Skip to main content

The National in National Nuclear Science Week

nsw Nuclear Science Week (NSW – but very safe for work) is a national, broadly observed week-long celebration to focus local, regional and national interest on all aspects of nuclear science. Seattle is hosting NSW this year, bit let’s focus on the national aspect. In fact, plans in other locales are – well, pretty darn awesome.

I’ll zero in on South Carolina:

The Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA) will hold their 23rd Annual Edward Teller Lecture and Banquet on Monday, October 20, 2014.  The lecture is a community event attended by community leaders, CNTA members, local and national business and corporate interests, government and Savannah River Site officials, and elected officials from Georgia and South Carolina.

Guest Lecturer – Robert Stone (Director – Pandora’s Promise and Oscar-Nominated & Emmy-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker)

This is especially impressive. One would imagine that, two years after making Pandora’s Promise, Stone would have moved on to his next project. I’m sure he has – IMDB doesn’t list one, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one – yet Stone is still clearly engaged with nuclear energy.

The Savannah River Site is also sponsoring a speech contest:

The SRS Leadership Association sponsors an annual speech contest open to any student from the CSRA, in grades 9th – 12th. It requires a student to personally prepare a speech of between four and six minute duration relating to leadership.

I used to participate in these in high school – I won a small scholarship for a civics speech - so it’s nice to see it’s still a thing. This is all the information given on the page, so I don’t know if there’s a prize offered.

Also touted: tours of the Savannah River site and the V.C. Summer construction site. A pretty impressive showing altogether. SCANA and Georgia Power are among the major sponsors.

South Carolina clearly benefits by having a number of nuclear properties clustered together – makes organizing something like this easier – and Savannah River and Summer have really pulled out the stops. If you have a nuclear-interested kid and live in that area, it’s going to be an atomic Disneyland.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...

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...