Greetings from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I've decamped to attend the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly at The Westin Charlotte Hotel. Though the conference won't officially begin until tomorrow, participants have already started to arrive in town ahead of tomorrow's opening session.
Working with my colleague, John Keeley, I'll be doing my level best to give you some insight into what's happening here via NEI Nuclear Notes as well as our Twitter feeds (@N_E_I and @NEI_Media) and our Facebook page. We've also set up a dedicated page on our website, NEI.org. When you follow us on Twitter, please be on the lookout for our hashtag, #NEA2012.
That'll be especially important on Wednesday morning when we'll be covering a panel discussion chaired by NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer Tony Pietrangelo on lessons learned from Fukushima. If you'd like to ask a question of the panelists, send us an email at questions@nei.org or simply tweet them with the #NEA2012 hashtag.
So who's here? I've cut and pasted parts of our official media advisory into the space below to give you a better idea. So please stick around, we'll have plenty of great content to share over the next 72 hours.
Nuclear Energy Industry Leaders Will Hold Major Conference in Charlotte, N.C., May 21-23
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Hundreds of nuclear energy industry executives will convene May 21-23 in Charlotte, N.C., for business meetings and policy discussions associated with the Nuclear Energy Institute's major annual conference, the Nuclear Energy Assembly.
The conference takes place with five new reactors under construction in the Southeast, license extension applications for 15 operating reactors under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 65 reactors being built worldwide. It also comes with Congress taking early steps to advance used nuclear fuel management recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, and with the industry implementing a "flexible and diverse" strategy to enhance the readiness of U.S. facilities to safely respond to extreme events based on key lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
NEA will be held at The Westin Charlotte, 601 S. College St. Several leading U.S. government officials will speak during the conference:
• U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
• NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko
• North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue
• Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Scott O'Malia
Other non-industry speakers include:
• Anthony Foxx, mayor of Charlotte
• Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
• Sir Ken Robinson
• Philip Jones, vice president, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
• Dr. Susan Winsor, president, Aiken Technical College in South Carolina
• Mark Mills, founder, Digital Power Group
• William Borchardt, NRC executive director for operations
• David Lochbaum, director, Union of Concerned Scientists
Industry leaders who will participate include:
• William Johnson, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Progress Energy and chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute
• Marvin Fertel, president and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
• Charles Pardee, chief operating officer, Exelon Generation Co.
• Dennis Koehl, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, Excel Energy
• Caroline Reda, president and CEO, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
• Stephen Kuczynski, chairman, president and CEO, Southern Nuclear Operating Co.
• Stephen Byrne, COO and president, generation and transmission, South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.
• Clarence Ray Jr., CEO, Shaw Power Group
• Bob Willard, president and CEO, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
• Steven Lau, first deputy general manager, Daya Bay Nuclear Power in China
• Anthony Pietrangelo, senior vice president and CNO, Nuclear Energy Institute
Nuclear energy provides 20 percent of American electricity supplies, and 70 percent of the electricity generated by low-carbon sources. U.S. nuclear facilities produced nearly 800 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2011, with an industry-average production cost of about two cents per kilowatt-hour.
For news coverage visit our dedicated NEA Web page. During the Fukushima Daiichi panel discussion Wednesday morning, Pietrangelo and his fellow panelists will take questions submitted via email and Twitter. Interested parties can submit their questions to questions@nei.org, or simply publish their questions on Twitter with the conference's official hashtag, #NEA2012.
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