The psychology of nuclear power: Stop saying it’s safe, Power Technology, by Molly Lempriere, 30 May 17
At the end of this year’s Nuclear Industry Forum, talk turned to the psychology of nuclear propaganda, including why – as Imperial University fellow Malcolm Grimston explains -calling it safe is not always a good thing. The aircraft industry amongst others learnt a long time ago that you do not lead your advertising with your weak points. That is why it does not often emphasis safety on its adverts but instead focuses on the joys of the holiday you are flying too.
Imperial University Centre for Environmental Policy senior research fellow Malcolm Grimston believes that this is something the nuclear industry needs to learn. Faced with criticism over the safety of nuclear power from charities, groups and individuals, the nuclear industry long ago embarked on a campaign to try and convince the public of its inherent safety. But this approach has been ineffectual according to Grimston………
What is the best type of propaganda?
So how can the nuclear industry really convey its importance and use, as well as safety to the masses in an effective way? “It’s not a matter of trying to play up problems that are out there, it’s a matter of saying this is something that has some very positive points that can contribute towards finding the solution to some of the difficulties out there,” suggests Grimston.
As nuclear new build Hinkley Point begins construction in the UK, it will be interesting to see if the nuclear industry leads with the old safe message, a more emotive take, or nothing at all.http://www.power-technology.com/features/featurethe-psychology-of-nuclear-power-stop-saying-its-safe-5822092/
May 31, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, spinbuster |
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Moscow offers Bangladeshi students scholarship to study nuclear tech http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/education/2017/05/30/moscow-bangladeshi-scholarship-nuclear/
Moscow intends to offer scholarships to Bangladeshi students to study nuclear technology
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Russian Parliament’s Upper House Deputy Chief Ilyas Magomed-Salamovich Umakhanov on Tuesday said Moscow intends to offer scholarships to Bangladeshi students to study nuclear technology.
Bangladesh’s first nuclear plant is being being built with Russia’s assistance, according to a BSS report.
“Russian Government is keen to enhance the number of scholarships to the Bangladeshi students in the disciplines related to nuclear science,” A statement released by Bangladesh embassy in Moscow quoted Umakhanov as saying during a meeting with a delegation of Bangladesh parliament standing committee on foreign affairs led by Dr Dipu Moni on Monday.
It said Umakhanov told the Bangladesh delegation that Russia intended to offer the stipends with the aim of building a pool of talent for operating nuclear power plants in Bangladesh.
- Dipu Moni described the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant to be a signature initiative in regard to Dhaka-Moscow ties and appreciated the progress of the project.
The former foreign minister lead the parliamentary standing committee delegation to its first ever visit to Russia while it was warmly received by the representatives of Russian parliament’s upper house and the State Duma or lower house in the historic city of St Petersburg and Moscow.
The delegation was comprised of lawmakers Faruk Khan, Sohrabuddin, Selim Uddin, Razee Mohammad Fakhrul and Mehjabeen Khaled, who were joined by Bangladesh Ambassador in Moscow Dr Saiful Hoque and other embassy officials.
May 31, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Education, Russia |
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Korsnick calls for concerted nuclear advocacy effort, World Nuclear News 24 May 2017
The US nuclear energy industry must work together to strengthen existing relationships and build new coalitions among supporters of nuclear energy’s different attributes, according to Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) president and CEO Maria Korsnick….
Korsnick said the industry has developed the National Nuclear Energy Strategy to communicate nuclear energy’s benefits “more aggressively, more widely and more consistently than we ever have before”. The industry has “stepped up our advocacy efforts not just a notch or two, but by a great margin”, she said……..
“this remains a time of great stress for the nuclear energy industry”, she said, stressing that the industry must ensure nuclear energy remains part of the conversation on clean energy.
“Like me, you know exactly which aspects of this fascinating field have kept you a passionate believer in its promise for the future,” she said. “What I’d like you to do is go out and spread the passion in the ways you know best.” http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Korsnick-calls-for-concerted-nuclear-advocacy-effort-2405175.html
May 26, 2017
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Britain’s on the brink of a small-scale nuclear reactor revolution, The Register, 24 May 2017 , Marcus Gibson Sure, there are hurdles, but no £18bn hole on the other side like Hinkley Point ……. a cheaper and smaller alternative is emerging if activity from British entrepreneurs and academics is anything to judge by – the small “modular” nuclear reactor, or SMR…….
No nuclear industry programme has yet produced a series of reactors along factory production lines, but a large order for SMRs could change all that.
