power fleet to operate safely in a country at war and ensure energy security, while Energoatom, which operates all of Ukraine’s nuclear power reactors, has issued assurances of safety and security.
ANS will host a virtual event titled “Perspectives from Past Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairs" on Thursday, February 24, from 1:00-2:00 p.m. EST.
The speakers: The webinar features four former high-ranking NRC leaders.
Register now. The event is complimentary and open to all.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed a $7,000 fine to Marian Medical Services (MMS), of Wildwood, Mo., for four violations of regulatory requirements related to its licensed activities in Anchorage, Alaska. The violations involved the company’s failure to properly handle, store, and secure five sealed sources that it was licensed to use at its Anchorage medical clinic to perform diagnostic imaging services.
According to an NRC report, the clinic was licensed in 2016 but stopped offering nuclear medicine services in 2018 because there weren’t enough patients to sustain the business.
The American Nuclear Society will host a one-hour webinar this Thursday, February 10, at 2:00 p.m. EST, celebrating “Black Excellence in the Nuclear Field.” The free webinar will be moderated by Lisa Marshall of North Carolina State University and will feature former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy Warren “Pete” Miller, X-energy’s Jeff Harper, Idaho National Laboratory’s J’Tia Hart, and Booz Allen Hamilton’s Christina Leggett.
Researchers demand options for the publication of their results, and so-called open access (OA) publication is a top priority for many academics. Increasingly, in the changing landscape of scholarly publishing, calls from authors and readers send a clear message: Papers should be freely available to be read by anyone, anytime, without a subscription.
With ANS’s three technical journals—Nuclear Science and Engineering, Nuclear Technology, and Fusion Science and Technology—they can be.
For more than 50 years, the ANS Honors and Awards Program has recognized outstanding achievements and meritorious service in the various fields served by the American Nuclear Society.
The recipients of the national awards listed below will be honored on June 13 during the opening plenary session of the 2022 ANS Annual Meeting. Honorees will be notified of their selection by May.
All members are encouraged to review the nomination requirements for these awards and consider nominating a qualified colleague. Many ANS awards are open to non-ANS members, and nominating colleagues who are not members is one way to foster new ANS relationships.
ANS will host the webinar “Creating Value from Waste: Recycling Valuable Isotopes & Surplus Energy” on Thursday, January 27, starting at noon EST.
Register now for this free members-only virtual event.
The American Nuclear Society has just published ANSI/ANS-55.1-2021, Solid Radioactive Waste Processing System for Light-Water-Cooled Reactor Plants. The standard was originally issued in 1979 with a revision in 1992 to provide design guidance for in-plant solid radwaste systems.
Check out a preview or purchase ANSI/ANS-55.1-2021 in the ANS Standards Store.
Ahead of the upcoming 2022 ANS national election, the nominees for vice president/president-elect have prepared statements outlining their goals for ANS. The nominees are Bradley J. Adams, an ANS Fellow and member since 2009 and vice president of engineering at Southern Nuclear Company, and Kenneth S. Petersen, an ANS member since 1987 and a private consultant who recently retired from Exelon Generation as vice president of nuclear fuels.
The elected candidate will succeed current ANS vice president/president-elect Steven Arndt in June 2022, when Arndt becomes president.
Ballots for the 2022 election will be sent electronically on February 22 and completed ballots must be submitted by 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 12.
Over the past couple of months, the nuclear community has participated in a grassroots effort to save the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant from premature closure—and it appears to be having an effect. The growing support for keeping Diablo Canyon open is seen in editorials, an academic study from Stanford/MIT, and a grassroots rally held in December 2021 to show support for keeping Diablo Canyon operating.
Clark
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced today the selection of Brooke Poole Clark as the new secretary to the Commission, effective spring 2022. Clark will replace Annette Vietti-Cook, who is retiring after nearly 40 years of service at the NRC.
In her new position, Clark will provide executive management services to support the Commission and implement Commission decisions. She will be responsible for scheduling Commission meetings, managing the Commission's decision-making process, codifying Commission decisions in memoranda, processing and controlling Commission correspondence, and maintaining the Commission's historical records collection, among other tasks.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ANS Student Section is preparing to host the 2022 ANS Student Conference, to be held April 14–16 on the university campus. Registration is now open for the first in-person ANS student conference since 2019.
For well over 30 years, ANS leadership has sparred with members of the academic community about the issue of page charges for ANS’s publications. Page charges have been in place all this time as a way to cover the cost of publication for those journals, as well as to support other beneficial activities of the Society. However, especially in recent years, attitudes among academic publishers have shifted, and page charges for technical journal publications are essentially extinct. ANS’s three technical journals—Nuclear Science and Engineering, Nuclear Technology, and Fusion Science and Technology—have held on to the page charge revenue stream despite vocal criticism from the community.
Until now.
Marzano
Matthew Marzano is beginning a year of service in Washington, D.C., as the 2022 Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow, and he is excited about bringing his nuclear power experience to the policy-making process.
“I am most looking forward to the opportunity to learn about the legislative process and the conduct of business on Capitol Hill. Oftentimes we are presented a picture of a dysfunctional Congress through the media, but I’ve gathered through the orientation process and congressional interviews that collaboration is alive and well, especially in the area of clean energy,” Marzano said.
The following newly published standard is available for purchase in the ANS Store:
ANSI/ANS-3.14-2021, Process for Infrastructure Aging Management and Life Extension of Nonreactor Nuclear Facilities (new standard)
In a November letter to President Biden, ANS president Steven Nesbit and U.S. Nuclear Industry Council president and chief executive officer Bud Albright urged the president to proceed with nominations for the two open seats on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The letter stated, “The NRC operates best with a full complement of five qualified commissioners who have diverse and complementary backgrounds. . . . Unfortunately, the commission was last at full strength in January 2021, nearly a year ago.”
A special issue of the ANS journal Nuclear Technology, published last month, observes the 75th anniversary of the Trinity experiment, the world’s first nuclear explosion, on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, N.M. The experiment was a first step toward the conclusion of the Manhattan Project and the end of World War II. The special issue, The Manhattan Project Nuclear Science and Technology Development at Los Alamos: A Special Issue of Nuclear Technology, was sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory and curated by Mark Chadwick.
Thanks to LANL, the 23 papers published in the issue are open access, which means that a subscription is not required to read this contribution to the history of science. The issue can be accessed on the journal’s platform, hosted by Taylor & Francis, publisher of ANS’s technical journals.
A new survey of Americans’ attitudes about energy by ecoAmerica, a Washington, D.C.–based environmental nonprofit, finds notable shifts in views on several energy sources, including nuclear energy, from 2018 to 2021.
The American Climate Perspectives Survey shows that national support for nuclear increased by 10 percentage points, from 49 percent to 59 percent. (The numbers reflect both strong and tepid backing.) Broken down by party affiliation, the survey shows Republican support holding steady at 64 percent, Independent support moving from 50 percent to 61 percent, and Democratic support rising, rather dramatically, from 37 percent to 60 percent.