John Zino, Ph.D.
Engineering Manager
Gen. IV Advanced Reactor Nuclear Systems
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy

Abstract

This seminar will focus on providing an overview and background of several active new plant projects. He will discuss the current work for the BWR X-300 advanced Gen. III+ SMR project that is recently underway with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) Corporation. GEH is also partnered with Terrapower on the DOE sponsored Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project (ARDP) for the Natrium sodium fast reactor and molten salt energy storage concept. For the past three years, GEH has been the lead design authority for the DOE sponsored Versatile Test Reactor program with Idaho National Laboratory. Finally, GEH is also partnered with several other companies for both space nuclear thermal propulsion and fission surface power micro-reactor projects as well as terrestrial, mobile micro-reactors for DOE, NASA, and DOD customers.

Biography

John Zino is the Manager of Gen. IV Advanced Reactor Nuclear Systems Engineering at GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy. In this role he is responsible for systems engineering technical leadership for all GEH high-temperature Gen. IV advanced reactor technologies including Natrium, PRISM, micro-reactors, space reactors, and the Versatile Test Reactor program.

John has worked for GE’s nuclear business since 1999 in a variety of engineering and technical leadership roles including as Manager of BWR Systems Engineering, Manager of Methods & Software Development, Manager of Stability & Radiological Analysis and Manager of Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection for the Global Nuclear Fuel joint venture. Before joining GE, John worked for Westinghouse for 10 years at the Savannah River Technology Center as a reactor physics and criticality safety engineer. He started his career in 1986 as a shield design engineer for General Dynamics.

John received his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from N.C. State University, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear & Radiological Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. John also holds a part-time teaching position with the Engineering 2+2 Program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is an Associate Teaching Professor of Nuclear Engineering at N.C. State University.