Education and Training Series #110: Overview of the various UK NNL activities supporting advanced reactor systems and their related fuel cycles
This webinar is part of a series hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group since 2016.
The link to register to this webinar can be found on this page under "about this webinar".
Who should attend?
Policymakers, industry professionals, regulators, researchers, students, the general public.
About the "GIF Education and Training" Webinars
These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.
These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG).
About this Webinar
The UK development of nuclear technologies parallels that seen globally, as such there is a long history of research and development into a wide range of reactors and nuclear fuel cycles. UK National Nuclear Laboratory is the UK’s lead civil national laboratory for nuclear fission, delivering nuclear science to benefit society UK’s home of fission. The UK has ambitious plans for ‘a golden age of nuclear’; this presentation will describe the UK energy context and the range of activities that UKNNL are undertaking to ensure that we have the skills, capability, knowledge and technology to ensure that we can meet this challenge. In this webinar we will present the need to maintain our capability to support existing reactors – from fuel production to waste disposal, our Advanced Modular Reactor Programmes and our enabling activities such as chemical, process and fuel cycle modelling.
Dr. Patricia Paviet from PNNL, USA, member of GIF ETWG will facilitate this webinar.
Meet the presenters and moderator
Dr
Michael EDMONDSON
Dr Michael Edmondson is a Cross Discipline Technical Lead and Associate Fellow at UKNNL. Drawing experience from a variety of roles at Sellafield since 2003, he is key figure in the waste management and decommissioning directorate and the lead for molten salt technologies. Mike has led projects associated with reprocessing and historic waste management, and he has a keen interest in innovated recycle and decommissioning techniques. He chairs the UK Molten Salt Technology Platform, is vice chair of the NEA Expert Group on Fuel Recycle and Waste Treatment and has chaired several international workshops on molten salt technologies.
Dr
Seddon ATKINSON
Dr Seddon Atkinson is a technical lead at UKNNL and a Chartered Engineer. He works across a range of disciplines related to advanced nuclear technology, specifically High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors (HTGR). Seddon has been working on the UKJ-HTR programme which looked at deploying a HTGR in the UK to supporting industrial applications for the last few years. Seddon is the UK delegate for the OECD-NEA Working Party on Scientific Issues of Reactor Systems and co-leads UKNNL’s internal core science programme for Reactor Technology. Alongside new reactor projects, Seddon works in the area of Safeguards and Non-Proliferation supporting the IAEA on their ongoing mission.
Ms
Nassia TZELEPI
Ms Nassia Tzelepi is the Senior Fellow and Technology Leader for Graphite Technology and Post Irradiation Examination. Her responsibilities include (i) providing strategic direction and technical leadership for graphite technology in UKNNL, (ii) consultancy to support lifetime extension, graphite waste management and new reactor technology design and licensing, (iii) maintaining measurements standards by chairing the ASTM committee D02.F, and (iv) representing UK graphite skills and capability at GIF. Nassia is currently the cross-discipline technical lead for the UKJ-HTR programme under the Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) Phase B.
Dr
Patricia PAVIET
Dr. Patricia Paviet was the first chair of the GIF Education and Training Working Group (2015-2024). She now focuses on leading the efforts of the successful GIF Education and Training webinars series and has been doing so since the inception of this initiative in September 2016.
She serves on the GIF MSR pSSC representing the United States since 2021. She joined GIF in November 2015, as chair of the Education and Training Task Force. Outside GIF, Dr. Paviet is the National Technical Director of the Molten Salt Reactor Program for the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy. She is managing the research supporting molten salt reactor development across six U.S. national laboratories. She is also a Senior Technical Advisor at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, providing guidance on used nuclear fuel recycling. She has an extensive technical background on the nuclear fuel cycle (front and back end).