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World Nuclear University Launched 381

Posted by simoniker from the stop-worrying-and-love-the-institution dept.
nuke-alwin writes "The first meeting of the 'academic council' of the newly-launched World Nuclear University (WNU) was held in the UK last week. The mission of the WNU is to strengthen the international community of people and institutions to guide and further develop nuclear power and many other nuclear applications (in agriculture, medicine, environmental protection). As workers in the nuclear industry are aging, organisations have started Young Generation Networks such as the YGN of the British Nuclear Energy Society. The WNU is a further recognition that the nuclear industry needs to educate a new generation of workers, so that nuclear power can continue to provide electricity without the production of greenhouse gases."
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World Nuclear University Launched More

World Nuclear University Launched

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  • Nuclear Power is the future (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:55PM (#6903851)
    While solar, wind and tidal power look very attractive, they suffer from the problem of being at the mercy of nature. That is not the case with nuclear power. All you have to do is replace fuel rods once in a while and you get emission-free, clean power. There is the issue of disposing nuclear waste, but I'm confident that issue will also be dealt with as technology advances.
    • Just remember, its pronounced NUK A LER.

    • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:04PM (#6903953) Homepage Journal
      The DOE promised that they'd have a solution for waste instead of stockpiling it at the reactors. Still years after the deadline and nothing yet.

      • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:21PM (#6904151) Homepage Journal
        There have been a lot of sensible proposals for the secure safe storage of nuclear waste, but every one has been shouted down by the "anti-nuke" crowd. Not in my county! Not in my state. Heck, not even in my continent!

        What's wrong with abandoned salt mines? It may not be perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than steels drums sitting around. Or what about encasing the waste in ceramic nodules and dumping them into the Marianas trench? Digging mile long shafts into geologically stable granite mountains?

        Europe's using a heck of a lot of nuclear power. Probably ten times what the US is using. What do they do with it?

      • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:5, Informative)

        by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:24PM (#6904742) Homepage
        They've had a solution since the 70s, actually.

        It's very simple. You reprocess the fuel to recover the usefull stuff out of it. Some of the U235 wasn't used up, so you can save that. Some of the U238 absorbed neutrons and turned into Pu239 and Pu240, which can also be used. Plus there's a smattering of other useful heavy isotopes, some of which (potentially of the Platinum group) would be useful to isolate and sell.

        The problem is that you are creating Plutonium, which is bad on the grounds of nuclear proliferation. Although, the Plutonium produced isn't actually too useful for nuclear warheads anyways because the Pu240 contaminates the warhead-friendly Pu239.

        The remaining stuff is generally not suitable for reactor usage but is occasionally reactive. It looks like you might be able to make it either a net-gain or, at least, not a substantial waste of energy, to bombard it with neutrons so that it will decay much faster.

        The fun thing is that, once the nasty stuff that's very radioactive has had a chance to decay, you are talking about stuff that is actually less radioactive than the source rock. Even without reprocessing, you are talking about storing the stuff for maybe a thousand years.

        The problem is that it's a bad word because we're trying to get all of the little countries of the world to *not* have nukes, and one of the good ways to do this is to build some reactors, put in rods of U238, and then isolate out some Pu239 before the Pu239 has a chance to absorb another neutron and become Pu240. Somebody got the bright idea that if nobody had access to a reprocessing plant that they'd never be able to get enough Plutonium to make a bomb. It's really kinda dumb and just makes us further beholden to the oil and coal reserves.

        The problem is that there's so many whackos of every variety (including overzealous environmentalists) who oppose nuclear power, every single move, even it's a really good idea, is heavily argued about.
        • I've never understood why reprocessing is never discussed in the US when it comes to nuclear power.

          Instead, it always about Yucca Mountain vs. storing it on-site. Personally, I live too close to Yucca Mountain and would like to see it's demise. Of course, my state would probably be next down the list for storage. This stems from some indians that want to nuclear store waste on their land. But their plan is to have it be in the open, above ground.

          But then, I don't see why the states with no nuclear p

          • Because it's a dirty word. Our entire doctorine of nuclear non-proliferation is build around keeping relevant bomb technologies away from non-nuclear states. Reprocessing is one of those technologies that can be abused to make nuclear bombs.

            If people would actually look at the facts, it's different, but congressmen and other policy makers are not known for any in-depth research not provided by a lobbyist.

            But the second somebody starts talking about reprocessing plants, somebody will invoke the Plutonium

    • You're hardly "at the mercy of nature" with solar and tidal power. The movements of Sun, earth and moon tend to be somewhat predictable. Even windpower is fairly consistent over longer periods of time.

      Furthermore I'd hesitate to call nuclear energy 'clean'. It maybe so at the actual power station site, but the production of the fuel rods (digging up and enriching uranium) and the actual power station both require a lot of clean-up.

      Finnally being confident that a solution will be found seems a rather dan

    • > All you have to do is replace fuel rods once in a while and you get emission-free, clean power.

