World Nuclear University Launched

nuke-alwin writes "The first meeting of the 'academic council' of the newly-launched World Nuclear University (WNU) was held in the UK last week. The mission of the WNU is to strengthen the international community of people and institutions to guide and further develop nuclear power and many other nuclear applications (in agriculture, medicine, environmental protection). As workers in the nuclear industry are aging, organisations have started Young Generation Networks such as the YGN of the British Nuclear Energy Society. The WNU is a further recognition that the nuclear industry needs to educate a new generation of workers, so that nuclear power can continue to provide electricity without the production of greenhouse gases."

Comments

A few thoughts on nuclear power

[acaird]

1. how odd is it that as I'm typing this "Dr. Strangelove" just started on TCM...
2. I vaguely recall learning that some incredibly large fraction of the cost of a nuclear power plant (and thus what the utility charges) is legal fees getting it built, and that is why no new plants have been built in the last 20 or so years
3. Yes, nuclear plants produce very dangerous byproducts. However, you know right where they are - in those little metal tubes. Contrast with coal/natural gas/oil plants. Much of the waste from those plants is, well, sort of everywhere. If the non-nuclear power plants had the same emissions standards (even if it was just the same radiation emmission standards) as nuclear power plants, electricity would be fantastically expensive.
4. Nuclear waste can be stored and processed and transported safely. It's done every day. I've seen it. Why isn't it re-processed? Again, the legal fees in defending the construction of a plant make it cheaper to leave it at the plants.
5. Nuclear plants in the U.S (and Europe and Asia) cannot blow up like Chernobyl. In two sentences: When Chernobyl (and like reactors, known as RBMKs) get hot, the reaction rate increases, then they get hotter, then the reaction rate increase, then they get hotter, until the structure can't take it. Non-RBMK's (all of the reactors in US, Europe, Asia, etc.) have a negative coefficient of reactivity; when they get hot the reaction slows. This is a property of physics, not of any external controls.
6. Interesting that there is a "shortage" of nuclear workers. Of the 10 people in my undergraduate nuclear engineering class (U. of Michigan, 1989-93), 4 are in IT-related fields, 1 is in the nuclear Navy, 1 is doing brain cancer treatment research (nuclear medicine), 1 is managing hotels, and I've lost track of the other three. It's tough to find work as an entry-level nuclear engineer, even if you want it.
7. Personally, I believe nuclear power is the lesser evil of coal, oil, and natural gas.
8. Construction of solar panels generates all sorts of nasty waste, and panels, by definition, make shade where there used to be sun - for all of the interest in solar power these two facts are often overlooked. Perhaps we just don't like the desert ecosystem. :) Panels on building, if they can be constructed with minimum environmental damage, are a good idea, but just can't produce enough power at those sizes to matter too much.
9. Wind and tide power have promise; nice mechanical systems with (hopefully) manageable environmental impacts.
10. Hydro-electric pretty much defines negative environmental impact.
11. Geothermal is great. In Iceland.

A. Caird
B.S. Nuc. Eng. 1993 U. of Michigan
M.S. Nuc. Eng. 1996 U. of Michigan
(but I've never worked as a nuclear engineer; IT jobs are available in nearly every city in the world, computational reactor design jobs are not)

Take it for what it's worth.