NEI Nuclear Notes

Ken Byrd As director of engineering at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant , I’m privileged to be part of a workforce of professionals who recognize their responsibility for upholding safety and make it a priority every day. The U.S. nuclear industry is one of the safest industries in the world, due to close regulation by federal authorities, highly trained and experienced professionals, and a vigorous “safety-in-depth” philosophy applied to the design and construction of our facilities. But perhaps the defining characteristic of the nuclear industry is a culture that puts safety above all else in everything we do. Our industry is guided by a set of 10 principles that outline the traits of a robust nuclear safety culture and remind us each of the important role we play in upholding the health and safety of our communities. When put into practice, the nuclear safety culture principles ensure we are meeting the energy needs of our customers while also protecting the environment,...

In my role as a Project Engineer in Security at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), I deal with questions every day. These questions involve language in the code of federal regulations, inspection findings, operational experience, etc. However, whether it is friends, coworkers, and/or industry peers, the most common question I have to answer is “Why nuclear?” AJ Clore Six years ago I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question. That is when I first started as an Armed Security Officer at FirstEnergy’s Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station . Beaver Valley is a two unit site located in Shippingport, PA, which is about an hour northwest of Pittsburgh, PA. When I was hired in 2009 by Securitas, I was a rookie in the nuclear arena. I was aware of what nuclear energy was, but knew nothing about how a plant operated or the importance of nuclear. The four and a half years I spent at Beaver Valley taught me the importance of protecting the health and safety of the public, as well as wh...

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...

My name is Alyxandria Wszolek and I am a senior at the University of Tennessee, majoring in nuclear engineering with a minor in reliability and maintainability. I could not be more appreciative of the Department of Nuclear Engineering here. I have been given so many opportunities and experiences through this school, and many doors have been opened to me. Alyxandria Wszolek Although I only recently accepted a full time job offer to work in the nuclear industry , I have been surrounded by it all my life and passionate about pursuing this career for many years. I have interned at Exelon Generation in BWR core design group, Reactor Engineering at Three Mile Island, and both Reactor Engineering and Electrical Systems at Nine Mile Point. I accepted a full time position at Nine Mile in Reactor Engineering. I am currently president of the University of Tennessee Women in Nuclear Section. I am also involved on a national level in the U. S. Women in Nuclear Communications Committee, servi...

Amb. Jim Nicholson  From Jim Nicholson , who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See from 2001 to 2005: Well, there's another thing that I hope he [Pope Francis] realizes, and that is that the best way to help the poor in this world is to help them come out of that poverty and get electricity. There are over a billion people in the world that still do not even have electricity, and fossil fuel is the hope for that electricity. It's cheap, it's readily producible, and if you can't refrigerate medicine and you can't read in the dark, and you can't grow out of that poverty and there's a real link there, and the Holy Father, I think, needs to be very careful about this green movement that he sort of seems to align himself with in this encyclical on global climate change, and I hope that he will realize that. One may disagree with most of what Nicholson says here. But not with his main point: “the best way to help the poor in this world is to help them c...

As a child growing up on a farm in a small town in rural southwestern Michigan, I never imagined that one day I would be an engineer, let alone work at a nuclear power plant. I grew up in the 1990s watching The Simpsons – probably the worst stereotypical view of nuclear plant workers – and wasn’t even aware of nuclear energy in a different context. I certainly wasn’t aware of the amazing benefits that nuclear provides to America. Terry Groth That all changed when I began my nuclear career. I majored in mechanical engineering at Western Michigan University. During my last semester, I applied to work at several companies in different industries but none of them afforded me the opportunity to have a major impact on society like working at a nuclear power plant does with all of its environmental and economic benefits to the local communities. Southwestern Michigan will always be home for my family and me. Our great state has four nuclear reactors – Palisades Power Plant, Fermi Unit ...

From the land of lingonberries and aquavit: In just two decades Sweden went from burning oil for generating electricity to fissioning uranium . And if the world as a whole were to follow that example, all fossil fuel–fired power plants could be replaced with nuclear facilities in a little over 30 years. And if you did this? Such a switch would drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nearly achieving much-ballyhooed global goals to combat climate change. Even swelling electricity demands, concentrated in developing nations, could be met. The Scientific American article says that this would be a heavy lift. Would it? The interesting thing is that someone worked out the numbers and figured it all out – well, at least the industrial and manufacturing parts. That someone would be Staffan Qvist, a physicist at Sweden’s Uppsala University. Sweden gets about 50 percent of its electricity generation from hydro power and 30 percent from nuclear energy. Midnight Sun ...