Skip to main content

Nuclear Advocate Simona De Silvestro Kicks Off IndyCar Series in Florida


Simona De Silvestro will drive the
No. 78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy IndyCar.
Folks, start your engines. The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is this Sunday, March 24, and marks the start of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series. NEI is proud to join member companies Entergy and AREVA in sponsoring open wheel racing’s rising star Simona De Silvestro. This season De Silvestro joins the KV Racing Technology team and sits behind the wheel of the No. 78 Nuclear Clean Air Energy Chevrolet.

A long-standing advocate of the industry, the 24-year-old racer hails from Switzerland, where nuclear energy supplies 40% of the nation’s electricity. De Silvestro’s background gives her a unique appreciation for the importance of nuclear in providing emission-free power: “Nuclear is clean, safe and reliable, and that’s what makes it a quality option for producing electricity.” Her support is energizing our future workforce too, as proven by her recent visit to the University of Florida to promote STEM education and careers.

We are excited for the series and expect a great year for De Silvestro. Be sure to tune in as nuclear shares the spotlight with the talented racer on the streets of St. Petersburg. The race airs on NBC Sports Network at 12 p.m. (ET).

Comments

jimwg said…
But how much of Simona's nuclear stance is going to be hawked to the public? I hear lots more of cartoon characters festooned on racing cars than nuclear energy. I hope her sponsors put the metal to the medal with Ads highlighting this -- unless being overtly pro-nuke might imperil her career and potential pop image. (Strange that no rock and movie stars strut nuclear on their shoulders...)

James Greenidge
Queens NY
Anonymous said…
I would think that a true supporter of nuclear power would use the number 235, 238 or 239 to identify their pro-nuke race car.

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...