Tony Roulstone, course director at Cambridge Nuclear Energy Centre, believes a production line operation could fulfil the promise of continuous improvements, of more efficient designs over the years, and the real prize of being manufactured in the UK…….
Dr Jenifer Baxter, lead author of the report, said: “Pushing ahead on the demonstration and commercialisation of SMRs would be a key way for the UK to once again become a world leader in the sector.”
This view was backed by a House of Lords committee that criticised the government’s “failure to deliver on a multimillion-pound competition to develop mini atomic power stations,” which it said “hurt the nuclear sector and risks international companies walking away from the UK.”
SMRs also ensure that the British government can avoid a repetition of the growing fiasco over the cost of Hinkley Point. An expert in engineering capacity and financing energy plants, who spoke to The Reg on condition of anonymity, said Hinkley Point “could cost the UK as much as £81bn if maximum financing costs are included”……
And yet SMRs face daunting development costs, and mind-boggling technical uncertainties. Like all nuclear sites they inevitably involve high costs, the problems of expensive decommissioning, the risk of accidents and waste disposal.
Sceptics include former government adviser professor Gordon MacKerron, who has described SMRs as “a classic case of supply-push technology development – no potential user of SMRs, mostly electric utilities, has expressed any serious interest in them.”…….https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/24/mini_nuclear_reactors_for_british_power/
May 26, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
spinbuster, UK |
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No corruption in nuclear negotiations, Eskom chief nuclear officer assures Engineering News, 18TH MAY 2017 BY: KIM CLOETE CREAMER MEDIA CORRESPONDENT, Eskom’s chief nuclear officer David Nicholls is still firmly committed to the principle that nuclear is the way to go for a sustainable energy future and says he knows of no corruption in negotiations on a deal to procure new nuclear energy capacity.
May 19, 2017
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South Africa, spinbuster |
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Over the past year, the Anglo world has become interested in nuclear as a complement for wind and solar towards “deep decarbonization,” or a (nearly) 100% carbon-free supply of energy or possibly just electricity. Today, Craig Morris reviews a few papers by Americans and Australians and advises them to tackle the best European studies for 100% renewables head-on, not ignore them.
The first paper is by Stephen Brick and Samuel Thernstrom. Thernstrom has been calling nuclear “an essential part of the puzzle” since at least 2010. The paper is peer-reviewed; unfortunately, none of the reviewers noticed the oversights I found. But let’s start off with a contention the authors state in the introduction:
“In seeking to demonstrate that renewables can by themselves replace all fossil fuels and nuclear energy, these studies run the risk of treating renewables as a societal end in itself, instead of just one among a suite of technologies that could be used to achieve the combined goals of environmental protection, cost-containment, and electric system reliability.”
Why shouldn’t renewables be an end in themselves? Assuming nuclear power (plus whatever) is the cheapest low-carbon option, might other impacts society dislikes relativize the low price? To name just a few examples (and we’ll leave out whatever nuclear risks may or may not exist):
- Overcoming the military-industrial complex: nuclear has always been a centralized industry, with just a few firms that have very close contacts to the government. And keeping nuclear skills for military purposes seems to be a driver in the UK’s push for new nuclear.
- Transparency in democracy: as numerous authors from various countries have found, the nuclear sector has always come at the expense of open democracy. Strikes, for instance, are a safety issue.
- Stronger economic growth in communities, especially rural ones: if communities can make their own energy, why would they want to pay some out-of-town corporation, even if the energy is slightly cheaper? People simply are willing to pay more for quality, and local jobs are a quality (not to mention being energy-independent). The price is relative when you pay it back to your community…….
the real problem here is that lower consumption does not jibe with nuclear historically. Nuclear originally promised nearly unlimited electricity, and the technology’s supporters say more energy is needed, not less, especially in developing countries. Here is one pro-nuclear group attacking, for instance, renewables advocate Amory Lovins’ call for efficiency. Nuclear proponents often depict the efficiency aims (= lower consumption) called for by renewables proponents as unrealistic.
