NEI Nuclear Notes

Saturday afternoon will see the renewal of one of the greatest rivalries in college football when Tennessee visits Florida . But while the world might be riveted by the action in " The Swamp " tomorrow, our readers should know that the rivalry between these two members of the SEC extends far beyond the football field when it comes to nuclear energy. Both Tennessee and Florida boast prestigious nuclear engineering programs, and here at NEI Nuclear Notes, we've told the stories about students from both schools who are well on their way to promising careers. Earlier this week, we told you about Alyxandria Wszolek, a senior majoring in nuclear engineering at Tennessee who will be stepping into a great job at Exelon when she graduates in 2016. In 2014, we published a story by Jitesh Kuntwala, then a graduate student in nuclear engineering at Florida, about how he and a group of Gators got together to lobby Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Power Plant Siting Board in favo...

Jitesh Kuntwala The following is a guest post from Jitesh A. Kuntawala, a student at the University of Florida. He'll be graduating in 2015 with a Masters degree in nuclear engineering. As a graduate student in nuclear engineering I recently had the opportunity, along with 8 other nuclear engineering students from the University of Florida , to become active in the public policy side of the nuclear industry. On May 13, 2014 Florida Governor Rick Scott and his cabinet, sitting in their capacity as the Florida Power Plant Siting Board , held a final hearing for the determination of site selection for the proposed two new reactors to be known as Turkey Point units 6 & 7 at the existing Florida Power and Light (FPL) site near Miami. We were initially contacted by Jerry Paul of the Energy Information Center (EIC) and invited to attend the hearing. We are thrilled we did. It was a wonderful, engaging, and educational glimpse into some of the decision making bodies behind...

Diego Garcia (left) and Gators for long-term energy planning. Earlier this week, a Florida State Senate committee held a hearing on the state's nuclear cost recovery law . Paul Genoa was on hand to deliver testimony on behalf of NEI, but today I'd like to focus on another individual who testified on Monday. His name is Diego Garcia . He's a senior at the University of Florida currently and is double majoring in nuclear engineering and political science. He's also president of the campus chapter of the American Nuclear Society. That's him in the picture with a few of his classmates who showed up at Monday's hearing. So why should we listen to Mr. Garcia ? Put simply, nuclear cost recovery laws have been put in place all over the country in order to allow electric utilities to engage in the sort of long-term planning that's desperately needed on the electric grid . And when we're talking about facilities that could potentially be producing emissi...