The Diversity and Inclusion in ANS Committee on May 9 hosted a webinar titled “Our nuclear family: Empowering parents and caregivers in the nuclear industry.” The speakers, who are parents and caregivers as well as nuclear industry professionals, highlighted how the nuclear industry supports caregivers facing life transitions or focusing on parental responsibilities. They also discussed challenges and areas where the industry has room for improvement in supporting caregivers. Some of the panelists have made their own contributions to fostering inclusiveness for caregivers in the industry.

The full webinar is available for anyone to view online at ans.org/webinars/view-family24/.

The Speakers: Speakers for the session included Marsha McDaniel, director of international engagement at Idaho National Laboratory; Cheryl O’Brien, principal and founder of Vision for Inclusive Engineering Workforce, Inc.; Todd Palmer, professor of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University; and Kristin Zaitz, cofounder of Mothers for Nuclear. Ira Strong of INL moderated the session.

Before the webinar, ANS members were invited to participate in a caregiver survey that included questions about their own situations. Highlights from the survey can be viewed here.

Caregiver challenges: O’Brien said, “When people have their first child, 43 percent [of women in STEM fields] will not maintain at full time; 20 percent of new fathers will also either go part time or find another career.” She added that “If you stay part time even though it may fit your needs for an amount of time, you stay in that death spiral where you don’t get the meaty assignments, the ones [that] will travel; you don’t get on the committees. . . . It’s a perception.”

A mother of three, McDaniel spoke about navigating the challenges of caring for her children and eldercare. “Thousands of people in this industry are dealing with similar challenges. Just creating spaces where we can talk—that alone helps.”

Fostering inclusiveness: McDaniel introduced an emergency daycare program at INL, having found it difficult to take time off work when her childcare was unavailable. “Now we have this emergency backup daycare program that’s available for all ages from six weeks old up until school-age children. I just used the program about a month ago.” Strong chimed in that she had also used the program.

Zaitz mentioned the other side of the coin: “There are a lot of things that nuclear does not do well [around caregivers]. But I have a lot of hope that the questioning attitude and tenacity of continuous improvement that’s so widespread in the nuclear industry is going to move us toward making nuclear a leader in this space.”

Zaitz, who has worked at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant for over two decades, started Mothers for Nuclear in 2016 alongside coworker and friend Heather Hoff. She spoke about the moment she realized there was little support for new parents at her job and how she took matters into her own hands.

“I was the first engineer [in her coworkers’ memory] who had a baby at work. . . . They were so supportive but just didn’t know how to be supportive because it wasn’t a common thing,” Zaitz said. “There were two other women at the plant who had had children, and when I asked them about their experience, it was kind of a horror story.” Zaitz teamed up with other women, human resources, and the local breastfeeding coalition, “and we got a great program in place.” That policy is still in place for the whole company.

“We ended up winning an award from the state of California on our policy and our accommodations for breastfeeding mothers,” Zaitz added.

Overcoming biases: The panelists discussed ways that caregivers must overcome either implicit or explicit biases in the workplace and ways that organizations can ensure that biases do not affect workers. A major bias the speakers pointed out was the assumption that caregivers are less available to perform well in the workforce.

“While a lot of us at some point are going to need accommodations, it doesn’t mean we’re not engaged in our jobs or that nuclear is not right for us,” said Zaitz. “It means that we all have to be a little bit flexible to keep that great talent in the pipeline and make sure we’re not overlooking great talent because of our assumptions about how they might contribute.”

Palmer added, “The key is you have to have people in these rooms who are aware of and looking for those sorts of biases and calling them out when they come up. . . . We’re after an inclusive community that supports all our employees, and we do it in hiring, promotion, and advancement. . . . It’s these things that are really difficult to change because they are baked in and you don’t see them. You really need staunch advocates."

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent government organization responsible for overseeing public health and safety issues at Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities, has alerted the DOE because of safety concerns it has regarding the use of continuous air monitors (CAM) at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

Part of WIPP’s new Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS), the CAM system is intended to detect a radiological release in the repository and automatically close vent dampers to prevent the escape of radioactive particles to the outside environment. The SSCVS, which began commissioning in November 2023, is intended to increase airflow to the underground to allow for simultaneous underground waste emplacement, mining, and ground control work.

BWX Technologies has partnered with the American Nuclear Society to offer customized ANS Nuclear Ambassadors training to BWXT employees. The training kicked off in February with an initial two-hour virtual event that was presented to more than 60 BWXT employees, and it wrapped in April.

BWXT is the first company to participate in ANS’s newly revamped curriculum, which trains experts in K-12 learning.

Last year, 168 incidents of illegal or unauthorized activities involving nuclear and other radioactive materials were reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Incident and Trafficking Database (ITDB). According to the agency, this number is in line with historical averages. These incidents were reported by 31 IAEA member states; as of 2023, a total of 145 member states have participated in the ITDB.

