A significant percentage of the workforce at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee is eligible to retire in the next decade, according to the agency. In an effort to address the potential for a staffing shortage, UCOR, the DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management contractor for cleanup activities at the site, is building a consortium with colleges and universities in the region. The collaboration aims to guide more students toward nuclear-applicable careers to build the next generation of workers for Oak Ridge and the nuclear industry at large.

Abilene Christian University’s Gayle and Max Dillard Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC) has opened. SERC contains the Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Laboratory (NEXT Lab) and is the future home of one of the first advanced reactors in the United States. More than 300 people were on hand to celebrate the opening and tour the facility, including donors, government officials, and scientists from ACU and other research institutions.

Natura Resources of Abilene, Texas, has awarded a contract to Zachry Nuclear Engineering, which has offices in Connecticut and North Carolina, to complete the engineering and design of Natura's 1-MWt molten salt reactor (MSR). The agreement also provides terms under which Zachry may execute the engineering, procurement, and construction phase of the project. The dollar amount of the contract was not disclosed.

Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing (NEXT) Lab continues to make progress toward building a molten salt research reactor (MSRR) on the university’s campus. NEXT Lab submitted an application for a construction permit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last August, and in November the agency announced it had docketed the application—the first for a new research reactor in more than 30 years.

For the first time since forming in 2020, more than 40 members of a Department of Energy team met in person to evaluate technologies, including exoskeletons and wearable robotic devices, that could be adapted to the cleanup mission of department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), helping improve the safety and well-being of its workers.

The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration funds three university–national laboratory consortia: the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation (ETI), led by the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; the Consortium for Monitoring, Technology, and Verification (MTV), led by the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; and the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium (NSSC), led by the University of California–Berkeley. All three consortia are involved in education and research related to nuclear security and nonproliferation.

Nuclear News reached out to the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization (NEDHO) to ask for assistance in connecting with nuclear engineering programs at U.S. universities. Our request to universities was to provide us with updates on their programs and to detail their areas of special interest.

NEDHO came through big time. As a result, 20 nuclear engineering programs answered the call. In this series of articles, we will take a close look at university programs around the United States. This time, the focus is on Abilene Christian University, in Abilene, Texas.

The Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation (ETI), led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, is offering a summer school on advanced manufacturing for nonproliferation. It will be held from May 23 to May 27 on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, and it will include presentations, lab demonstrations, and tours, including a visit to Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Rahnema

Farzad Rahnema, a professor of nuclear engineering and director of the Computational Reactor and Medical Physics Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been appointed editor-designate of the American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear Science and Engineering journal. Rahnema, an ANS Fellow and member since 1989, was named editor-designate on September 8 by ANS President Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar, and he will begin his duties on October 1. He succeeds current editor Michael Corradini, who has been serving on an interim basis since Dan Cacuci retired from the role in November 2019.