This year’s Waste Management conference was held in Phoenix, March 9 - 12. It occurred right at the start of the coronavirus epidemic and numbers were down from previous years. There was almost no-one from China, Japan and Korea for instance.
As in previous years, the UK contingent had a large percentage of participants from Universities - some of them bringing more people than the NDA, NNL, Sellafield, etc and certainly more than the supply chain companies send. Although Waste Management is a technical conference, and Universities do contribute, it is dominated by the US national labs so the UK is a bit of an outlier. It’s not clear why this is the case; perhaps Universities in the UK are doing more than the national lab or the supply chain? Maybe they have more money available to send people to conferences? Whatever the reason, it doesn’t feel quite right.
Our LinkedIn post of 10 March covered most of the conference activities so we won’t repeat it here but suffice to say it was great as usual. I thought I would share a few images that haven’t already been covered. The transport of nuclear waste across the US is quite a big business and there are always some of those companies attending. And they often bring with them HUGE trucks to show off.
Retro cab with 13 gears
Modern truck carrying the new Orano flask
Getting home proved slightly more tricky than normal due to the city starting to be locked down just as we were leaving. Hotels and restaurants closed and flights cancelled. Luckily, Virgin reinstated our flight and it took aff as planned - the last one out. Phew. We arrived back into an empty Heathrow the next day to a different world.
Next year, assuming everything is back to normal, will have the UK as a feature country. This normally means a separate area in the exhibition hall focussing on UK companies. If you know Anthony Bamford from NNL, please contact him if you are interested in attending. If you don’t know Anthony, please PM me and I can put you in touch.
We have updated the Idea Catalog with new found knowledge from the conference, including new technologies and updated information on uses, specifications, etc., so please sign in there to find out more if you couldn’t attend.