There is a mix of good news and bad in the latest Nuclear Engineering Enrollment and Degrees Survey, 2021–2022 Data. According to this report from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), compiled with data initially released in November 2023 and updated in February 2024, the number of doctoral degrees awarded in nuclear engineering at the end of the 2022 academic year in the United States—211 Ph.D.s—was the highest since the beginning of this survey’s data collection in 1966. However, the overall numbers of nuclear engineering degrees awarded in 2021 and 2022 were at their lowest levels in more than a decade. In addition, both undergraduate and graduate enrollment numbers were down compared with 2018 and 2019.

The Southeast Nuclear Council, an initiative of regional trade association E4 Carolinas, is holding a webinar from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. (EDT) on May 23 on nuclear energy workforce development in the southeast United States.

Registration is required for the event.

Department of Energy cleanup contractor Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) has garnered national recognition for its commitment to safety, recently receiving three awards from the National Safety Council: the Occupational Excellence Award, the Perfect Record Award, and the Superior Safety Performance Award.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing a final rule and corresponding update to the generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) the agency uses when considering applications to renew the operating licenses of nuclear power reactors. All four current NRC commissioners voted to approve the rule on May 16.

Physical protection accounts for a significant portion of a nuclear power plant’s operational costs. As the U.S. moves toward smaller and safer advanced reactors, similar protection strategies could prove cost prohibitive. For tomorrow’s small modular reactors and microreactors, security costs must remain appropriate to the size of the reactor for economical operation.

The American Nuclear Society is hosting a special online panel discussion featuring former officials from the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The event, “Past DOE Nuclear Energy Officials Roundtable,” will be held on Monday, May 20, from 11:00 to 12:00 p.m. (EDT).

ANS is holding the webinar in honor of Peter Lyons (1943-2021), an ANS Fellow who also was served as assistant secretary of energy for the Office of Nuclear Energy from 2011 to 2015.

Register Now: The event is complimentary and open only to ANS members. Registration will also give you access to a video recording of the panel discussion.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding a webinar on May 21 to get public input on how the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System—known as ADAMS—is working for the public.

The American Nuclear Society extends its congratulations to the new ANS Fellows and recipients of this year’s honors and awards, which will be presented at the Opening Plenary and President’s Special Session during the 2024 ANS Annual Conference. Those being honored this year have made outstanding contributions to nuclear science and technology. The full list of awards follows below.

Fast reactor developer Oklo, which recently went public on the New York Stock Exchange, announced on May 13 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Atomic Alchemy to cooperate on the production of radioisotopes for medical, energy, industry, and science applications.

The American Nuclear Society is hosting an online panel discussion exploring the future of nuclear energy in Africa. The event, “Unlocking Africa’s Potential with Nuclear Energy,” will be held on Friday, May 17, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. (EDT).

Register now. The event is complimentary and open to all. Registration will also give you access to a video recording of the panel discussion.

Four minority-serving institutions (MSIs) have been named by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as recipients of scholarship and fellowship grants worth a total value of $1.78 million.

On May 13, President Biden signed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, unlocking the $2.72 billion that Congress conditionally appropriated in March to increase production of low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).

The American Nuclear Society, in partnership with the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, is hosting its next Educator Training event, “K-12 Classroom Investigations: Exploring Background Radiation,” this Thursday, May 16, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. (EDT).

Register now. The event is complimentary and open to all.

Korsnick

Nuclear Energy Institute president and CEO Maria Korsnick delivered her State of the Nuclear Energy Industry address at NEI’s 2024 Nuclear Energy Policy Forum yesterday. The forum this year is taking place May 14–16 in Washington, D.C., and serves to gather industry leaders, executives, and experts for pivotal conversations about the federal and state nuclear policy landscapes.

Korsnick updated attendees on policy priorities of the industry and gave her perspective on nuclear energy’s present and future.

She centered her talk on national and global priorities to secure a clean energy future at the same time as achieving energy independence and security—all while meeting a massive increase in demand for power. “Nuclear energy remains the key” to addressing these priorities, she said.

Kristin Hirsch

Radioactive materials are used in medical, research, and commercial facilities to treat cancer, irradiate blood, sterilize food and equipment, and build economies worldwide. In the wrong hands, however, even a small amount of radioactive material can do a great deal of harm. A radiological dispersal device (RDD), otherwise known as a “dirty bomb,” is believed to be an attractive weapon for terrorist groups due to its scale of impact—panic, physical contamination, costly remediation, and denial of access to facilities and locations.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Radiological Security (ORS) enhances global security by preventing high-activity radioactive materials from being used in acts of terrorism. ORS implements its mission through three strategies: protecting radioactive sources used for vital medical, research, and commercial purposes by securing facilities that utilize radioactive isotopes; removing and disposing of disused sources; and encouraging the adoption and development of nonradioisotopic alternative technologies such as X-ray and electron beam irradiators.

The University of Michigan’s Fastest Path to Zero Initiative has launched the Global Fusion Forum, an online platform focused on fusion energy. It was created to foster international engagement and collaboration in the area of fusion technology.