Love Among the Cooling Towers

He’s young and scruffy, with puppy dog eyes:

She’s fresh and vivacious, who likes to – do – something out front of the facility (must be a windy day):

When they meet, can love be far behind?

Vodka and cooling towers? Will there be a second date?

World Nuclear News has the story of a new Russian film called Atomic Ivan (not the young fellow – his name is Vanya):

Snigirev Dobrygin and Julie Gregory take the starring roles under direction from Vasily Barkhatov, who uses family and nuclear culture to explore themes of commitment, stability and continuity between generations. Rosatom said that nuclear work is portrayed as prestigious and exciting, as complicated and intricate as personal relationships, and coming with extensive training and great responsibility.

That sounds – awful – like something the old Soviet Union would produce to extol agricultural achievements. There certainly are interesting pictures that could be made using the nuclear industry as a background, but the idea of offering a parallel between young love and an industrial setting suggests that both will come out diminished. Of course, I haven’t seen the movie – it could be a masterpiece.

A Rosatom presentation listed some of its goals in this unique public communication project: projecting an image of modern young scientists; promoting the idea of continuity of skills and culture between generations of nuclear workers; illustrating the true nature of the nuclear industry; and attracting a target audience through modern, topical cinematic language and expression.

Shoot me now. On the other hand, the stills (and young couple) are lovely and director Barkhatov said he will use film rather than video to shoot the landscape of the plant, so it will certainly have some texture. And really, funning aside, it might be good: Barkhatov might surprise us all with a touching romantic tale merged with science and industry. Time will tell.

Note: NNN reader Brian Mays tells us Vanya is the diminutive for Ivan – you don’t expect a two syllable diminutive for a two syllable name, but there you are. So I guess Atomic Ivan is indeed our hero.

How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …

Why America Needs the MOX Facility

If Isaiah had been a nuclear engineer, he’d have loved this project. And the Trump Administration should too, despite the proposal to eliminate it in the FY 2018 budget.

The project is a massive factory near Aiken, S.C., that will take plutonium from the government’s arsenal and turn it into fuel for civilian power reactors. The plutonium, made by the United States during the Cold War in a competition with the Soviet Union, is now surplus, and the United States and the Russian Federation jointly agreed to reduce their stocks, to reduce the chance of its use in weapons. Over two thousand construction workers, technicians and engineers are at work to enable the transformation.

Carrying Isaiah’s “swords into plowshares” vision into the nuclear field did not originate with plutonium. In 1993, the United States and Russia began a 20-year program to take weapons-grade uranium out of the Russian inventory, dilute it to levels appropriate for civilian power plants, and then use it to produce…

Nuclear Is a Long-Term Investment for Ohio that Will Pay Big

With 50 different state legislative calendars, more than half of them adjourn by June, and those still in session throughout the year usually take a recess in the summer. So springtime is prime time for state legislative activity. In the next few weeks, legislatures are hosting hearings and calling for votes on bills that have been battered back and forth in the capital halls.

On Tuesday, The Ohio Public Utilities Committee hosted its third round of hearings on the Zero Emissions Nuclear Resources Program, House Bill 178, and NEI’s Maria Korsnick testified before a jam-packed room of legislators.

Washingtonians parachuting into state debates can be a tricky platform, but in this case, Maria’s remarks provided national perspective that put the Ohio conundrum into context. At the heart of this debate is the impact nuclear plants have on local jobs and the local economy, and that nuclear assets should be viewed as “long-term investments” for the state. Of course, clean air and electrons …

NEI Nuclear Notes

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