      Or better yet, replace fuel pebbles. There is a design called a "pebble-bed modular reactor" that looks promising (granted, IANANP -- my main experience with nuclear power is playing Three Mile Island on the Apple II and Chernobyl on the Commodore 64). One of the nifty things about the "pebbles" is that they're coated with a thick layer of ceramic that can withstand very high temperatures. The idea is that t

    • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:5, Interesting)

      by f97tosc ( 578893 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:15PM (#6904087)
      While solar, wind and tidal power look very attractive, they suffer from the problem of being at the mercy of nature.

      I think the biggest problem with these technologies is that they take up very large areas. This is fundamental limitation; if we want to get large amounts of energy from solar cells and wind power we have to give up large areas for these purposes.

      As a friend of the environment, I would much rather use such areas for wildlife/ national parks and take the energy from nuclear plants.

      It is too bad the environmental movement is so dogmatic; they get these ideas that certain things are Bad, and at that point no science or rational comparisons can make them change their mind. It does not matter if that there has been tremendous development of nuclear technology in terms of efficiency/ security/ waste.

      It seems like GM is facing the same issues. Instead of discussing intresting tradeoffs suchs as herbicedes/ GM/ larger areas for cultivation the enviroment lobby is completely fanatic.

      It too bad, because the issues they argue about are really important.

      Tor

      • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Dashing Leech ( 688077 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:44PM (#6904375)
        >> While solar, wind and tidal power look very attractive, they suffer from the problem of being at the mercy of nature.

        >I think the biggest problem with these technologies is that they take up very large areas.

        There are a variety of problems associated with so-called "clean" energy sources. Unpredictability and size are certainly two. Another problem is that they often aren't environmentally friendly. Most people are aware of the damage caused by hydro-electric dams, but similar effects come from all natural sources. Tidal power obviously affects currents and erosion. Even solar and wind power on large scale will affect weather patterns and climate in addition to the effects of their sheer size.

        Basically, you can't just extract energy from the environment (technically, move it, since it isn't being destroyed) without affecting the natural sinks for that energy. True, fossil fuels and nuclear add to the net energy (since they were stored in the ground), so perhaps they are worse in that sense. There's really no solution that doesn't cause some harm.

        • There are a variety of problems associated with so-called "clean" energy sources.


          Certainly there are, but there is one problem that non-renewable sources suffer from that is an absolute show-stopper: they aren't renewable. Eventually we will run out of coal, oil, and plutonium. When that happens, we'll either have successfully switched to renewable enery sources, or we'll have to go back to living in caves. I prefer the former.

      • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Listen Up ( 107011 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:05PM (#6905095)
        Technically, speaking as someone who is currently working as an engineer in the energy/utility field, there are two fundamental problems with people talking without knowledge of what they are talking about.

        1) Yes, you are at the mercy of nature. Let's get some facts straight for the mis-information givers. To begin with, the two largest problems facing solar power is that for one, the farther you are away from the equator, the less solar power you can produce. Most of the US in not on the Equator. Secondly, solar power production is directly related cloud cover, among other factors. Building a solar powered facility in Wisconsin, where I live, never pays off. At night, you need energy storage, and that is a whole other issue. Some states it may work, but 90% of the rest of the US...it doesn't.

        2) Now, wind power does not take up large amounts of space. What you don't understand is that the actual footprint of a wind turbine is only around 100-150 square feet. A wind turbine is generally 50-100 meters tall. The taller the wind turbine, the more power it can produce (on flat land like Iowa, Nebraska, etc.) Wind turbines are always built based on worse case scenario wind shear conditions at a design height. Wind turbines do not speed up or slow down, since the generator has a naturally occuring electrical braking action (think Eddy Current braking) and is built to worse case scenario wind shear conditions for minimum operation. The real problem, at least in Iowa where I have done utility studies for the IDNR (Iowa Department of Natural Resources) is that a lot of birds get killed flying to into these huge wind turbine farms and animal activities/tree huggers try to get them shut down. Apparently, the tree huggers want their cake and eat it too. Idiots.

        For a great example of wind power helping out on a massive scale is look at Denmark. They are currently working on converting 90% of their entire COUNTRY to using solely wind power. How are they doing this? Simple. They are building large wind farms far out into the ocean and using constant ocean winds to power the wind turbines. Is it working? YES. Here is an internet link to check this out for yourselves

        http://www.windpower.org/en/core.htm

        Now, the idea has been presented in the United States by several MAJOR utility companies in recent years. The response they have gotten? "We don't want hundreds of wind turbines blocking our view of the ocean."

        You want renewable energy? You change the piss poor, "I only care about me and my pretty ocean view and my pretty birdies, but SAVE THE EARTH and give me FREE CLEAN POWER" Of course, only the US seems to care about points #1 and #2.

        PS-According to a multi-year study in Denmark on their ocean wind turbine farm and birds? Guess what, after a couple of years, the birds learned to fly around the wind turbine farm. Gee, figure that.
    • Why is this modded up as Interesting when it should be Funny? This is clearly a humorous attempt at parodying what people were saying about Nuclear power back in the 1950s.
    • While nuclear power is fascinating to those physicists and engineers who have studied it for all these years, the promise of cheap energy from nuclear power has never materialized. All nuclear installations are subsidized; in a couple of countries (France and Japan) the limited range of other energy options has made nuclear a significant player, but for the rest of the world it is just not cost-competitive against oil, coal, hydro-electric, and now wind power.

