The Early Career Technical Seminar is being held for early career engineers interested in the field of nuclear energy. The goal of the seminar is to provide early career engineers with an opportunity to gain technical, soft-skill and professional development knowledge in one forum while increasing their awareness of industry issues, constraints and future trends. The seminar will also provide the opportunity to network with industry leaders, and to see and interact with suppliers/vendors in the exhibits area.

On/Before April 14, 2008 After April 14, 2008 / On Site ECTS (Monday/Tuesday) $295 $395 ECTS Upgrade to include full access to ICONE sessions $825 $930

Online registration is available.

Early Career Technical Seminar Schedule

The schedule for the Early Career Technical Seminar is below. Please note the program is subject to change.

For more information, please contact Christina Perakis, ASME, Knowledge and Community - Unit Support, at perakisc@asme.org.

Monday, May 12, 2008
7:00 AM – 8:00 AM	Breakfast (sponsored) roundtable with industry experts
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM	ICONE Conference Opening/Keynote Session Speakers will address the conference theme, "Powering the Way to a Cleaner and Brighter Future." Speakers include: Dale Klein – Chairman, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Dennis Spurgeon – Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, US Department of Energy Toshiaki Enomoto – Chairman and CEO, Japan Electric Power Information Center Romana Jordan-Cizelj – Member, EU Parliament Jianfeng Yu – Vice President, China National Nuclear Corporation Ihor Ostash – Ukraine Ambassador to Canada
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM	Conference Coffee Break
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM	Technical Session: Who Designed This Thing? — How to Incorporate Operations and Maintenance Considerations into Design Ever purchased a new car and, after driving it for a few days, discovered something really annoying that you never would have found in a test drive, and thought “Who designed this thing?” Or tried to repair something that has a connection that requires three or four very small hands to take apart, and thought the same thing? Engineers do design work, but operators and maintenance personnel have to live with what we give them. Power plants provide opportunities to work in both a very large world (think 100 ton vessels and piping 36” in diameter) and very small one (Digital Control Systems). The challenge in every case is to design a system or component that: Construction (or the shop) can build Operations can use. Maintenance can work on. The first is usually easy; the Engineer will certainly hear from Construction or the shop if the item cannot be built easily. The other two, the focus of this seminar, are much more difficult, unless Operations and Maintenance are involved from Day 1 in the Design work. This seminar will look at some real world examples of good intentioned Engineering that were not successful in the long run. All engineers, whether they have 20 years experience or are right out of school, need to remember the “KISS” principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid. Engineers have the knowledge and technical skills, and sometimes 20 years experience and very good intentions, to over-design systems and add all the bells and whistles. Sometimes this is good; sometimes it over-complicates the design. The seminar will also look at ways companies are improving their processes to prevent these issues from recurring. Scheduled Speakers: John C. Minichiello – Technical Consultant, AREVA Larry Foulke – Adjunct Professor, University of Pittsburgh, and Past President, American Nuclear Society
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM	Q&A Session with Industry Leader (TBD) Lunch sponsored by Westinghouse
2:00 PM – 3:45 PM	Panel: How Will the New Plants Be Built? New plants being planned for today’s market will be much simpler in design than the current operating fleet of reactors. These new designs, promoting passive safety features, will require less material and equipment, such as concrete, pumps, values, cable and piping thus reducing the cost and time to build. In addition to these reductions, current plant designs will rely more on modular construction techniques already used in other industries such as ship building and oil rig construction. This will reduce overall build time and onsite construction needs and capabilities while improving the quality through in factory processes and controls of manufacturing and assembly. Through the use of computer planning models current plants are constructed first in virtual space incorporating lessons learned of older plants, optimizing construction time, resources, placement of equipment and routing of cable and piping. Vendors today will need to rely on a global supply chain to provide equipment, manufacturing and heavy metal forging capabilities to support an international new plant market. These computer planning models will also interface with the global supply chain identifying the source of supply and when critical components and materials are needed for construction. The licensing of new plants through the one step process of the COL (combined operating license) will streamline the regulatory process helping to reduce the risk of costly construction delays. Scheduled Speakers: Regis Matzie — Senior VP & Chief Technical Officer, Westinghouse Electric Co. John E. Goossen — Director, Science and Technology Department, Westinghouse Electric Co.