In contrast, the renewables camp sees efficiency as crucial because, for instance, we don’t have enough sustainable biomass to support our wasteful habits today. In addition to efficient devices, “sufficiency” – changing lifestyles to make do with what Mother Nature gives us – is therefore crucial. Switching to an electric car is not enough; we will need to walk and cycle more, both of which require compact neighborhoods (a societal, not technical, issue)………
The overlooked update
What’s worse, in their 2017 paper Heard at al. discuss Mathiesen’s 2009 paper on a 100% renewable Denmark as though nothing had happened since. The six-page summary (PDF in English) of the follow-up 2014 scenario is admittedly sparse on details, but we can see a plan taking shape. In 2015, Mathiesen, not unknown to my readers, and his team then fleshed everything out in a 159-page PDF (in English), including a new scenario called the IDA Energy Vision. As you can see below, [table on original] biomass is still based as much as possible on waste, and the rest is mainly wind power. This is what a 100% scenario looks like when you do the footwork for a given country. It would look much different in, say, Saudi Arabia, with very little wind but ample solar. It would also look different in countries with lots of hydropower. One conclusion is thus that investigating 100% renewables is hard without saying where.
In the end, we are left with a discussion in the English-speaking world held by nuclear advocates about 100% renewable energy, in which too little notice is taken of the main studies in two leading countries investigating “deep decarbonization” without nuclear or CCS: Denmark and Germany. What’s worse, not a single journalist covering these papers, including Vox.com’s David Roberts (one of the best) pointed out the oversight. America’s best minds write about 100% renewables, and no one notices the gaps. As President Trump might say: sad. https://energytransition.org/2017/05/the-us-nuclear-camp-critiques-studies-for-100-renewables-without-reading-them/
May 17, 2017
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AUSTRALIA, spinbuster, USA |
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From The National, UAE 14 May 17 “………..The International Atomic Energy Agency worked with government agencies to launch the Nuclear Energy Management School at Khalifa University.
The curriculum includes nuclear energy policy and planning, nuclear regulation and law, operations, safety, security, emergency readiness and nuclear project management.
Experts from IAEA, Nawah Energy, the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation will give lectures at the school……..
The authority, where Emiratis comprise 62 per cent of its workforce, said the school would help to ensure the sustainability of the UAE’s power supply and support Emiratis by providing them with the necessary capabilities to manage its nuclear energy programme……
Nuclear will help to save the environment while still providing electricity,” said Mohammed Al Ali, 31, an export control specialist at Nawah Energy.
“It will also help the youth because it’s a new field and we will gain a lot more skills because it’s an industry that is constantly evolving worldwide.”……
May 15, 2017
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Education, United Arab Emirates |
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Local students advocate for nuclear Post Register, May 11, 2017 By KEVIN TREVELLYAN ktrevellyan@postregister.com
Emma Redfoot and Kelley Verner noticed something when marching last year in Chicago in an effort to save two nuclear power plants from decommission
……….Fifty-four percent of Americans oppose nuclear energy, according to a 2016 Gallup poll, up from 43 percent in 2015. Last year was the first time the majority of the country opposed nuclear since Gallup started asking the question in 1994.
Public hesitance to embrace nuclear increases the need for advocacy, centrist [??] think tank Third Way communications adviser Suzanne Baker said. Baker previously was an INL spokeswoman.
“Nuclear is an often misunderstood technology,” she said. “And advocacy becomes an important way to help humanize and tell the story of the technology in a way that connects with people. Technical information is important and useful, but it doesn’t always tell us why something matters, and advocacy can do that.”…….
Advocacy can make a difference, Baker said. Following the Chicago pro-nuclear march, the Illinois House of Representatives passed a bill subsidizing operation of the unprofitable Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear generating stations.
Students for Nuclear is focusing its efforts on a handful of other plants that may face decommissioning in coming years. The group has about 70 members who attend colleges across the country.
Over the summer Redfoot and Verner will visit Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state to discuss nuclear advocacy. They’ll also speak at an American Nuclear Society meeting, and Redfoot will speak to the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences.
The group also is in contact with the Idaho Conservation League and The Nature Conservancy……..
Redfoot and Verner are trying to bolster group membership with students who aren’t studying nuclear, and they’re gathering stories of those who are to add to the Students for Nuclear website.
They want to put faces to the technology……… Reporter Kevin Trevellyan can be reached at 542-6762 http://www.postregister.com/articles/featured-news-daily-email/2017/05/11/local-students-advocate-nuclear#
May 13, 2017
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Education, USA |
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US energy secretary touts nuclear power, KOB4, May 10, 2017 ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) – U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry says he will advocate for nuclear power as often and as strongly as he can as the nation looks for ways to fuel its economy and limit the effects of electricity generation on the environment.
May 12, 2017
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SRNS provides funding support for innovative education in Augusta area, Augusta Chronicle May 6, 2017, By Thomas Gardiner Staff Writer “…… The vision of the school’s faculty caught the attention of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, which recently funded the school’s purchase of a new semester-long class called Science and Technology…….
