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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Empowering the next generation: ANS’s newest book focuses on careers in nuclear energy
A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.
When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.
H. Y. Khater, M. E. Sawan, I. N. Sviatoslavsky, L. J. Wittenberg
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 2023-2028
Safety, Recycling, and Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A30018
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Activation and safety analysis has been performed for the chamber, shield and Li2O coolant of the inertial confinement fusion (IFE) reactor SOMBRERO. The total activities generated in the reactor graphite chamber and steel-reinforced concrete shield at shutdown are 0.054 and 10.12 MCi, respectively. The biological dose rate at the back of the shield drops to 1.6 mrem/hr after one day of shutdown allowing for hands-on maintenance. Radwaste classification has shown that both the chamber and shield would easily qualify as Class A low level waste (LLW) according to the 10CFR61 waste disposal concentration limits (WDL). At the same time, the Li2O granules would qualify as Class C LLW. The maximum public dose from atmospheric effluents is 0.93 mrem/yr. The dose is due to tritium and its maximum value occurs at the reactor site boundary which is 1 km away from the point of tritium release. Only a small fraction (0.44%) of the graphite first wall would be mobilized during a loss of coolant accident (LOCA). During such an accident, the shield temperature would only increase by a few degrees releasing a very small fraction of its radioactive inventory. The total tritium inventory in the containment building which is assumed to be released at the onset of a severe accident is 182.6 grams. The estimated whole body (WB) early dose from a severe accident resulting in the failure of the reactor containment is 2.22 rem. The very low off-site dose eliminates the need for N-stamp nuclear grade components in SOMBRERO.