      What about the decline in fossil fuels and gree

    • Re:Nuclear Power is the future (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Odin's Raven ( 145278 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:35PM (#6904283)
      ...and you get emission-free,

      Folks, pay no attention to the radioactive waste. Nothing to see here.

      clean

      We repeat: Pay no attention to the radioactive waste. Move along...

      power. There is the issue of disposing nuclear waste,

      Folks...errr...we might need to slightly modify our previous "emission-free, clean" statements. The statements are still true, but for a slightly smaller value of "true" than we'd used originally.

      but I'm confident that issue will also be dealt with as technology advances.

      All right folks, we'll level with you. There are a few by-products that are created by our nuclear power plants, and they're what you might describe as "incredibly hazardous". But remember, a watermelon can also be very hazardous if you try to swallow it whole. Just want to keep things in perspective here.

      However, the good news is that these clean, non-emissive, watermelon-like by-products will be around for thousands of years, so there's ample time to study them, and we're sure that technology will someday be able to deal with them. Until that time arrives, we'll just be...ummm...well, kind of shoving it in a hole in the ground.

      Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!

    • You've got it right. Nuclear is very clean, and it will not run out of fuel until well after every oil well is as dry as the Sahara.

      Some people think that there's an issue with waste and nuclear weapons and terrorists and things. But remember:

      Nukes don't kill people. People kill people.

      Cheerio....
    • Im not going until they start teaching classes on Cold Fusion.

    • All you have to do is replace fuel rods once in a while and you get emission-free, clean power

      I'm not convinced. The half-life of radioactive waste that comes from nuclear power plants is measured in hundreds of thousands of years. What are you going to do with it? Put it in the ground along a fault line or in an active volcano [google.com] like Bush is doing? Or how about put it somewhere where the US isn't likely do start a 'shock and awe' campagin. And then you have to consider problems like meteors and sabbotage

      • Hmmm... chance of an eruption happening during the next 10,000 years. 1 in 70,000,000. Last eruption close to 80,000 years ago.

        YOU want to shoot it into the Sun. Exactly how many rockets do you remember exploding on launch? What do you think would happen if a rocket loaded with radioactive material exploded in the atmosophere?

        YOU may live near uranium mines and worry about when the oil runs out, but I lived 20 miles downrange from where they lauch the rockets (Cape Canaveral, FL) for years. I was a h
      • > There are yet more problems with nuclear power. Think of the trouble the world is in over oil. Uranium will be no different. If you base the world's energy needs on a scarce resource

        This is the first thing I thought of. There is not an infinite supply of Uranium, I remember reading that in documents describing how much estimated total power was available from non-renewable resources in the 90's. IIRC (and I probably do not) it was something like 50-100 years for oil, 100 years for nuclear, and 2-40

      • Your name's FUD. Elmer FUD. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tau Zero ( 75868 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @09:18PM (#6906342) Journal
        I'll take on some of those statements.
        The half-life of radioactive waste that comes from nuclear power plants is measured in hundreds of thousands of years.
        False and grossly misleading. The majority of the radioactivity in the spent fuel is in isotopes with half-lives less than 50 years, much of them less than 30. That gives 20 or 30 half-lives in a thousand years, or from hot to dead in about the age of the Coliseum.

        There are some long-lived isotopes in the mix, but we're fairly good at separating isotopes from each other. There is no reason we couldn't filter those out (e.g. Tc-99 [epa.gov]) and package them for multi-million-year disposal. The beauty is that the hot isotopes are short-lived, and the long-lived isotopes aren't hot.

        Keep in mind when you government tells you how 'safe' nuclear power is that they are using ammunition made from 'depleated' uranium which they claim is 100% safe...
        100% safe... to sit next to. You know, like blocks of lead and sealed vials of mercury? Just don't take any internally.

        It might interest you to know that good old stable arsenic is a serious problem in parts of Asia. Turns out that the wonderful high-tech (not) invention of tube wells for drinking water allowed the over-pumping of aquifers, which let air into them. The air oxidized the formerly-stable arsenic, which became soluble in the water and came up via the wells. Now people across large parts of India have chronic arsenic poisoning. I can't think of any problem with Yucca Mountain affecting so many people or so large an area.

        Think of the trouble the world is in over oil. Uranium will be no different. If you base the world's energy needs on a scarce resource, it will result in eternal military conquest.
        Yeah, someone is bound to lay claim to the world's oceans and all their dissolved uranium, and all the world's thorium while they're at it. And every bit of granite on the planet, and all the coal ash (the uranium in granite gives it more potential energy than coal, and the U and Th in coal ash has more energy potential than the carbon in the coal).
        iving in Australia, with one of the world's richest known sources of uraniam, I am petrified at the thought of what will happen when the oil runs out and the US comes looking for alternative sources. Renewable is the only answer.
        I've got nothing against renewables, just badly-thought-out renewables. So what are you doing to support Bryan Roberts and his gyromill generators?
    • All you have to do is replace fuel rods once in a while and you get emission-free, clean power.