According to a release from SRNS, the management and operations contract company at Savannah River Site, the funding paid for teacher registration, professional development, and the materials and software to make the Science and Technology class a reality.
“Jackson Middle School has purchased the Science and Technology class, funded by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS),” Kishni Neville, STEM Coordinator said in the release. “Using the materials and information provided through this class, our seventh and eighth graders explore principles of applied chemistry, nanotechnology and physics.”
She said the Engineering Design Process, a relatively new academic philosophy at Jackson Middle, is an important element of nearly all their instruction…….
SRNS has thus far donated about $4,000 in support of Jackson Middle School. The organization also donates to other area educational activities through Aiken County’s Public Education partners and its Innovative teaching Mini Grants. The Mini Grants program started in 2009 and has awarded over $500,000 total to teachers in the Augusta area.
The program awards cash grants of $500, $750, and $1,000 to teachers implementing innovative ideas in elementary and middle school math and science curricula. The annual program is open to teachers in Aiken, Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, and Edgefield counties in South Carolina and Columbia and Richmond counties in Georgia. http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/2017-05-06/srns-provides-funding-support-innovative-education-augusta-area
May 10, 2017
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Education, USA |
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Pentagon Seeks to Link Iran, North Korea Citing ‘Similar Looking’ Missiles http://news.antiwar.com/2017/05/04/pentagon-seeks-to-link-iran-north-korea-citing-similar-looking-missiles/ Pacific Commander Complains Non-Nuclear Missiles Aren’t Restricted by Nuclear Deals by Jason Ditz, May 04, 2017 Every failed missile test or official warning by North Korean state media against attacking them is a new excuse for the US to offer loud condemnations and new threats, and while the US also likes to threaten Iran, they really haven’t had much in the way of excuses for doing so in recent weeks.
Pentagon officials are looking to resolve that with testimony to Congress claiming that Iranian missiles look suspiciously similar to North Korean missiles. They don’t offer any proof, of course, that this means anything about them having a common origin, but this is clearly the connection Congress is meant to make.
The attempts at “sort of” connections continued throughout the testimony, with officials citing a North Korean submarine missile launch and noting that Iran is also working on the idea of firing missiles from submarines. Attempts to ratchet up the tensions didn’t stop there.
Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris even had the gall to complain that neither Iran nor North Korea were impacted by the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in developing shorter range ballistic missiles. Neither is a signatory to the treaty in the first place, of course, and perhaps even more importantly, the missiles in question aren’t even accused of being nuclear in nature.
Still, the Pentagon has been angling for more money for its wars long enough to know that making things about “nuclear” threats is a way to sell Congress on almost anything, and complaining about Iran not complying with a nuclear treaty, even though the missiles in question are non-nuclear and Iran was never a signatory to it in the first place, is always going to play well.
May 6, 2017
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spinbuster, USA |
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Eskom has told the public that they will manage the massive nuclear-build programme in a responsible manner, devoid of significant cost overruns, corruption and scope creep. Yet the court of public opinion is unconvinced, following years of a lack in transparency and many incidents of questionable leadership conduct, combined with Eskom’s inability to curtail gross runaway costs on projects at Medupi, Kusile and Ingula.
Our message to government and their pro-nuclear lobbyists is to stop trying to feed us with propaganda.
Pro nuclear lobbyists and government must stop propaganda campaign, BizNews.com, Wayne Duvenage, 2 May 17 “………What I find amazing,however, is the pro nuclear lobbyists’ belief that they alone are the experts and that civil society must simply trust their views on what is best for our country’s energy needs. Government has become its own worst enemy on the nuclear issue, believing they have the right to make these costly capital decisions without the necessary public engagement or for legally required parliamentary processes to take place.
For months the pro-nuclear clan have complained that the R1-trillion price tag of a 9.6 GW nuclear programme is incorrect, but they overlook the need to provide the public with a credible response as to what the expected price tag should be.
And for as many months, the pro-nuclear campaigners appeared intent on challenging the public’s intellect by quoting nuclear energy from the 33-year-old Koeberg nuclear plant as being the lowest priced electricity in South Africa (between 21c and 43c/ kWh), as if to imply that this is what we can expect from future nuclear-build programmes.
Input from credible researchers purport the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE – i.e. over the lifetime of the plant) from a new nuclear-build programme to cost South Africans between R1.30 and R1.50 per kWh, and this is before adding in any tax effects, decommissioning, long-term waste disposal and plant life extension costs into account. This is well above the figure of R0.97c/kWh used in the 2016 update of the IRP, sourced from a secret DOE research document. The waters are muddy indeed.
