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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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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.
Charles T. Kelsey IV, Guenter Muhrer, Eric J. Pitcher
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 957-964
Miscellaneous | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Materials for Nuclear Systems | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9333
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Radionuclide inventory calculations support design and accident analyses for the Materials Test Station (MTS). MTS is a spallation source facility being designed to irradiate reactor fuels and materials in a fast neutron spectrum. Calculated radionuclide inventories are used to provide decay heat input to cooling system design, decay radiation source terms for hot cell design, and material-at-risk input to accident analyses. CINDER'90 is a transmutation code that uses MCNPX-calculated spallation product yields and neutron fluxes to calculate residual nuclide concentrations based on irradiation history. The code also calculates decay heat and photon spectra for the resulting radionuclide inventories. A total activity of 2 × 1017 Bq is created during MTS operation. Decay heat is an important factor since in loss of primary cooling scenarios, this heat must be removed. The major sources at shutdown are 3000 W for the tungsten target plates and 6000 W for fuel pins being irradiated. Decay photon spectra result in unshielded dose rates that hot cell design must accommodate on the order of 1000 Sv/h. The MTS design includes lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) coolant. For accident analysis 210Po activity in the LBE is a significant concern. The calculated 210Po activity following 2.5 yr of operation is 2 × 1014 Bq. Radionuclide inventory calculations are important for MTS design. The CINDER'90 code is a valuable tool for this purpose.
