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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Christmas Night
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the houseNo electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged in by the chimney with careWith the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Başak Saraç-Lesavre
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 9 | September 2021 | Pages 1366-1376
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1884492
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Making new nuclear investments is a challenging task. Their “value” is neither given nor stable: It is constantly being reformulated through processes of evaluation and, therefore, of valuation. The paper follows the specific uses of a standard method, the levelized cost of electricity, by different centers of calculations during a period marked by the intense scrutiny of nuclear energy policy and of the adoption of alternative nuclear fuel cycle technologies: from the George W. Bush administration through the beginning of the Barack Obama administration. Rather than concentrating on the finality of those calculations and their subsequent effects on the reordering of spent nuclear fuel as “waste” or “value,” the author develops the notion of “style of revaluation” and shows how concerned actors enacted different logics of valuation and embedded different audiences in their uses of the same calculative device. The paper characterizes two styles of revaluation related with this period. In the first style, referred to here as the “monetary figures of dissent,” a multitude of disagreements over political and moral values associated with alternative fuel cycle technologies are translated into into the language of economic expertise and monetary figures, while policy makers are designated as the audience for the calculations. In the second style, which the author refers to as the “return-on-investment,” financial investor at large is considered as the audience for the calculations, and investment is to be guided by the morality of the return-on-investment. Such assessments are critical for science and democracy. It is crucial that their designers and users, whether those are academics, practitioners, or policy makers, acknowledge and articulate moral and political values they inscribe in them.