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NSF Board Delving into Antarctic Harassment Response

The National Science Board, the governing body for the National Science Foundation, is devoting a large portion of its quarterly meeting

on Wednesday and Thursday to reviewing NSF’s response to sexual assault and harassment in Antarctica. The topic has been a priority for the board since an independent audit

in 2022 documented widespread harassment within the NSF-led U.S. Antarctic Program. In closed sessions, the board will hear “firsthand accounts of experiences in Antarctica” and receive updates on NSF’s recent actions, including the Office of Inspector General’s investigations

in Antarctica. The House Science Committee is also investigating the matter and recently sent a letter

to NSF critiquing its response to date. The committee urged the agency to do more to reform the culture of the Antarctic program and improve contractor oversight.

Senators Size Up Hurdles to Advanced Reactor Deployment

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will discuss opportunities and challenges associated with commercializing advanced nuclear reactors at a hearing

on Thursday. Senators are likely to bring up the company NuScale’s recent termination

of plans to build the first commercial small modular reactor power plant in the United States. The project was backed through a cost-share award

by the Department of Energy and would have been built at Idaho National Lab but was abandoned due to diminishing economic viability. The hearing witnesses are John Wagner, director of Idaho National Lab; Jeff Waksman, an official in the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office; Edward Stones, vice president of energy and climate at the Dow chemical company; and Jeffrey Merrifield, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. DOE is receiving almost $2.5 billion

from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to support two advanced reactor demonstration projects, one at a Dow facility in Texas and the other in Wyoming, the home state of Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-WY). Separately, DOD is funding development of a transportable microreactor capable of powering military bases. The effort, called Project Pele, is aiming to start testing its first reactor at Idaho National Lab in 2025 but is facing

safety and nonproliferation concerns that may cause delays.

Critical Minerals Supply Chains in the Spotlight

The House Science Committee will hold a hearing

Thursday morning on federal research initiatives to strengthen the critical mineral supply chains. The hearing witnesses include Ryan Peay, the head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Resource Sustainability, which is exploring

ways to extract critical minerals from byproducts of fossil fuel production. Also appearing are CEOs from supply chain investment and risk management companies and academic experts in critical minerals. On Thursday afternoon, the House Oversight Committee will hold a separate hearing

on securing critical mineral supply chains with witnesses from DOE’s Office of International Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Interior.The events follow a slate of actions announced

by the White House on Monday that are aimed at improving supply chain resilience, including for critical minerals. Among them, DOE has begun negotiations

to award $275 million from its Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling

program. The interagency National Science and Technology Council also plans to launch the website criticalminerals.gov in January that will highlight initiatives to strengthen supply chains, and a new White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience will produce its first quadrennial supply chain review by December 2024.

Research Security Roundtable to Meet

The National Science, Technology, and Security Roundtable organized by the National Academies will meet

on Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, DC. FBI intelligence analyst Priscilla Yeon-Vogelheim will open the meeting with a talk on how the bureau’s engagement with universities on research security has evolved in recent years. The roundtable will then discuss ways of providing due process to university researchers who are accused of wrongdoing, especially in cases where the allegations are adjudicated via administrative procedures rather than criminal proceedings. Subsequent sessions will review the Chinese government’s science and technology ambitions, research security practices at the federal contractor MITRE, and a research security framework

developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The meeting will conclude with a session on “creating a culture of research security in the age of open science” featuring Kelvin Droegemeier, who directed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Trump administration.

COP28 Climate Conference Kicks Off, Kerry to Announce Fusion Strategy

Delegates from 199 countries will converge in Dubai this week for the start of COP28,

the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference. This year’s conference will mark the conclusion of the first-ever “global stocktake,”

an assessment of countries’ progress toward meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. A technical report released in September as part of the stocktake found

that the world will not meet the Paris target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius unless countries accelerate their mitigation efforts. COP28 will provide an opportunity for governments to renegotiate targets for their next round of climate action plans, which are due by 2025. Unlike the previous two years, President Joe Biden is not expected to attend this year’s conference, though Special Envoy on Climate Change John Kerry and other senior administration officials will participate. Kerry told reporters he plans to unveil

the first international strategy for commercializing fusion energy during the conference. Earlier this month, the U.S. and UK announced

a new partnership built around advancing the U.S. Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy

 and the UK’s Fusion Strategy.