NEI Nuclear Notes

Salem Community College in Carneys Point Township in New Jersey has graduated its first class of nuclear energy technology (or NET) students. This program was created in collaboration with PSEG and students did internships and other projects at the company’s plants. Corporate involvement might raise some hackles, leading an observer to question whether PSEG has helped create a program that solely fulfills its own personnel needs. Nope. The prestigious certificate is recognized by all U.S. nuclear utilities as meeting nuclear training requirements. Chattanooga State Technical Community College is the only other school awarding certificates this spring. Now, NEI is involved with this program, so we certainly like the word “prestigious.” Regardless, the programs represent a real win, both for nuclear plants with aging work forces and student who want a route into the nuclear energy industry with some relevant experience under their belts – as is done with many other fields tha...

Last month Leslie Berliant of Celsias asked Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen if nuclear power is “free of greenhouse gas emissions.” For those who are unfamiliar with van Leeuwen, he and his colleague Philip Smith have been falsely claiming nuclear power’s lifecycle emissions will be higher than a fossil-fueled power station within several decades as high-quality uranium ore grades diminish. As I was reading the Celsias piece, the sentence below stopped me in my tracks: Today the world nuclear capacity is around 370 GW, providing 2.1% of the world energy supply (see Part A - PDF). 2.1%? It's common knowledge around here that the actual share is about 6 percent, so I checked the reference. What I found was stunning. In the debate about lifecycle emissions, the conclusions of both the antis and the pros depended mostly upon the assumptions of the analyses. But the error above wasn’t a matter of assumption, it was due to a complete lack of understanding of how certain energy statisti...