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

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 …

Missing the Point about Pennsylvania’s Nuclear Plants

A group that includes oil and gas companies in Pennsylvania released a study on Monday that argues that twenty years ago, planners underestimated the value of nuclear plants in the electricity market. According to the group, that means the state should now let the plants close.

Huh?

The question confronting the state now isn’t what the companies that owned the reactors at the time of de-regulation got or didn’t get. It’s not a question of whether they were profitable in the '80s, '90s and '00s. It’s about now. Business works by looking at the present and making projections about the future.

Is losing the nuclear plants what’s best for the state going forward?

Pennsylvania needs clean air. It needs jobs. And it needs protection against over-reliance on a single fuel source.

What the reactors need is recognition of all the value they provide. The electricity market is depressed, and if electricity is treated as a simple commodity, with no regard for its benefit to clean air o…

Why Nuclear Plant Closures Are a Crisis for Small Town USA

Nuclear plants occupy an unusual spot in the towns where they operate: integral but so much in the background that they may seem almost invisible. But when they close, it can be like the earth shifting underfoot.

Lohud.com, the Gannett newspaper that covers the Lower Hudson Valley in New York, took a look around at the experience of towns where reactors have closed, because the Indian Point reactors in Buchanan are scheduled to be shut down under an agreement with Gov. Mario Cuomo.

From sea to shining sea, it was dismal. It wasn’t just the plant employees who were hurt. The losses of hundreds of jobs, tens of millions of dollars in payrolls and millions in property taxes depressed whole towns and surrounding areas. For example:

Vernon, Vermont, home to Vermont Yankee for more than 40 years, had to cut its municipal budget in half. The town closed its police department and let the county take over; the youth sports teams lost their volunteer coaches, and Vernon Elementary School lost th…

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog