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November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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October 2025
Latest News
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.
R. W. Luo, A. L. Greenwood, A. Nikroo, C. Chen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 55 | Number 4 | May 2009 | Pages 456-460
Technical Paper | Eighteenth Target Fabrication Specialists' Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A7426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One suggested approach to decreasing preheat of Laboratory for Laser Energetics cryotargets is to add a silicon dopant ~4 to 6 at.% to normal plasma polymer. As in the case of pure CH and CD shells used previously, the physical properties of these shells are of utmost importance to allow proper fielding for cryogenic shots. We have fabricated and characterized two types of Si-doped glow discharge polymer (GDP) capsules: single-layer Si-doped GDP shells (SiGDP) and double-layer Si-doped GDP/SCD shells (SiGDP/SCD).The Si-doped GDP shells with an ~870-m diameter and 5-m-thick walls were fabricated to meet the cryogenic direct laser fusion experiment requirements. Si-doped GDP shells with <0.25-m wall variation and 5% silicon dopant level were delivered. These cryogenic shells can survive a 1000-atm D2 or deuterium-tritium fill and cryogenic cooling without bursting or buckling. With an average buckle strength of 70 psi, a half-life of 12 s, and a D2 permeability at 20°C of 2.4 × 10-14 (mol × m/m2 × Pa × s), Si-doped GDP shells meet the criteria for cryogenic experiments. A possible drawback of the SiGDP layer is its rapid OH pickup due to exposure to air, which can increase the amount of infrared light absorbed in the shell wall as compared to D2 ice and possibly result in a poor ice uniformity during the cryogenic layering process. The absorption coefficient of the SiGDP at 3160 cm-1 measured by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is ~48 cm-1 at 0.1 h to ~130 cm-1 at 167 h of air exposure.
