Nuclear chemistry PhD's peaked in 1971

As I've said before, by 1976 it was becoming increasingly clear in the scientific and engineering communities, including the nuclear engineering community, that the technical difficulties with nuclear energy were so intractable that it would be decades at best, and probably never, before these problems were solved.

Although I don't have links to the conversations and various formal and informal analysis of the time, there is some historical data which illustrates this point.

From page 11 of (pdf) www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/upload/Nuclear-Readiness-Report-FINAL-2.pdf

Well, to get a study initiated in 1977, meant it was widely discussed in 1976. QED.

Page 12 has a nice chart:

I'm going to make another post about nuclear engineer BS's,
so I want to point out that, for example, to get a BS in any field,
there are about 2 years of field-specific requirements, plus prior prerequisites,
so for example someone getting in senior year high school will have chosen an engineering college,
they might switch particular fields during freshman or sophomore year,
but by the end of sophomore year they will have committed to and pre-registered courses in their degree field,
so there is 2-5 years of commitment before getting a degree in any field.

My plan was to major in Nuclear Engineering at Purdue. During my Freshman year I switched to Mechanical Engineering. One of the best decisions of my life. My career would have been much more limited as would my options if I had stayed with Nuclear Engineering.

I have been against (or at least suspicious of nuclear power) for awhile now (especially after the Yucca Mountain decision to not store there). After this stuff stored onsite at each facility is not a solution.

I don't know much about Thorium reactors but maybe that is a better option.

Chem E graduates got the highest starting salaries at that time. The public realized that our future was going to involve pumping a lot of petroleum.

Nuclear engineering BS degrees peaked in 1977-78,
petroleum engineering degrees skyrocketed into the 1980's.
This chart doesn't have chemistry engineering.
From http://www.engtrends.com/IEE/1107C.php :

Most plants were canceled in the 80's, because of the rising tide of anti-nuclear.

As for this post, a more plausible theory is that it was the usual tide of whatever was popular at the time, just as there was a drop in computer science enrollments after the Internet bubble. The continuing drop after 73 and into the 80's was because of the nations attitude toward nuclear. Why get a degree in something when you can't find a job?

New orders fell to a trickle after 1974 and ended in 1978.
Eyeballing the chart of cancellations from the DOE website,
hard to tell, looks like roughly 80 of them were cancelled through 1980,
roughly 60+ through 1979,
the DOE website says 124 cancellations total:



Via http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=257620&mesg_id=257620

founded in the early 70's.

So much for your theory that "It wasn't the anti-nukes fault"

As for the economic theory, they had to compete with coal. You seem to have left that out and in it's place put "insurmountable problems"

"Meanwhile, nuclear power plants have also had to compete with conventional coal- or natural gas-fired plants with declining operating costs."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/eh/eh.html

DOE numbers on subsidies

nuclear $.00159 per KWh generated
solar $.02434 per KWh generated
wind $.02337 per KWh generated

There is a clear pattern of deception on the part of the nuclear industry. They use false cost estimates that elicit huge government funding windfalls and then reality set in as the real costs have to be faced.



See the pattern?

Here is the link: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse
The Economics of Nuclear Reactors: Renaissance or Relapse?
by Mark Cooper

Within the past year, estimates of the cost of nuclear power from a new generation of reactors have ranged from a low of 8.4 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to a high of 30 cents. This paper tackles the debate over the cost of building new nuclear reactors. The most recent cost projections for new nuclear reactors are, on average, over four times as high as the initial “nuclear renaissance” projections. The additional cost of building 100 new nuclear reactors, instead of pursuing a least cost efficiency-renewable strategy, would be in the range of $1.9-$4.4 trillion over the life the reactors.

The key findings of the paper as follows:
- The initial cost projections put out early in today’s so-called “nuclear renaissance” were about one-third of what one would have expected, based on the nuclear reactors completed in the 1990s.
-The most recent cost projections for new nuclear reactors are, on average, over four times as high as the initial “nuclear renaissance” projections.
-There are numerous options available to meet the need for electricity in a carbon-constrained environment that are superior to building nuclear reactors. Indeed, nuclear reactors are the worst option from the point of view of the consumer and society.
-The low carbon sources that are less costly than nuclear include efficiency, cogeneration, biomass, geothermal, wind, solar thermal and natural gas. Solar photovoltaics that are presently more costly than nuclear reactors are projected to decline dramatically in price in the next decade. Fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage, which are not presently available, are projected to be somewhat more costly than nuclear reactors.
-Numerous studies by Wall Street and independent energy analysts estimate efficiency and renewable costs at an average of 6 cents per kilowatt hour, while the cost of electricity from nuclear reactors is estimated in the range of 12 to 20 cents per kWh.

The additional cost of building 100 new nuclear reactors, instead of pursuing a least cost efficiency-renewable strategy, would be in the range of $1.9-$4.4 trillion over the life the reactors. Whether the burden falls on ratepayers (in electricity bills) or taxpayers (in large subsidies), incurring excess costs of that magnitude would be a substantial burden on the national economy and add immensely to the cost of electricity and the cost of reducing carbon emissions.

CTRL-V for victory!

A renewable site. They're not biased AT ALL!

And they have ALL your graphs!

:sarcasm:

Real history is based on "facts" not "uncertainties" which could be found by going to a primary source.

You seem to have a problem with "facts" you don't like.

It's like talking to a fundie. Which I have done WAY to much of in my life.

Argument from repetition

Do you understand how such a claim for a report like this - which is easily verified by checking its sources, methods and analytic validity - marks you as someone that has nothing worthwhile to add?

And after working with some PHD's, I also understand they are not immune to it, nor EGO.

What's the problem? I've seen you discard sources you didn't like one after the other. MIT, DOE, etc....

The problem I have with that study is it's based on 1970's-80's numbers. How can it not be? We haven't built ( or even started) a new reactor in 30 years. That's what everyone in the energy forum is talking about these days. Based on 1970's numbers, he's probably right. But that doesn't mean what happen yesterday is going to happen today.

Besides that, MIT is one of the top SCIENCE schools. I'll take them over a LAW school talking about science any day.

As for your last comment, it just really shows what type of person you are. I feel sorry for you, because that's the type of person I am.

Iowa State, for example, which played a key role in uranium processing for the Manhattan project, had a nuclear reactor, and trained many nuclear engineers for Turkey and the developing world.