Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Matthew Wald, the New York Times’ learned but reliably skeptical nuclear energy reporter for the last 25 years, is taking things a step further and teaching an online course in nuclear power beginning October 12. The course runs two weeks and will feature live sessions on successive Thursday evenings, Oct. 14 and 21. Registration is $125.

Over the years, Wald has been a faithful contrarian on nuclear power, dutifully reporting studies from the Union of Concerned Scientists, cajoling Entergy’s efforts to find the tritium leak at Vermont Yankee, speculating on what might have happened if the September 11th terrorists had hit the waste pool at the Indian Point nuclear point instead of the World Trade Center (Technology Review, December 2004) and questioning whether a Nuclear Renaissance will ever take place (Technology Review, November-December 2009.)

So it will be interesting to see how this nuclear agnostic presents nuclear energy and its possibilities to a neophyte audience. At the price of fattening the NYT’s coffers by $125, several NTH reporters plan to sign up to monitor the proceedings and, if necessary, offer a data point or two. You should too.

Learn more about it at the New York Times
 

Let’s face it. All the glossy Power Point presentations and droning voices of corporate executives telling us about the virtues of nuclear power are never going to make much impression with the public. But how about a creative young artist in North Carolina who overcame an early indoctrination about the horrors of nuclear power and has gone on to found an entire business to change its image in the public mind?

Suzanne Hobbs, an arts graduate from Appalachian State University, has founded Popatomic Studios, “focused on making designs and public artwork that challenge commonly held fears and misconceptions about nuclear energy from a fun and positive artistic perspective.”  She has assembled an impressive board of directors and put up a website that features t-shirts, tote bags and posters decorated with her original designs.

“PopAtomic Studios is now carefully cultivating positive attention surrounding the reemerging Nuclear Energy Industry, using art as a spring board for new public dialogues about responsible energy creation,” says her bio. In her most recent blog, Suzy gives a touching account of the day her high school biology teacher informed the class of the evils of nuclear power, forcing her to go home and confront her father – a nuclear engineer – about all the horrible things he was doing to the world.

Her father had the wisdom to let her find out the truth for herself. It’s a great read. If nuclear is going to make any headway with the public it’s going to be through efforts like Popatomic Studios. Bookmark the page right now.

Read more at PopAtomic.org

“With unfilled jobs on the line at nuclear power plants in southwest Michigan, a bachelor’s degree program at Lake Michigan College might provide a solution.”

That’s the way the South Bend Tribune introduces the story that the Michigan State Legislature may adopt a bill that would allow community colleges to offer programs in nuclear science. South Bend is in Indiana, of course, but word travels fast.

Southern Michigan has two nuclear reactors, Cook and Palisades, and both are hiring. Lake Michigan College, which is in the area, has already set up an associates’ program that turned out 52 graduates this year. The new bill would expand this effort throughout the state.

Not that it is any sure thing. A bill that has already passed the lower House of Representatives only adds programs in nursing, culinary arts, and cement and manufacturing technologies. That sounds like Michigan’s Old Economy. But Senators Michael Switalski and Jud Gilbert want to add a nuclear portion to the bill in the Senate.

Even then there is opposition. “The bottom line: [the bill] duplicates existing programs, and it’s costly,” Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan told the Tribune. “We should be doing more collaboration, not duplication. “There are no unmet needs.”

Still, it’s promising that somebody sees a future in nuclear.

Read more at the South Bend Tribune

The Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment appears to be becoming  a factory for anti-nuclear propaganda, turning out one manifesto after another about the dire consequences of developing new reactors.

The institute staff is loaded with lawyers, PhD’s in economics, plus former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Peter Bradford, who is now on the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Vermont institute observers have always thought it would be nice if they had an engineer or two who understood something about the nuts and bolts of energy;  however, for their latest manifesto, it would have been sufficient to have someone who understood logic concluded one Renaissance wag.

The latest study, whose title is too long and dull to be listed here, tells us that France has made a huge mistake in going nuclear and that a similar fate awaits the U.S. if we follow the same path.

Got that?  France has the second-lowest carbon emissions in Europe (behind only Sweden, which is half nuclear, half hydro). It has Europe’s lowest electrical rates. It imports only half as much natural gas from Germany and Britain because it doesn’t need it to generate electricity. It is the world’s largest exporter electricity, collecting $3 billion a year by shipping surplus nuclear electricity to Germany and Italy, which have foolishly stymied development of their own reactors.

So what’s the problem?  Well, here’s what senior economic analyst Mark Cooper has to say:

1)     Nuclear reactors are expensive to build.

2)     Investment in nuclear has “crowded out” investment in conservation and renewable energy.

Let’s take a look. Sure, nuclear has become expensive to build. So has everything else. To put 1500 MW of generating capacity in windmills would cost almost the same amount as building a reactors – except that when you’re through you’d have a system that only works one-third of the time and requires more billions in transmission lines to carry it to where it’s needed.

But the point is this. France already has its reactors. They were smart and put them up in the 1970s and 1980s when they didn’t have to compete with China for building materials and before bureaucratic oversight made it almost impossible to build anything in Europe or America. We should have done the same thing.