3:45 PM – 4:00 PM	Conference Coffee Break
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM	Technical Session: Plant Outage Planning and Implementation This session will explore the importance and issues of a nuclear plant outage from the perspective of a customer and a vendor (in this case Westinghouse). When speaking from a utility's point of view the following areas will be discussed: What is a nuclear plant outage? The daily budget, dose and man-hours that get expended in relation to the operating period Replacement power costs and effect of Buss Bar rates for scheduled outages. How outages are conducted - past and present. How utilities got to this point in terms of safety, outage planning, ALARA initiatives, outage management and OCC, pre and post outage reviews and GAP analysis Where are utilities going and what are the challenges Westinghouse will cover the following aspects: Outages from a vendors point of view (safety) How outages were performed in the past and the dose pick -up How vendors plan and execute outages today Advances in robotics, tooling and remote servicing Dose reduction methods Challenges going forward in resources and outage scheduling including peaks and valleys, training of resources, managing resources and resource retention Regulatory impact and drivers A discussion on a day in the life of an outage manager from Westinghouse and a utility will also be included. Scheduled Speakers: John Meskanick — Manager of Outage Operations, Westinghouse Electric Co.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM	ICONE Conference Opening Reception/ Icebreaker
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
7:00 AM – 8:00 AM	Breakfast (sponsored) roundtable with industry experts
8:00 AM – 1:00 PM	Workshop: ASME Codes This seminar on Codes and Standards helps you bridge the gap between your college education and on-the-job training, in the fundamentals of design, operations and maintenance practices. This seminar features recognized leaders in code development and application. The program will address the codes and standards used in the nuclear industry, with an emphasis on new plant construction. Topics to be covered include: What are codes and standards and how they are developed How codes and standards impact design and construction Codes applicable to examination, inservice testing and inspection, and repair and replacement of components and systems and how those codes and standards affect design Attendees will also participate in a case study on how to apply codes & standards when designing a system Scheduled Speakers: Ken Balkey – Vice President of Nuclear Codes and Standards, ASME, and Consulting Engineer, Westinghouse Electric Co. Nathan Palm – Senior Engineer, Westinghouse Electric Co. Marcus N. Bressler – President, M N Bressler, P E, INC; Member, ASME Board on Nuclear Codes & Standards Rick Swayne – Principal Consultant, Reedy Engineering, Inc.; Member, ASME Board on Nuclear Codes & Standards John C. Minichiello – Technical Consultant, AREVA
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM	Lunch (Sponsored)
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM	Technical Session: Industry Events This session covers general information about the recognition and the mitigation of events that can result in nuclear core damage. Several major industry events will be discussed: TMI, Chernobyl, Salem ATWS, and Davis Besse. Discussion will include the root causes of the events, as well as human factors and how they can affect core damage. The focus of this session is not just on "what" happened, but "why" each event occurred and, most importantly, what has been done to prevent recurrence. The impact of these events, lessons learned and the resulting changes to regulations, codes and standards, and plant operations will be discussed. Scheduled Speakers: Rick Swayne – Principal Consultant, Reedy Engineering, Inc.; Member, ASME Board on Nuclear Codes & Standards J. Samuel Walker – Historian, US NRC
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM	Technical Session: The Licensing and Regulatory Process   This session covers the licensing and regulatory framework and how it guides the design, operation and maintenance of plant components and systems. It will address: The role of the NRC The reactor licensing process (10CFR50.52) The framework for regulatory documents The purpose of the Code of Federal Regulations FSAR Technical Specifications Commitments Generic Letters Codes and Standards NUREGs The difference between Design Basis and Licensing Basis The change process (10CFR50.59) Major issues associated with the operation of existing nuclear plants (license renewal, risk-based regulation, UFSAR re-baselining, fire protection, improved Tech Specs, and decommissioning) are discussed. Scheduled Speakers: Thomas A. Bergman – Deputy Director for Licensing Operations, U.S. NRC Kenneth Ainger – Director, Exelon Generation Co.