      But..huh? wait...

      You said: There is the issue of disposing nuclear waste, but I'm confident that issue will also be dealt with as technology advances.

      Err, so the presence of dangerous waste means it's NOT clean. I mean, "clean energy source" means the production of the energy creates some form of pollution. Erk. Do you work in marketing?
    • Nuclear power could be the future, but I think that everybody's going about it the wrong way.

      There are four big risks with nuclear power: accidents, waste disposal, terrorist attacks and weapons proliferation. People tend to argue over the first two issues, but they may actually the most manageable. The other two risks are so bad that it's a no-brainer that you don't want hundreds of nuclear power plants sprinkled about in dozens of countries.

      Terrorist threats mean that I don't want a nuke plant anywher

    • If nuclear power is the future, I don't want to be a part of it. I can just about accept that nuclear power is a good short term solution for areas where green technologies aren't quite ready, but for the UK, where I live, nuclear power is as redundant and unattractive as fossil fuels.

      Nuclear power is horrendously expensive. There is this myth that nuclear power is cheap... let me remind readers that the UK Govt had to bail out the British nuclear industry to the tune of 500m recently, [i]just to keep plan

  • Dear Sirs, (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:56PM (#6903869) Homepage Journal


    We would be very blessed to have our best students
    attend your Nuclear School. Our people need this
    nuclear information to produce power so that we may
    destroy western infidels^W^W our dependence on fossil
    fuels while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    Yours very truly,

    Osama bin Laden &
    Saddam Hussein
    • ca. 1997:

      Misc. Saddam Hussein Henchman: We are ready to start the nuclear weapons project, Sir! [vigorously salutes]

      Generalissimo Saddam:Forget about it, cancel it. [calmly, while getting blown by a knockout Filipina]

      Misc. Saddam Hussein Henchman: What do you mean, Sir! We need them to fend off the infidel Americans! [incredulous]

      Generalissimo Saddam:We don't need them. They already think we have them. Just buy a few aluminum cylinders and krytrons every now and then to keep them guessing. [moments befo

    • All of the information nessisary to create a nuclear device Several times the power of the hiroshema device is in the public dommain. The difficulty lies in obtaining the radioactive materal nessisary.

  • What you won't read in the article... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation&gmail,com> on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:57PM (#6903871) Journal
    Students attending this new university are reported to have a half-life of only 18 months. Essentially, upon graduating students have little to no life left in them. How this differs from any other university remains to be seen.

  • interesting choice of words in headline. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Savatte ( 111615 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:57PM (#6903880) Homepage Journal
    When in the same sentence, the words 'launch' and 'nuclear' usually signal bad things are to come.

  • Just what the world needs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:57PM (#6903881) Journal
    A bunch of drunk college frat boys with nuclear waste. Nothing can go wrong with that at all.

  • Great... (Score:2, Funny)

    by G33kDragon ( 699950 )
    Development of nuclear weapons can now be instilled in the hands of college students!! Go world peace!! :D

  • Job Availability? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mooncaller ( 669824 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:59PM (#6903895)
    Last time I checked, there were'nt a lot of opertunities for employment for Nuclear Engineers. Why go into a field with no jobs?

  • Uranium in the atmosphere (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:59PM (#6903902)
    It's interesting that the amount of uranium (in a natural distribution of isotopes) injected in the atmosphere by the burning of coal greatly exceeds the amount put in by nuclear weaponry or nuclear plant crisis. In fact, in the U.S., more people die per year from natural gas (leaks, explosions, housefires) than due to radiation. The real danger to the general population is the mishandling or theft of spent nuclear fuel. Plutonium oxide is very poisonous, in addition to being radioactive. Remember to check scientific fact before arming the FUD Torpedos.

  • Obligatory Simpsons reference (Score:5, Funny)

    by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @03:59PM (#6903903) Homepage
    Prof: This proton accelerator destabilizes the atom in this chamber here, then propels it--

    Homer: Uh, excuse me, Professor Brainiac, but I worked in a nuclear power plant for ten years, and, uh, I think I know how a proton accelerator works.

    Prof: Well, please, come down and show us.

    Homer: All right, I will.

    Everyone abandons the glowing green building. Homer walks out, glowing green himself.

    Homer: [to meltdown men] In there, guys.

    Men: Thanks, Homer.

    -- Homer Goes to College [snpp.com]

  • Auction (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:02PM (#6903927)

    Visit my Ebay listings for lead jock straps, helmets and surplus radioactive materials.

  • It is a double edged sword (Score:5, Funny)

    by George Walker Bush ( 306766 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:03PM (#6903944) Homepage
    My fellow Americans,

    I am extremely concerned about this nuclear school and what it means for our national securitization. We must not misunderestimatify the potential for doing both good and evil that this nuclear school provides. We must keep tabs on it to make sure that the nuclear knowledge does not fall into the wrong hands and remains in the control of Americans for the good of America.