Eskom has told the public that they will manage the massive nuclear-build programme in a responsible manner, devoid of significant cost overruns, corruption and scope creep. Yet the court of public opinion is unconvinced, following years of a lack in transparency and many incidents of questionable leadership conduct, combined with Eskom’s inability to curtail gross runaway costs on projects at Medupi, Kusile and Ingula.
While the authorities continue to make new energy build project decisions based on an outdated Integrated Energy Plan (IEP), the public will remain sceptical. While the DOE chooses to ignore the recommendations of the Minister of Energy’s own experts around least-cost energy choices in the IRP, business will not invest. And for as long as government shuns its critics and keeps civil society’s experts at bay from scrutinising their assumptions and costs which inform the forthcoming IRP process, mistrust will remain high.
Then there is the question of the actual need for new energy build programme decisions in the next five to 10 years, taking into account that:
- South Africa’s current electricity generation capacity is roughly 45GW.
- Coal = 38.5 GW; nuclear (Koeberg) = 1.94GW; hydro = 1.5 GW (including 0.8GW Cabora import) and RE = 3.1 GW. This excludes reserve capacity of peaking gas and hydro at 5.3 GW.
- By 2022, current new build generation projects will take this to 55GW. Medupi (3.2 GW); Kusile (4.0 GW); Additional RE (3 GW).
- Yet today’s electricity requirements only average around 26.6 GW.
- With demand ranging between 22 and 32 GW.
- Demand has reduced over the past five years with little increase expected in the next few years.
- Even if one anticipated a healthy economic growth for SA at an unlikely high rate of 2.5% per annum for the next 10 years, experts do not predict additional electricity demand to exceed 6 to 7 GW, for the next decade.
- Set aside 15% of total capacity for maintenance, and introduce decommissioning of a few older coal fired plans and our capacity still exceeds demand a decade from now.
- Clearly, we don’t need to make a decision on new energy build projects for at least the next five years, leaving us ample time to assess options and build for possible higher demand by around 2030.
- There is simply no need to rush the nuclear decision in the manner currently being undertaken.
- Add to the above the fact that many countries are decommissioning current or cancelling future nuclear build programmes, while the rate of introduction of renewable energy continues to soar. With less than 5% of our electricity coming from RE and many countries around the world at 30% and climbing, the people of South Africa need an extremely rational explanation behind our government’s hasty appetite for nuclear energy, which appears to shun conventional wisdom.If there was ever an issue that was shrouded in public uncertainty and confusion in recent times, it is government’s nuclear energy build plan. And the reasons thereof lie squarely at the feet of government and their State-Owned Entities.
Our message to government and their pro-nuclear lobbyists is to stop trying to feed us with propaganda. Let’s get together and hear each other. What this country urgently needs is an energy charter, one that will provide the necessary clarity of our energy needs and solutions thereto. However, in order to ensure credibility, the Energy Charter process would need to be well informed, inclusive and absolutely transparent.
May 3, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
South Africa, spinbuster |
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Hidden Radiation Secrets of the World Health Organization, CounterPunch by ROBERT HUNZIKER, MAY 2, 2017
“………..WHO held a Chernobyl Forum in 2004 designed to “end the debate about the impact of Chernobyl radiation” whilst WHO maintains that 50 people died.
Here’s the final conclusion of that Chernobyl Forum ‘04: The mental health of those who live in the area is the most serious aftereffect, leading to strong negative attitudes and exaggerated sense of dangers to health and of exposure to radiation. Mental health was thus identified as the biggest negative aftereffect.
Because that conclusion is so brazenly bizarre, the Chernobyl Forum ‘04 must’ve been part of an alternative universe, way out there beyond the wild blue yonder, maybe the Twilight Zone or maybe like entering a scene in Jan Švankmajer’s Alice, a dark fantasy film loose adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Here’s reality: Chernobyl Liquidators fought the Chernobyl disaster. Eight hundred thousand (800,000) Liquidators from the former USSR, largely recruits from the army, with average age of 33, fought the Chernobyl disaster.
According to an interview (2016) with a Liquidator, “We were tasked with the deactivation of the third and fourth reactors, but we also helped build the containment sarcophagus. We worked in three shifts, but only for five to seven minutes at a time because of the danger. After finishing, we’d throw our clothes in the garbage” (Source: Return to Chernobyl With Ukraine’s Liquidators, Aljazeera, April 25, 2016).
