Texas governor touts nuclear at UT fireside chat

August 23, 2023, 7:00AMNuclear News
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (right) talks nuclear energy at UT-Austin on August 16. With Abbott are X-energy chief executive officer Clay Sell (left) and Dow chair and CEO Jim Fitterling. (Photo: Office of the Texas Governor)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sat down with X-energy chief executive officer Clay Sell and Dow chair and CEO Jim Fitterling last week for a “fireside chat” at the University of Texas–Austin on the role of nuclear energy and technology in the state.

Past NRC chairs to share views on future of nuclear

February 23, 2022, 12:00PMANS News

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.

  • William Magwood (moderator), Director-General, Nuclear Energy Agency, NRC Commissioner 2010–2014
  • Richard Meserve, Senior of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP, NRC Chair 1999–2003
  • Dale Klein, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Office of Academic Affairs, The University of Texas System, NRC Chair 2006–2009
  • Stephen Burns, Senior Visiting Fellow, Third Way, NRC Chair 2015–2017

Register now. The event is complimentary and open to all.

Brooke Poole Clark announced as NRC’s next secretary

January 11, 2022, 3:03PMANS Nuclear Cafe

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.

ANS webinar updates progress at Fukushima

March 3, 2021, 9:25AMNuclear News

The accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, has sparked many safety improvements in the nuclear industry over the past decade. Lessons from the accident and its aftermath will influence firms and regulators as they consider the future design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear reactors.

An American Nuclear Society webinar, “Nuclear News Presents: A Look Back at the Fukushima Daiichi Accident,” held yesterday was attended by more than 1,550 viewers and generated about 150 questions to the panelists. The attendance was the largest ever for an ANS webinar.

The panelists were Mike Corradini, emeritus professor, University of Wisconsin; Dale Klein, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Joy Rempe, principal, Rempe and Assoc. LLC; Lake Barrett, senior advisor, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japan’s International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID); and Paul Dickman, senior policy fellow, Argonne National Laboratory.

The webinar’s recording and slides are available here, along with an e-version of the March issue of Nuclear News, which features a cover story on the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

The NRC: Observations on commissioner appointments

February 26, 2021, 4:59PMNuclear NewsSteven P. Nesbit and Paul T. Dickman
The NRC Commission following the departure of Chairman Svinicki in January and Commissioner Caputo in June of this year.

In 2015, we wrote an article for Nuclear News analyzing the history of commissioners appointed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and assessing their backgrounds, experience, and qualifications at the time of their appointment. At the time, ANS had not established a formal position statement on NRC commissioner appointees. Our article provided an objective assessment of historical patterns and was used to develop ANS position statement #77, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (2016). This article draws upon the 2015 article and provides updated data and analysis. Also, the recommendations of the position statement are applied to the current vacancy on the commission.

Former NRC chairs issue vaccine timeline recommendation to CDC

January 21, 2021, 2:59PMNuclear News

Five former chairmen of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission—Stephen Burns, Allison Macfarlane, Nils Diaz, Richard Meserve, and Dale Klein—signed a letter to José Romero, Arkansas health secretary and chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) immunization advisory committee, requesting that the advisory committee update its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccine allocation guidance for the energy workforce (including nuclear energy workers).

Currently, the CDC has four phases for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Those phases are numbered:

  • 1a (the current phase), reserved for healthcare workers and those living in long-term care facilities;
  • 1b, reserved for people 75 years and older and frontline essential workers;
  • 1c, reserved for persons 65 to 74 years old, those aged 16 to 64 who have high-risk medical conditions, and other categories of essential workers (this includes energy workers); and
  • 2, for everyone else that was not named in the previous three phases aged 16 to 64.