Title:

Moving Beyond LWRs: Challenges and Opportunities

Speaker:

Mr. CJ Fong

Affiliation:

United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

When:

Thursday, November 13, 2014 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Boggs Building, Room 3-47

Host:

Anna Erickson/Mark Ellington
anna.erickson@me.gatech.edu
404-385-0419

Abstract

There is a significant and growing interest in deploying advanced reactor systems for a variety of purposes in the United States and abroad. The NRC expects commercial licensing applications both in the near term and over the next 1-2 decades. Despite perceived economic, safety, and security advantages over the current light water reactor fleet, significant challenges must be overcome prior to deployment of a commercial advanced reactor. This presentation offers an NRC perspective on both technical and policy-based challenges related to advanced reactors and is intended to spark a dialogue on the role that the academic community might play in resolving them.

Biography

CJ Fong joined the NRC in 2001 as a co-op student, while studying NRE as an undergrad at Georgia Tech. His first assignment was at the NRC’s field office in Atlanta, where he held a variety of technical positions related to nuclear engineering and reactor inspection including reactor inspector, construction project inspector, and senior construction project inspector.

In 2006, he was selected to participate in the NRC's Graduate Fellowship Program and he subsequently earned a Master's Degree in nuclear engineering at MIT under the advisement of Dr. George Apostolakis. His research focused on techniques used to assess the reliability of passive safety systems for advanced reactors. In 2011, CJ was selected to serve as the NRC’s on-site representative (resident inspector) at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City, TN.

CJ currently works as a reliability and risk analyst in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at NRC headquarters in Rockville, MD. His work involves reviewing the technical adequacy of risk-informed design changes to light water reactors and the development and implementation of policy related to reactor risk. He has published several papers on probabilistic risk assessment and he holds an active professional engineer’s license in the state of Georgia. His personal interests include music, cooking, and baseball.