“Estimates of the number of liquidators who died or became ill as a result of their work vary substantially, but the men of the 633rd say that out of the 259 from their group, 71 have died. Melnik says that 68 have been designated as invalids by a state committee, which investigates their health and determines whether or not their diseases are attributable to Chernobyl… Dr Dimitry Bazyka, the current director-general of the National Research Centre for Radiation Medicine in Kiev, says that approximately 20,000 liquidators die each year,” Ibid.
As for total deaths, the Chief Medical Officer of the Russian Federation reported that 10% of its Chernobyl Liquidators were dead by 2001. The disaster occurred in 1986 with 80,000 dead within 16 years. Authorities out of Ukraine and Belarus confirmed Russian death numbers. Yet, WHO claims 50 died.
Eighty-thousand (80,000) Liquidators, as of 16 years ago, dead from Chernobyl, and that body count, according to Ms Katz, leaves out the people most contaminated by Chernobyl, meaning evacuees and also 57% of the fallout for Chernobyl came down outside of the USSR, Belarus, and Ukraine, and in 13 European countries 50% of the countryside was dangerously contaminated.
As for studies of the radiation impact of Chernobyl: “Thousands of independent studies in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation and in many other countries, that were contaminated to varying degrees by radionuclides, have established that there has been significant increase in all types of cancer, in diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, urogenital, endocrine immune, lymph node nervous systems, prenatal, perinatal, infant child mortality, spontaneous abortions, deformities and genetic anomalies….” (Katz)
Hence, WHO’s handling and analysis and work on Chernobyl leaves the curious-minded speechless, open-mouthed, agape, and confounded……..http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/02/hidden-radiation-secrets-of-the-world-health-organization/
May 3, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, Belarus, Reference, spinbuster, Ukraine |
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Students win nuclear essay contest http://www.postregister.com/articles/news-todays-headlines/2017/05/01/students-win-nuclear-essay-contest# May 1, 2017 By KEVIN TREVELLYANktrevellyan@postregister.com Skyline High School students David Hill and Phil Ma will receive $1,500 scholarships after winning an essay contest about nuclear technology.
The Idaho Section of the American Nuclear Society initiates the contest each fall. This year’s topic: why would a commercial entity build a reactor on a national laboratory site and how will the electricity be used?
The prompt came on the heels of Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems choosing a spot at the U.S. Department of Energy’s desert site for the small modular reactor being developed by NuScale.
The reactor, currently under review by the U.S. National Regulatory Commission, is slated to provide electricity for dozens of community-owned utilities.
“We thought it was a good time to have students look into that subject and learn more about a project that may actually occur locally; we think it’s relevant to the INL and local community,” society education committee chair Roger Mayes said.
Four judges reviewed submitted essays on content and clarity.
Hill won the 9-10 grade level contest with his essay titled, “A Small Modular Reactor, In Idaho?”
In the 11-12 grade level contest, Ma won with his essay, “NuScale SMR Technology Comes to Historic Nuclear Site.”
Scholarships will be awarded at a society dinner meeting May 18 at the Energy Innovation Laboratory, 775 University Blvd. Society president Andrew Klein will speak.
A social time begins at 6 p.m.; dinner and the program will follow at 7 p.m. Dinner is $20.
For dinner reservations, RSVP to Danielle Perez at IdahoAmericanNuclearSociety@gmail.com by May 15.
Reporter Kevin Trevellyan can be reached at 542-6762.
May 3, 2017
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spinbuster, USA |
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Usually the nuclear lobby hides itself under touchy feely lovely environmental names like “Ecomodernism”, “Environmental progress” “Bright New World”, and you have to read on for ages to find out what they’re really all about – promoting nuclear power.
So it was kind of refreshing when “Generation Atomic” showed up , joining the March For Science, pretending that nuclear power is the cure for climate change.
But, when it came to the March For Climate, they took a different tack. Apparently unable to get a contingent together to push their “nuclear for climate” theme, the nuclear lobby, particularly led by Michael Shellenger and Rod Adams urged people NOT TO MARCH.
Their new schtick is to attack environmental groups, such as Sierra Club, 350.org, and NRDC, Bill McKibben, any environmental group that doesn’t push nuclear power as the solution – and that’s just about ALL of them!
They claim that environmentalists are funded by fossil fuel industries – the implication is that anti nuclear people are just stooges of the fossil fuel lobby – (despite all of us strenuously opposing those polluting industries!)
May 1, 2017
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spinbuster |
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nuclear-news 