Events

  • Former New Jersey DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette speaking during an earlier Sweeney Center energy  conference.

Events

The Sweeney Center Event Calendar

 

Expanding New Jersey's Nuclear Generation Capacity

Rowan Energy Collaborative/Sweeney Center for Public Policy 
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
Eynon Ballroom, Chamberlain Student Center, Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road, Glassboro, NJ 08028
Registration: 8:00 a.m. Program: 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
 
The Sweeney Center’s sixth energy conference will bring together top state government officials, industry executives, environmental leaders and academic experts to focus on the fiscal, regulatory and environmental challenges New Jersey faces in seeking to build new full-sized or Small Modular Reactors to expand nuclear generation capacity.
 
Speakers include:
  • Christine Guhl-Sadovy, President, Board of Public Utilities, and Co-Chair of Governor Sherrill's Nuclear Policy Task Force, who will deliver the luncheon keynote;
  • Ed Potosnak, Acting Commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection,
  • Evan Weiss, CEO of the Economic Development Authority;
  • Senator John Burzichelli, sponsor of the nuclear tax credits bill;
  • James Wyble III, Vice President, Americas Region, Westinghouse, and lead for  AP1000 project development in North America -- the AP1000 is the model that PSEG Nuclear is proposing to use for the fourth reactor to be built at its Salem County complex;
  • Patrick O’Brien, Director of Government Affairs and Communications for Holtec, which is proposing to build Small Modular Reactors at Oyster Creek in Ocean County;
  • Stephen Sweeney, the former Ironworkers Union international vice president who sponsored nuclear tax credit legislation as Senate president;
  • Ken Robell, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Salem Community College, which has run a nuclear technology training program in partnership with PSEG Nuclear since 2010;
  • Christopher Peters, Associate Teaching Professor, Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering, whose Ph.D. is in nuclear engineering;
  • Marie Casanova, Director of the Green Jobs Academy, Rowan University, and Co-Director of ROWEC;
  • Erick Ford, President of the New Jersey Energy Policy Coalition.

Guhl-Sadovy, Potosnak, Weiss and O'Brien all serve on the Governor's recently appointed Nuclear Policy Task Force. Other speakers will include senior officials from PSEG Nuclear and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Moderators will include former New Jersey BPU Commissioner Bob Gordon; Yolanda Mack, Associate Dean for Workforce Development & Industry Partnerships, Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering, Rowan Universsity, and Sweeney Center Director Mark Magyar.

The conference will benchmark potential New Jersey initiatives against other states and showcase early findings from the interdisciplinary Rowan Energy Collaborative's State Policy Lab study.

Attendance is free, and breakfast and lunch are included. To register for the conference, click here

For further information on the conference, please contact Sweeney Center Director Mark Magyar at magyarm@rowan.edu.