Student interns accept full-service roles at Savannah River

August 1, 2023, 12:05PMNuclear News
SRNS Internship Program students sign and accept their full-time position offers at the Savannah River Site as SRNS executives, managers, and mentors look on (Photo: SRNS)

Dozens of students from the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) Internship Program were recently offered a chance at full-service positions during what SRNS called a signing day event held at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C.

The indispensable value of a P.E. license for entrepreneurs

May 24, 2023, 3:00PMANS NewsArielle Miller

Arielle Miller

In the world of engineering, obtaining a Professional Engineering (P.E.) license is often seen as a significant milestone. The journey toward earning this esteemed credential can be arduous and time-consuming, involving rigorous exams, licensing applications, and recommendations from licensed professionals. However, many young engineers question the practicality of obtaining a P.E. license, especially when starting their own business. This article explores the importance of having a P.E. license when venturing into entrepreneurship and how it can benefit engineers in their professional journey.

For aspiring entrepreneurs in engineering, acquiring a P.E. license early in their careers can be a strategic move. Working for an established company allows young engineers to take advantage of opportunities like employer-funded preparation courses and financial assistance for licensing and exam fees. By investing time and effort into obtaining a P.E. license during the early-career stage, engineers position themselves for future success in their entrepreneurial endeavors.

DOE makes efforts to develop an inclusive STEM workforce

March 28, 2023, 3:02PMANS Nuclear Cafe
Participants in a job fair at the recent 2023 Waste Management Symposia visited a booth hosted by DOE representatives. A virtual component of the job fair is available through March 31. (Photo: DOE)

More than 300 employees from the Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (EM) have recently retired, resulting in a large amount of job vacancies across the cleanup program, according to the DOE.

EM’s Workforce Management Office is implementing recruitment efforts to fill the vacancies with college graduates, early career professionals, mid-career candidates, and seasoned veterans.

According to the DOE, "The open positions offer opportunities across many different disciplines, including engineering, science, business, management, safety and information technology."

How do nuclear power plant workers pull together as a team?

December 20, 2022, 3:00PMNuclear NewsSarah Camba Lynn

Sarah Camba Lynn

How to characterize a tight-knit, high--functioning workplace is an open question. Some consider it a family, due to close working relationships and long hours spent together. Personally, I prefer to focus on the parallels between a group of coworkers and a professional sports team.

Being a good Texan, football is my go-to for sports analogies. A football team, while cohesive, is really made up of several smaller teams. Not everyone is on the field at once, nor are the positions interchangeable. They share a goal—to win—but each smaller team has a different focus and specific tasks to achieve the goal. At a nuclear power plant, there are several departments, each also with a distinct focus but overall contributing together to the goal of reliable, safe, carbon-free energy.

Michigan EMERGE event to focus on diversity in engineering

October 5, 2022, 9:30AMANS Nuclear Cafe

The 2022 Michigan Engineering Research and Graduate Education (EMERGE) event will be held from Sunday, October 30 to Tuesday, November 1, at the University of Michigan College of Engineering in Ann Arbor. The expenses-paid, three-day event is designed to introduce a diverse cohort of prospective students to Michigan engineering doctoral programs.

Contract with Rosatom for Finnish reactor scrapped

May 5, 2022, 6:59AMNuclear News
An artist’s rendering of the Hanhikivi plant. (Image: Rosatom)

Finnish energy company Fennovoima has terminated, effective immediately, its engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with RAOS Project Oy, a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, for the delivery of a 1,200-MWe VVER-1200 pressurized water reactor at the Hanhikivi site in Finland’s Pyhäjoki municipality.

Consortium participates in National Academies webinar on low-dose radiation

September 4, 2020, 12:07PMNuclear News

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) has begun a new webinar series, with the first entry titled “What’s new in low-dose radiation.” The July 22 event kicked off the Gilbert W. Beebe Webinar Series—an extension of the Beebe Symposium, which was established in 2002 to honor the scientific achievements of the late Gilbert Beebe, NAS staff member and designer/implementer of epidemiologic studies of populations exposed to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the Chernobyl accident.


Are the Tides Turning for Advanced U.S. Nuclear?

January 31, 2019, 6:01AMANS Nuclear CafeDoug Hardtmayer

RadioNuclear.orgWelcome to the New Year!  Even though I am on the road, there is just so much happening lately in nuclear I could not pass up the opportunity to talk about it! This episode of RadioNuclear, we take a look at recent and exciting legislation and policy for advanced nuclear. This includes the passages of the NEIMA and NEICA bills and what the Idaho National Laboratory may look like in the coming years. We also discuss the NRC's recent decision on post Fukushima regulation. Lastly, we look on how you can adopt a dog from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. No, I am not making that up!

Looking Back: A Brief History of CONTE

January 2, 2019, 2:37AMANS Nuclear CafeDr. Jane LeClair

The accident that occurred at Three Mile Island on March 28, 1979, brought about many changes to the nuclear industry. Among the changes was the industry stopping to reflect on current procedures and the training of its employees. Exhorted by the findings of the Kemeny Commission and sponsored by the Department of Energy, industry leaders and training personnel began meeting on improvements to training at the Gatlinburg Conference in the early 1980's.

Caught in the Leadership Paradox: Insight from Admiral Rickover

July 3, 2014, 4:56PMANS Nuclear CafePaul E. Cantonwine

Recent scandals at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and General Motors (GM) have struck a chord with the media and the American people because they represent the worst in bureaucracies-where the lives of individuals seem to get lost in the bureaucratic woods. In the case of the VA, lying about wait times blocked pathways for care and potentially resulted in the early deaths of some veterans. In the case of GM, the bureaucracy put horse blinders on its employees so that they couldn't recognize the safety significance of ignition switch problems linked to at least 13 deaths.

The 2013 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation

September 18, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeMatthew Gidden and Nicholas Thompson

From July 7 -12, 16 students from around the country came to Washington DC to talk with politicians and policymakers about nuclear engineering education funding, energy policy, and other nuclear issues as part of the 2013 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation (NESD). This year the delegation was comprised of students with especially diverse backgrounds, including nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, materials science, and nuclear safeguards policy. The chair of the delegation was Matthew Gidden, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying nuclear engineering and energy policy. He was assisted by two co-vice chairs: Mark Reed of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nicholas Thompson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Looking forward to next 70 years of atomic fission

December 4, 2012, 11:00AMANS Nuclear CafeRod Adams

This past weekend the world quietly marked the 70th anniversary of the initial criticality of CP-1 (Critical Pile 1), the 55th anniversary of the initial criticality of the Shippingport nuclear power plant, and the decommissioning of the USS Enterprise, a 51 year-old nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Those events have put me into a reflective but incredibly optimistic mood.