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

Dear Sirs,

[grub]

We would be very blessed to have our best students
attend your Nuclear School. Our people need this
nuclear information to produce power so that we may
destroy western infidels^W^W our dependence on fossil
fuels while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Yours very truly,

Osama bin Laden &
Saddam Hussein

interesting choice of words in headline.

[Savatte]

When in the same sentence, the words 'launch' and 'nuclear' usually signal bad things are to come.

Just what the world needs

[Znonymous Coward]

A bunch of drunk college frat boys with nuclear waste. Nothing can go wrong with that at all.

Uranium in the atmosphere

[Gothmolly]

It's interesting that the amount of uranium (in a natural distribution of isotopes) injected in the atmosphere by the burning of coal greatly exceeds the amount put in by nuclear weaponry or nuclear plant crisis. In fact, in the U.S., more people die per year from natural gas (leaks, explosions, housefires) than due to radiation. The real danger to the general population is the mishandling or theft of spent nuclear fuel. Plutonium oxide is very poisonous, in addition to being radioactive. Remember to check scientific fact before arming the FUD Torpedos.

It is a double edged sword

[George Walker Bush]

My fellow Americans,

I am extremely concerned about this nuclear school and what it means for our national securitization. We must not misunderestimatify the potential for doing both good and evil that this nuclear school provides. We must keep tabs on it to make sure that the nuclear knowledge does not fall into the wrong hands and remains in the control of Americans for the good of America.

Thank you and God bless America.

When is the US going to grow up?

[QuantumRiff]

When is the US going to grow up and recycle and refine spent uranium, instead of trying so hard to bury it in the ground. Other countries have breeder reactors that refine used uranium, meaning less fuel mined, less waste made, and the waste that is made has less radioactivity and half life...

We have enough power generation capacity sitting in nuclear waste cooldown pools to run all of our nuclear power plants for several decades... we just have to refine it.

Re:LOLx2 Need More Nuclear Workers

[ninthwave]

I grew up in Harrisburg PA so I have a bias here. I watched Three Mile Island be built and I watched them take away the damaged reactor. From my childhood into my young adulthood. I believe in the theory of nuclear power as a clean efficient fuel source, I fear the economics that lead to companies cutting corners to increase profits. Until the American system of capitalism can include social, environmental concerns in the structure of a company that works with material as this the risk is too high. It is the human nature not the science that lets us down with nuclear power.

And the waste solutions.

Re:Nuclear Power is the future

[Brandybuck]

There have been a lot of sensible proposals for the secure safe storage of nuclear waste, but every one has been shouted down by the "anti-nuke" crowd. Not in my county! Not in my state. Heck, not even in my continent!

What's wrong with abandoned salt mines? It may not be perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than steels drums sitting around. Or what about encasing the waste in ceramic nodules and dumping them into the Marianas trench? Digging mile long shafts into geologically stable granite mountains?

Europe's using a heck of a lot of nuclear power. Probably ten times what the US is using. What do they do with it?

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.