    Thank you and God bless America.

  • When is the US going to grow up? (Score:5, Informative)

    by QuantumRiff ( 120817 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:04PM (#6903952)
    When is the US going to grow up and recycle and refine spent uranium, instead of trying so hard to bury it in the ground. Other countries have breeder reactors that refine used uranium, meaning less fuel mined, less waste made, and the waste that is made has less radioactivity and half life...

    We have enough power generation capacity sitting in nuclear waste cooldown pools to run all of our nuclear power plants for several decades... we just have to refine it.
    • No, no countries have breeder reactors. The uk claimed they were going to be profitable but this was in fact admitted not to be the case. They can be used to produce more nuclear bombs though. There is no country with a working breeder program.

    • Re:When is the US going to grow up? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by turgid ( 580780 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:11PM (#6904029) Journal
      It's not just the USA. Unless you live in France, your country probably has a really negative attitude to nuclear power, which has been allowed to grow over the last 30 years. It stems from the serious nuclear accidents of the past (Windscale, TMI, Chernobyl) coupled wig public ignorance, "environmental" groups with political agendas and good old fasioned FUD and sensationalism in the press. People will tell you about the accidents, but they won't tell you about the benefits, the advances of the last 50 years and the potential for the future, including the huge environmental benefits. This new Nulcear University is the best news I've heard in 10 years, regarding the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Oh, I was a Reactor Physics Engineer at a nuclear powerstation in the UK until the lack of direction, investment and doubt about the medium-term future of the industry forced me to leave and become a software engineer... Not that I'm bitter or anything.
      • Indeed.

        For a technological advance example, TRIGA [ga.com] nuclear plants *cannot* melt down. Can't. Go ahead and pull out all of the control rods... the fuel itself dampens the neutrons and the reactor shuts down.

        For a non-technological development, you'd think we'd want to reduce our reliance on a, shall we say, less-than-stable-region [worldnetdaily.com].

        One would think that the altered political and technological realities of our world would lead to a resurgence in non-fossil power (similar to the 70s when rising oil prices

      • Sellafield [bbc.co.uk]

        Sellafield 2 [american.edu]
        ... keep googling...

        You see, I'm perfectly aware that nuclear energy has some advantages; unfortunately it's a dangerous beast to handle that requires large long term investments. Whenever there's lots of money involved, MBAs start the pissing contest against the "foolish" "overly cautious" scientists (that could they themselves make grave mistakes) over who holds the purse. Then invariably the shit hits the fan and when that happens it's not like in chem industry where at most a
    • The US already has an excellent uranium 'recycling' program that consists of making bullets out of uranium and shooting them all over stinky foreign countries. Probably this whole "War in Iraq" thing is really just a cover for the program.

    • When is the US going to grow up and recycle and refine spent uranium, instead of trying so hard to bury it in the ground. Other countries have breeder reactors that refine used uranium, meaning less fuel mined, less waste made, and the waste that is made has less radioactivity and half life...

      You can blame Jimmy Carter [gnxp.com] for the fact that we're not doing that. (Why nothing has been done since 1981 to rescind that executive order is a valid question.)


    • > When is the US going to grow up and recycle and refine spent uranium

      "Breeder" reactors breed plutonium as the second-generation fuel.

      It's quite difficult to build an amateur nuclear weapon from
      reactor-grade enriched uranium.
      It's much easier to build an amateur nuclear weapon from
      refined plutonium.

      Thoughtful people everywhere have serious concerns about producing
      large quantities of refined plutonium, because they think that
      it may in the end prove difficult to keep it completel
    • The US is actually trying to reduce the number of nuclear power plants, which is why you see few advances in nuclear power in the United States. Most state governments have been unable to sell the idea of "nuclear power in your backyard" to their citizens. Add to this the slew of new security regulations placed on nuclear power plants since 9/11/2001 and no one is willing to build any new plants or implement any new technology. Without nuclear power, though, I don't see how the US plans to power itself o
  • ...so that nuclear power can continue to provide electricity without the production of greenhouse gases

    Yay! It's environmentally friendly! None of those nasty greenhouse gases, no sir! Just waste that is very chemically toxic, emits powerful high-energy radiation, and has a half-life measured in millenia. And as an added bonus, it costs billions and billions of dollars!

    • Every year, we only produce about 30k tons of spent fuel. Compare this to nearly 300 million tons of chemical waste produced each year.

      If you took all the nuclear waste produced ever, it would only cover a football field five metres deep.

