Ann Bisconti

We welcome ANS members with long careers in the community to submit their own stories so that the personal history of nuclear power can be capured. For information on submitting your stories, contact nucnews@ans.org.

It is 1983. I receive a phone call from Herbert Krugman, my boss in my first job at Marplan, a prestigious Madison Avenue research firm. He had moved to General Electric and hired me through UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute for research that gave GE a blueprint for recruiting top graduates from their key universities. “There is a new organization that will be looking for someone to direct all their research,” he tells me. “I can’t reveal what it’s about, but I told them they have to hire you.”

This new organization was the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness (USCEA), a forerunner of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Industry leaders had set up two main organizations in response to the Three Mile Island-2 accident: one to promote excellence in operations (Institute of Nuclear Power Operations) and one to promote excellence in communications (USCEA). I was charged with conducting all the research necessary to guide a large communications program that included advertising as well as media and public relations.

University of Tennessee–Knoxville’s Department of Nuclear Engineering highlighted the Computational Research Access Network (CRANE) program in a recent article on its website. CRANE is a free online program “that teaches computational methods in nuclear fusion to students from underrepresented backgrounds,” said Alyssa Hayes, a nuclear engineering Ph.D. candidate at UTK. Hayes is the first chair of the board of directors of the CRANE nonprofit organization.

A recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article cautions that uncertainty regarding the management of wastes generated by small and advanced reactors could drive up costs, making them uncompetitive with existing light water reactor technology.

A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s Integrated Engineering Research Center, which officially opened in January 2024, is now known as the Helen Edwards Engineering Center. The name was changed to honor the late particle physicist who led the design, construction, commissioning, and operation of the lab’s Tevatron accelerator and was part of the Water Resources Development Act signed by President Biden in December 2024, according to a Fermilab press release.

A 1,300-acre site left undeveloped on the shores of Lake Ontario four decades ago could see new life as the home to a large nuclear facility.

The Department of Energy announced six Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE) collaboratives set to receive funding of $107 million on January 16. The six selected teams represent a first round of awards from a funding opportunity announcement released in May 2023 as part of the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences’ (FES) goal of creating a “fusion innovation ecosystem.”

The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, home of the research institutes of New York’s Northwell Health, announced it has received a five-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the potential of human ghrelin, a naturally occurring hormone, as a medical countermeasure against radiation-induced gastrointestinal syndrome (GI-ARS).

With the annual American Nuclear Society election right around the corner, ANS members will be going to the polls to vote for a vice president/president-elect, treasurer, and members-at-large for the board of directors. Nuclear News is printing here statements from each nominee for vice president/president-elect and treasurer. The February NN issue will feature the statements of board member-at-large nominees.

Lis Marshall
president@ans.org

Six months into my ANS presidency, the pace has been hectic yet good. I’ve taken nearly two dozen trips to student and local chapters; companies; and various regional, national, and international meetings, where I’ve spoken about the current and future path of nuclear: people-centered interactions that focus on the benefits and capacities of our technologies.

Perception, timing, and financing remain challenges. Perception can be addressed in our deeds, so I am heartened by continuing industry collaborations and subsequent communication to strengthen efforts in the arenas of energy security, environmental stewardship, and (inter)national leadership as we assist new-to-nuclear nations; leverage our outreach, educational, and policy instruments; and volunteer our expertise.

In November, I joined ANS’s delegation to COP29 Baku, Azerbaijan, where we strove be the voice of the nuclear community. Our presence at this and future Conferences of the Parties is necessary if we are to continue the momentum around nuclear science and technology.

Williams

President Trump has selected Brandon Williams to head the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Williams is a former one-term congressman (R., N.Y.),from 2023 to the beginning of 2025. Prior to political office he served in the U.S. Navy. Williams’s run for office gained attention in 2022 when he defeated fellow navy veteran Francis Conole, a Democrat, but he lost the seat last November to Democrat John Mannion.

“I will be honored to lead the tremendous scientific and engineering talent at NNSA,” Williams said, thanking Trump, according to WSYR-TV in Syracuse, N.Y.

Southern Nuclear was first when no one wanted to be.

The nuclear subsidiary of the century-old utility Southern Company, based in Atlanta, Ga., joined a pack of nuclear companies in the early 2000s—during what was then dubbed a “nuclear renaissance”—bullish on plans for new large nuclear facilities and adding thousands of new carbon-free megawatts to the grid.

In 2008, Southern Nuclear applied for a combined construction and operating license (COL), positioning the company to receive the first such license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012. Also in 2008, Southern became the first U.S. company to sign an engineering, procurement, and construction contract for a Generation III+ reactor. Southern chose Westinghouse’s AP1000 pressurized water reactor, which was certified by the NRC in December 2011.

Fast forward a dozen years—which saw dozens of setbacks and hundreds of successes—and Southern Nuclear and its stakeholders celebrated the completion of Vogtle Units 3 and 4: the first new commercial nuclear power construction project completed in the U.S. in more than 30 years.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced on January 16 that it has awarded a noncompetitive financial assistance agreement worth $37.5 million to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., to aid the department’s mission of cleaning up legacy nuclear waste.

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, or SKB) broke ground on its spent nuclear fuel repository near the Forsmark nuclear power plant on January 15. SKB, which is owned by Sweden’s nuclear power plants, expects the final repository will be ready for disposal in the 2030s, and will be fully extended in the 2080s.

The International Energy Agency published a new report this month outlining how continued innovation, government support, and new business models can unleash nuclear power expansion worldwide.

The Path to a New Era for Nuclear Energy report “reviews the status of nuclear energy around the world and explores risks related to policies, construction, and financing.”

Find the full report at IEA.org.

In your career as a professional in the nuclear community, chances are you will, at some point, be asked (or volunteer) to talk to at least one layperson about the technology you know and love. You might even be asked to present to a whole group of nonnuclear folks, perhaps as a pitch to some company tangential to your company’s business. So, without further ado, let me give you some pointers on the best way to approach this important and surprisingly complicated task.

Plastic waste pollutes oceans, streams, and bloodstreams. Nations in Asia and the Pacific are working with the International Atomic Energy Agency through the Nuclear Technology for Controlling Plastic Pollution (NUTEC Plastics) initiative to tackle the problem. Launched in 2020, NUTEC Plastics is focused on using nuclear technology to both track the flow of microplastics and improve upstream plastic recycling before discarded plastic can enter the ecosystem. Irradiation could target hard-to-recycle plastics and the development of bio-based plastics, offering sustainable alternatives to conventional plastic products and building a “circular economy” for plastics, according to the IAEA.

Progress continues for TerraPower’s Natrium plant, with the latest win coming in the form of a state permit for construction of nonnuclear portions of the advanced reactor.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has for the first time designed, printed, and irradiated a specimen capsule—or rabbit capsule—for use in its High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), the Department of Energy announced on January 15.

Wright

Chris Wright, president-elect Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Energy, spent hours today fielding questions from members of the U.S. Senate’s committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

During the hearing, Wright—who’s spent most of his career in fossil fuels—made comments in support of nuclear energy and efforts to expand domestic generation in the near future. Asked what actions he would take as energy secretary to improve the development and deployment of SMRs, Wright said: “It’s a big challenge, and I’m new to government, so I can’t list off the five levers I can pull. But (I’ve been in discussions) about how to make it easier to research, to invest, to build things. The DOE has land at some of its facilities that can be helpful in this regard.”