PHOENIX—Roughly 2,600 people involved with nuclear waste and related fields are taking over this desert city’s downtown convention center this week for the 49th Waste Management Symposia.
Monday’s headliners including U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and a French energy official.
In addition to Granholm, other speakers in Monday morning’s plenary session are DOE Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White and two speakers from this year’s featured country of France.
These include Sophie Mourlon, director of the French ministry of energy transition, and CEO of Veolia’s France and Special Waste Europe, Jean-François Nogrette. Nogrette’s responsibility includes overseeing Veolia Nuclear Solutions, which specializes in the cleanup and treatment of nuclear waste and includes VNS Federal Services in the United States.
DOE’s assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy, Kathryn Huff, who is involved with issues ranging from life extensions for existing plants to consent-based siting for nuclear waste disposal, will deliver a luncheon address. She will be joined via webcast from Washington, D.C., by U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, (R-Tenn.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee’s energy and water development panel.
Before the conference adjourns Thursday, there will be presentations on issues including Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, microreactors, doing business with DOE’s $8 billion nuclear cleanup office and updates on sites such as the Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
This is the second year of the Phoenix conference being back in person again following a two-year online hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A full look at the technical agenda can be found here.