      Of the 360 mrem that the average person is exposed to every year, .2 mrem comes from nuclear power plants or nuclear waste. Compare this to the 50 mrem people recieve from X-Ray machines at hostpitals. Or the 50 mrem we recieve from cosmic radiation. Hell, even breath
      • If you took all the nuclear waste produced ever, it would only cover a football field five metres deep

        I don't know if you are correct or not, but Kids, don't do this at home. The resulting meltdown would create a vast blob of extremely hot molten "nuclear waste" that will burn through the ground sending aerosolized debris with an extremely high "nuclear waste" content into the atmosphere. Since it is very hot, some of it reaches a high altitude. When the blob hits the water table, there will be a vast ste

        • what? you do know most neclear waste is solid, right?

          you do knwo that he didn't propose putting it in a football field, only used it as an example, right?

          perhaps you should direct your frustation towards the government and try to make it so they continue to properly dispose of the waste.
        • Not so with storage sites full of waste-filled drums.
          What, this is the only way to store nuclear waste is in leaky steel drums? Like we can't encase it in lead-lined glass, or any of the other numerous (safer) methods of storing toxic waste? Come on, let's be a little MORE reactionary and sarcastic, huh?

    • Re:always astounding (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rutulian ( 171771 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:52PM (#6904461)
      Just waste that is very chemically toxic, emits powerful high-energy radiation, and has a half-life measured in millenia

      You know, this is probably the most misunderstood aspect of nuclear reactors. Everybody is convinced that nuclear waste is so dangerous and that it is the worst thing that can happen to the environment because the radioactive nuclei won't stabilize for thousands of years.

      The thing is, nuclear waste is composed of fission products, which are a lot of different things. There are short-lived isotopes, medium-lived isotopes, and long-lived isotopes. The long-lived isotopes that everybody likes to make a big deal about are only a percentage of the total waste (I don't remember the actual number, but I think it is something like 20%). Furthermore, you can observe an interesting trend if you look at a chart of the nuclides. The high-energy betas and gammas tend to come from short-lived and medium-lived isotopes. Long-lived isotopes tend to emit weak betas and alphas.

      So what does this mean? It means nuclear waste becomes a lot "safer" after several decades (long enough for the short and medium-lived isotopes to stabilize). Then the longer-lived isotopes that remain suddenly become a lot easier to dispose of. Better yet, if those long-lived isotopes happen to be fissile, they can be recycled into new fuel and then they don't have to be disposed of period. Also, if you could separate the short, medium, and long-lived isotopes initially, the short-lived could be kept in a facility until they stabilize, the long-lived could be recycled, and then the only waste that you actually have to worry about disposing of are the medium-lived isotopes.

      Personally, I don't think nuclear power is the perfect solution to every solution, but it is a good solution to many problems. If people would get over the stigma on radiation (leftover from the cold war) and come up with a good way to deal with nuclear waste, nuclear power would be a much better solution than the many gas and oil burning power plants we currently have in the US. And that's not to say that power-generating is the only good function for a nuclear reactor. A lot of really good science can be done with them that can't be done with anything else.
  • The WNU is a further recognition that the nuclear industry needs to educate a new generation of workers, so that nuclear power can continue to provide electricity without the production of greenhouse gases.

    Instead of greenhouse gases nuclear power produces radioactive wastet that will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years.

  • atoms for peace (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jpc ( 33615 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:05PM (#6903969) Homepage
    funny the intro was written in 1953.

    And funny it was held in the uk, where the nuclear program has finally been scrapped as the government has admitted that it is bankrupt with huge liabilities. Not technically scrapped as they will run a few plants for a bit, but none will ever be built again, and the entire uk nuclear indusrty is going to be turned into a cleanup operation. Which given their historical record will still be a disaster. Parts of Sellafield could still go critical because of the amount of nuclear material that has never been cleaned up properly.

  • Nuclear Convocation (Score:5, Funny)

    by sssmashy ( 612587 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:05PM (#6903972)
    I look forward to seeing the first convocation ceremony for the Nuclear University. All those young, fresh-faced graduates, glowing with pride... at least, we hope it's pride...
  • Ask anyone who has served in a direct nuclear rate in the US Navy what kinds of opportunities in the industry there are. The answer is limited. The US Navy cranks out experienced officers (read: college educated, 4yr, masters and some phd) and enlisted personnel (two year degree equivelent + minimum four years OTJ training). Their training program is amazingly good. Britain, Russia and other powers with nuclear subs have pretty damn good training programs, too.

    This is a false shortage. The reason for

    • Re:LOLx2 Need More Nuclear Workers (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ninthwave ( 150430 ) <slashdot@ninthwave.us> on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:20PM (#6904135) Homepage
      I grew up in Harrisburg PA so I have a bias here. I watched Three Mile Island be built and I watched them take away the damaged reactor. From my childhood into my young adulthood. I believe in the theory of nuclear power as a clean efficient fuel source, I fear the economics that lead to companies cutting corners to increase profits. Until the American system of capitalism can include social, environmental concerns in the structure of a company that works with material as this the risk is too high. It is the human nature not the science that lets us down with nuclear power.

      And the waste solutions.
    • This is absolutely true.

      I had a manager that was on a nuclear submarine, and he said when he got out of the Navy, he started interviewing with employers in the Nuclear Industry, becuase people tend to "go with what they know."

      After a couple interviews, he actually had the interviewer tell him to look into another industry, because the NRC was not in the business of renewing any licenses for power plants, and these things are only commisioned for 50 years.

