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.

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.