Nuclear Engineering Programs Become Needed

Post Reply New Topic

I'm thinking of going back to college to get a real degree. I dropped out of Engineering school about seven years ago, and never thought about returning, until now. The public University in Richmond, VCU, is going to offer a Nuclear Engineering program this fall, and more than likely, needs students to enrol. I'm not a big physics studier, but I have a strong math background. For some reason, this degree seems like the most evil thing on earth, and yet, is totally brilliant. Does anyone have any ethical dilemmas with nuclear energy? Can we please discuss the pros and cons?

The only reason I could see it causing an ethical dilemma is if you intend to use the degree to work with weapons (either nuclear weapons or nuclear reactor powered warships). People that are so against nuclear reactor generally cite things like Three Mile Island as to why we shouldn't have reactors, but they don't seem to acknowledge that engineers have had 30 years to design, redesign, and redesign again several dozen times over new reactors. We've had a long time to stop things like Three Mile to happen again. Which in itself was the fault of an incredibly stupid safety system: a relief valve whose activation sensor wasn't a sensor that detected if it was open separately, but only tell you that the signal was being sent for it to open or close. Additionally, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (http://www.nrc.gov/) requires any reactor to have two NRC agents do daily inspections to make sure that the plants are abiding the regulations (one plant was recently fined somewhere around $50,000 because of a security guard sleeping on the job). Hell, nuclear energy's currently the most viable and the cleanest alternative to petroleum and the like.

I could ramble on some more (I've been researching the NRC a lot since I'm currently up for consideration to be hired by them, and applied to work at one of Westinghouse Nuclear's international plants), so feel free to ask anything else, though others might be able to answer you better. On a side note, if you want to work at a plant (or with the NRC), I'd give you a few pieces of advice. First is, if you can, go into an already established Nuclear Engineering program. When I say this, I mean go for one that has its own small-scale nuclear reactor (I would suggest Oregon State University's program, since it's Nuclear Engineering program is one of the best, but that's a bit too far away for you, most likely). Second would be that you should minor in a foreign language, if you can (Nuclear Engineering is hands-down the absolute hardest degree to obtain, closely followed by Chemical/Electrical/Mechanical Engineering). I say this because companies like Westinghouse Nuclear are building a lot of reactors internationally, and they seem to prefer to hire American engineers to work there. The big countries I remember on one of their job postings were China (over 20 reactors in the works), Japan (2 reactors), Germany, France, Sweden, and a few of the countries around Russia. Being fluent in one of those languages would give you a big boost over your competitors for a job.

And one last thing, if you're interested, here's the NRC's pay scale for entry-level engineers (likely to go up a good $4,000-8,000 by the time you graduate).

Well good luck to you, I am sure that a decent education in nuclear matters is useful for both building, operating and decommisioning plants. I think that we need to maintain the skills in this subject if we are to avoid a crisis.

Even if the nuclear sector stopped all work today, we would still have a large amount of radioactive matter which is produced and worked with in the oil & gas industry. Many oil wells produce water which is very rich in radium, and the gas tends to contain lots of radon. Many oil and gas processing plants have a lot of contamination, the propane parts of the plant tend to be the worst becuase radon and propane have roughly the same boiling points.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

T A&M Has a realy big nuclear engineering program which is going to be my major actuly

What ethical dilemma is there? Unless you intend to put it toward military applications, I don't see where you're running into any ethical dilemmas. Nuclear power is safe and clean. The aforementioned 3 Mile Island incident did not put anyone in danger, and the risk was exaggerated due to a miscommunication. The only real nuclear accidents I can think of involve Soviet reactors, which were built along an inferior design.

People think that nuclear eng = fission reactor. When really it consists of everything.

Technologies like NMRI are examples of nuclear eng.

The problem is we think, because we are polluting the earth, if we somehow revert to primitivism that will some how be more "sustainable". This is false and has never been the case the whole history of the earth. We are on a path to destruction whether we like it or not. Whilst we may accelerate things somewhat we can not stop it outright, and certainly won't be in a position to do anything without some technical advances. Also we are not saving the earth, which is near impossible and actually a much bigger problem than climate. We are trying to extend our existence and habitats that support us. Case and point: There have been past habitats that would never support us. Part of our success as mammals was because we arose out of extreme global warming and survived as the dinosaurs didn’t. This is because we were small back then and could burrow during the day. We are big now which make things more difficult,

This is why I get really frustrated with organisations like Greenpeace as they are misleading the public just as much as those who they oppose. Both sides are just as bad and sensible discussion is few and far between.

Nuclear fission works, it is not a long term solution because hopefully there is something better, but it is bloody good short term solution, and frankly we have few other option. There is not a single other "green" energy that is going to be able to power the whole world.

To put it bluntly you could have a thousand chernobyls and it would never match the devastation of global warming, because it concerns all of the earth and last a great deal longer. Fusion can by us some time so can radial ideas like the suflur rockets idea. Fusion would be awsome if we can make it viable.

I'd like to specialise in nuclear waste management. I recently found out that there is now a movement to halt out of state nuclear waste exports to states like Nevada and Texas- largely due to the threat of a terrorist attack. When I was staying with a group of activists in Austin, I learned about the Poo Poo Train. A few of the people who lived at the collective were involved in some kind of lawsuit that had to do with the nuclear waste imports and it's effect on the ground water and other resources. I will email them and find out more. Dominion Power is the sponsor of the program at VCU, and they are planning on putting in a new reactor at the local plant just outside of Richmond. The biggest issue that I personally have is the large sum of money that has to be on hold to decommission a reactor before it is built. This hidden cost is the "pork barrel" factor, that halts the progress of greener energy budgeting and programs. It's not to say that one can't get a Mechanical Engineering degree and hop on a green project somewhere; something I'm also taking into consideration. s**t, I may just go with Mechanical and build hi tech bondage equipment for a living, or design new tech integrated sex toys...