      Call it heresay if you want, but when were some of

  • Are you sure it doesn't stand for... (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:10PM (#6904017) Homepage
    ..."WNU's Not a University"?
  • People need to look beyond how clean and how safe nuclear power can be. There are real political costs to maintaining a nuclear programme. I don't mean just domestically, but internationally too. How can a nation proclaim they support non-proliferation and try to prevent other nations (e.g. Iran) from building reactors when they continue their own dependence upon them. Lead by example, or be viewed as hypocrits and be ignored - this fosters international tensions. Those in glass houses shouldn't cast s
    • When your country sits on top of vast reserves of cheap oil, you can expect other countries to be suspicious when you express a sudden interest in developing a nuclear energy program for scientific research and energy production. Scientific research can be done with research reactors, which have minimal proliferation hazards. Power production reactors make no economic sense when there are abundant supplies of cheap oil.

  • Nuclear power for our future (Score:5, Informative)

    by RevMike ( 632002 ) <revMike@gmail. c o m> on Monday September 08, 2003 @04:39PM (#6904326) Journal
    I shudder to say this, but we (USA) would do well to emulate the French (Oh god - maybe I'll post this as an AC) in this area.

    The countries that have used nuclear power effectively have set up a program where they designed and certified a one, two, or a small handful of reactors. Then the built from those same reactors over and over and over again. Given that the amount of engineering man-hours in a nuclear reactor is staggeringly huge, this is a far more cost efficient than the US model where every nuclear power plant is a custom job.

    Incidents are bound to occur in any sufficiently complex system. Due to safety conscious design, incidents in western commercial nuclear power plants are virtually never hazardous to the public. But it would be far better for a pump to fail prematurely at one plant, and have a message go out to 50 other plants to check that pump, rather than have every plant discover problems on their own.

    Spent fuel reprocessing is probably a good idea too. It will reduce the amount of waste and also limit the amount of uranium mining. I recall that I once read that mine accidents dwarf every other cause of "commercial nuclear power" related deaths combined. If the remaining waste is glass-encapsulated and stored, it should be very stable and be cause for very little concern.

    Finally, Americans must understand that every power generation technique has some impact. Fossil fuel plants likely contribute to tens of thousands of deaths each year - from mining/drilling operations, accidents transporting the product, people breathing the waste. Solar manufacturing exposes workers to fair numbers of toxic and hazardous chemicals. Hydroelectric plants have substantial envrinmental impact. Wind power is unsteady and kills birds. When these factors are all taken into account nuclear power looks fairly good on balance.

    In the long run, I believe that a system of a large number of modern nuclear power plants built form a small number of designs should be operated as our "baseline" electrical energy source. The reactors will be supllemented with a system of solar, wind, and gas-turbine plants to accomodate peak demand. This system will minimize the impact on our environment, provide a high level of safety, and provid ethe power we need to grow.

    • I agree with your post in general, although I had to point out one fallacy (at least, one that I recognized):

      Wind power is unsteady and kills birds.

      This [greenenergyohio.org], this [currykerlinger.com], and this [ceert.org] indicate otherwise. The statement that "Wind power...kills birds" presumably means "Wind power kills quite a lot of birds." No one would argue that wind turbines have killed a nonzero number of birds in the past, but the kill rate for wind turbines seems vastly dwarfed by the kill rates for other man-made structures... like regular b

  • WNU (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cyno ( 85911 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:08PM (#6904610) Journal
    Nuclear energy. So clean and cheap and efficient. Its almost worth getting cancer.

  • A few thoughts on nuclear power (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acaird ( 530225 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:30PM (#6904793)
    1. how odd is it that as I'm typing this "Dr. Strangelove" just started on TCM...
    2. I vaguely recall learning that some incredibly large fraction of the cost of a nuclear power plant (and thus what the utility charges) is legal fees getting it built, and that is why no new plants have been built in the last 20 or so years
    3. Yes, nuclear plants produce very dangerous byproducts. However, you know right where they are - in those little metal tubes. Contrast with coal/natural gas/oil plants. Much of the waste from those plants is, well, sort of everywhere. If the non-nuclear power plants had the same emissions standards (even if it was just the same radiation emmission standards) as nuclear power plants, electricity would be fantastically expensive.
    4. Nuclear waste can be stored and processed and transported safely. It's done every day. I've seen it. Why isn't it re-processed? Again, the legal fees in defending the construction of a plant make it cheaper to leave it at the plants.
    5. Nuclear plants in the U.S (and Europe and Asia) cannot blow up like Chernobyl. In two sentences: When Chernobyl (and like reactors, known as RBMKs) get hot, the reaction rate increases, then they get hotter, then the reaction rate increase, then they get hotter, until the structure can't take it. Non-RBMK's (all of the reactors in US, Europe, Asia, etc.) have a negative coefficient of reactivity; when they get hot the reaction slows. This is a property of physics, not of any external controls.
    6. Interesting that there is a "shortage" of nuclear workers. Of the 10 people in my undergraduate nuclear engineering class (U. of Michigan, 1989-93), 4 are in IT-related fields, 1 is in the nuclear Navy, 1 is doing brain cancer treatment research (nuclear medicine), 1 is managing hotels, and I've lost track of the other three. It's tough to find work as an entry-level nuclear engineer, even if you want it.
    7. Personally, I believe nuclear power is the lesser evil of coal, oil, and natural gas.
    8. Construction of solar panels generates all sorts of nasty waste, and panels, by definition, make shade where there used to be sun - for all of the interest in solar power these two facts are often overlooked. Perhaps we just don't like the desert ecosystem. :) Panels on building, if they can be constructed with minimum environmental damage, are a good idea, but just can't produce enough power at those sizes to matter too much.
    9. Wind and tide power have promise; nice mechanical systems with (hopefully) manageable environmental impacts.
    10. Hydro-electric pretty much defines negative environmental impact.
    11. Geothermal is great. In Iceland.