Cooper then argues that reactors have led to “nuclear socialism,” but in case he hasn’t noticed, everything in France is owned by the government. EDF, the national electric company is owned by the government, Areva is 80 percent owned by the government, radio and television stations are owned by the government airlines are owned by the government – it’s the legacy of Louis XIV. We have dozens of private companies and utilities in this country that could build nuclear if only we would let them.

So now how about the point that nuclear has “crowded out” investment in wind and solar?  The answer to that is, “So what?” or better yet, “Thank goodness!”  Spain, Germany and Denmark have allowed investment in renewables to “crowd out” nuclear and what have they got for it?  Spain ended up with abandoned solar factories and had heavy industries moving to France for cheaper electricity. Denmark has the highest electrical rates in Europe, a grid that operates on imported coal and a landscape where you can no longer go anywhere without being in sight of a windmill. Germany has become highly reliable on Russian natural gas, imports nuclear electricity from France and is playing with fire by talking about shutting down its own 17 reactors.

But the point is this. Saying nuclear has “crowded out” renewable investment isn’t even an argument. It is only an assumption that renewables are the “wave of the future” and that anything that stands in their way is bad. Where’s the evidence that renewables are a better investment than nuclear?  There is none. In logic, this is called “assuming that which is to be proved.”

It is unlikely the Vermont Law School will have much impact in France. Unfortunately, it may have a marginal effect in persuading the good people of Vermont to give up one-third of their electricity by closing down Vermont Yankee.

Read more at Nuclear Power Daily

Bucking what seemed to be a revived interest in nuclear engineering, the number of B.S. degrees awarded in 2009 declined 13 percent while master’s degrees fell 10 percent. The figures come from a report issued by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
 
Despite the decline in degrees, enrollment in nuclear programs around the country rose 15 percent, reaching the highest point since the 1980s. Richard Toohey, who helps manage the Oak Ridge Institute, said he expected the awarding of degrees to increase again next year as students and schools gear up for the coming Nuclear Renaissance.

Read more at Atomic City Underground

By Nuclear Townhall Staff
Perhaps the most promising aspect of the Nuclear Renaissance is the revival of high-paying engineering, machine operating and construction skills in this country. That process is already beginning in Alabama.

Northeast Alabama Community College announced this week it will be opening a new training center for nuclear workers within sight of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Bellefonte site.

"TVA expects to hire and train many people in these fields over the next decade," said NACC president David Campbell, who also serves as chairman of the Jackson County Economic Development Authority.

Jobs will range from industrial electronics and machine maintenance to construction skills such as welders, pipefitters and electricians. After a two-and-a-half-year training program with TVA, electricians make a starting salary of $63,000.

The TVA has two partially completed reactors at the Bellefonte site. It is currently deliberating on whether to resume construction or to begin anew with the Westinghouse AP1000 design. Even if TVA decides not to build at all, Campbell said, there would be plenty of job opportunities at the utility's other newly completed reactors at Watts Bar and Brown's Ferry.

One of the favorite arguments against the Nuclear Renaissance has been that America no longer has the industrial skills to build anything as complicated as a nuclear reactor. Specialty welders of the kind required by containment structures, for instance, are now in short supply. But NACC initiative shows that the Nuclear Renaissance is going to be about more than providing the nation with adequate power – it's going to be about the revival of good industrial jobs.

Read more at the Times-Journal

If the future depends on the inclinations of the younger generation, nuclear power may be in great shape.

This year’s C-Span “StudentCam” contest has been won by three middle school girls from Racine, Wisconsin who did their eight-minute video on – the virtues of nuclear power! 

Madison Richards, Samantha Noll and Lauren Nixon did a marvelous job of gathering old TV footage, speeches by Senator Lamar Alexander and Skype interviews of such important figures as Patrick Moore, Helen Caldicott, Tom Meston of Westinghouse and former NRC Commissioner Dale Klein.  They presented both sides, conducted surveys and asked intelligent questions.  They even got children from their school to perform a playground routine illustrating the principles of nuclear fission.

But in the end the message is clear:  “Perhaps the sun is setting on fossil fuels,” says narrator Madison Richards, “and a new light is being shed on nuclear power for our future power needs.  Will the people of the United States accept this challenge?”

Anybody want to hire these girls for their marketing department?

See the video at C-SPAN

Then come back to Nuclear Townhall and give us your take

- William Tucker

One of the things that makes nuclear energy so apparently forbidding is that it’s so hard to get into a reactor. It leaves the appearance that there’s something horrible going on in there the public isn’t supposed to see.

An Illinois plant engineer have decided to remedy this by instituting “Nuclear 101,” an introductory look around the Braidswood Plant for high school and middle school teachers. Having dispelled some of the aura of mystery around nuclear, Morgan Davis hopes the teachers will take the message back to their students – and perhaps bring them for a visit as well. The local chapter of North American Young Generation in Nuclear is also sponsoring the project.

Nuclear 101 claims to be the first program in the country to offer public school teachers the chance to tour a plant for educational purposes. If so, that’s scary. Lord knows, the young people are already hearing enough from the anti-nuclear side of the story.

If nothing else, exposure to real live reactors should be of assistance to young people in making career choices. Davis herself says she first became interested in becoming a nuclear engineer after touring a plant while still in school.

Read the report in the Morris Daily Herald

Then come back to Nuclear Townhall and give us your take

- William Tucker