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The way to get bright young minds thinking about nuclear power again is to start building the nuclear plants that we know we'll need to get out of this mess. Th
by arduanika 8y ago
The way to get bright young minds thinking about nuclear power again is to start building the nuclear plants that we know we'll need to get out of this mess. This will signal to every student that there's a steady career in nuclear engineering. Random grants and Bill Gates' hobby investments aren't going to cut it. Job security will. And once we start investing in this again, of course we'll have new ideas, and the next generation of plants will be even better.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- metaphor 8y ago> This will signal to every student that there's a steady career in nuclear engineering. Signaling likely not required. It was an open secret at my alma mater that the number of students accepted into the nuclear engineering program was artificially kept low.
- arduanika 8y agoWoah...why? How? I'd be interested to hear more details. There were more interested students, but they were deterred?
- metaphor 8y agoI'm an EE but had a few close friends who completed the program. Girlfriend at the time was dissuaded towards chemical engineering...ended up doing NMR spectroscopy research as an undergrad before moving to USC for PhD. Another close friend who interned every summer at a nuclear plant in Crystal River, FL suspected the status quo was upheld to ensure graduating engineers would continue to command relatively high salaries in industy. He also mentioned how industry would swoop in on Navy submarine vets that came out of Kings Bay, but I'm not certain those guys competed for the same plant positions that professional engineers did.
- legulere 8y ago> we know we'll need Do we? Everything points to renewables like wind now. Of course there are problems to overcome but they’re not bigger than with nuclear power.
- arduanika 8y ago"Everything points" Source (no pun intended)? See my comment elsewhere on this thread about "workers per watt", which is about solar, but the same applies almost as drastically to wind. You do the math. https://www.energy.gov/downloads/us-energy-and-employment-report https://www.energy.gov/downloads/us-energy-and-employment-re...
- will_pseudonym 8y agoNuclear also has the lowest mortality rate of any energy source, 0.1 per terawatt-hour. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#3b97817709b7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
- VyperCard 8y agoGiven that the waste will be around thousands of years more, i don't see these numbers final yet, sorry.
- amanaplanacanal 8y agoDo you think we are going to run out of workers to support it? Renewables are already the cheapest form of new power in much of the US, cost of the workers included. I would think with the current thrust of automation, having these types of jobs available would be a welcome thing.
- realusername 8y agoWhy would the future point to renewables? There's tremendous progress which is still possible with nuclear technology, compare that with wind which is mostly a solved turbine technology now, I doubt I will see a 30% gain from wind in my lifetime.