    A. Caird
    B.S. Nuc. Eng. 1993 U. of Michigan
    M.S. Nuc. Eng. 1996 U. of Michigan
    (but I've never worked as a nuclear engineer; IT jobs are available in nearly every city in the world, computational reactor design jobs are not)

    Take it for what it's worth.

  • Last time I checked, liability insurance was provided via the taxpayers in the US and other countries.


    I can believe that hot fusion might be developed into a practical power source(The Farnsworth Fusor [wikipedia.org] might actually be made to work). We have yet to see fission plants really stand on their own without various indirect subsidies from government.

  • develop nuclear power and many other nuclear applications (in agriculture, medicine, environmental protection).

    Great idea! Nobody is going to fuck with Mother Nature once she's packing nukes!

    Here I could make a crack about how that might just make Bush attack the environment even more, but I'm not above that.

  • Run for cover! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sebastopol ( 189276 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:56PM (#6904989) Homepage
    World Nuclear University Launched???

    This giant University will destroy us all!

    T-minus 15 minutes 'till impact!

  • Not a bad idea. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ciphertext ( 633581 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:44PM (#6905391)

    Perhaps now, this will provide the United States with an impetus to standardize on a reactor plant design. If the Federal Government approached nuclear power with the same notions as the U.S. Navy, perhaps we would see a greater role for nuclear power in our society. It is markedly more easy to design, develop, and implement a reactor plant design that can be certified; than it is to have to certify each individual reactor plant design. The U.S. Navy (and possibly other world Navies) certify a small number of designs and fabricators so that an inspection is all that is required. Example: The reactor system made by GE or Westinghouse has been certified by the Navy's nuclear regulatory authority and can be built immediately upon order from the Navy. A simple inspection and sea-trial are all that is required to validate its functionality. There is not a requirement that the design for that reactor be submitted for approval for each build, as the design has already been approved.

    This is contrary to the public power generating stations. Each reactor and plant design must be submitted for review prior to the plant being built. It would be far wiser and more efficient to have the appropriate regulatory agency(s) (FERC, NRC, AEC...it changes) approve a set of reactor plant designs and their respective fabricators/construction agencies before a plant is needed. Example: A nuclear power plant design for 1000Mw, 500Mw, etc... has been approved for build by the appropriate agencies. Reliant Energy needs to expand its capacity to provide power by 500Mw in the next 3 years. Reliant has simply to consult the regulatory agencies list of approved design/fabricators to determine what they could build. The plant can be built immediately or as soon as possible and would only require inspections and testing, and would not require a design submission. This could shave off years of wait time for Reliant, and reduce the costs of electricity to consumers.

  • Biomass (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cybrr ( 535845 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @09:18PM (#6906343) Journal
    It's cheap, organic, carbon neutral and doesn't have nasty waste which could attract terrorists.

    Plus you can make gas, oil, alcohol, paper, etc. out of a lot of it. Take hemp [google.com] or algae [tve.org] for instance.

  • Rocky Mountain Institute (Score:3, Informative)

    by Likes Microsoft ( 662147 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @09:54PM (#6906549) Homepage
    I am a nuclear physicist (note: not a nuclear engineer, which I admit would be more of an expert), and I have not seen compelling arguments that nuclear power plants will be necessary to provide power to future generations.

    Economically, none of the existing ones have ever turned a profit without generous government assistance. I humbly submit an interesting organizations' website to this discussion: The Rocky Mountain Institute [rmi.org]. They are a think tank on environmental and energy issues, which strives not to have a particular agenda, but only to base their analyses on proven science and solid economic reasoning. They don't lobby governments, and most of their recommendations are squarely aimed at industries.

    Also, the notion that solar energy generation could never provide enough energy without taking up too much space is absurd. A back of the envelope calculation shows that a desert installation of mirrors focused on heating towers (working prototypes exist) or photovoltaics with today's available efficiencies, can do the job. The USA's electricity demand could be met with an installation the size of Rhode Island.

    Readers of The Industrial Physicist [aip.org] will also recall from a recent article (and discussion in the letters to the editor [aip.org]) that we are not limited to Earth-based generation. Within decades, we could be placing photovoltaic installation on the moon, and beaming the energy to stations on the Earth's surface by focussed microwaves.

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