Self-Driving cars and Nuclear Power, Part 1:

Echoes of Familiar Themes

No, I'm not going to advocate nuclear power for self-driving cars!  I was just struck by a couple of articles I've seen over the past few days that demonstrated to me some fundamental similarities among diverse technological developments.

In the first case, someone pointed me to a couple of articles in IEEE Spectrum about the history of self-driving cars.  One article cites reports dating as far back as 1958, while the other references a previous IEEE Spectrum article in 1969.  Both articles are optimistic about the future of self-driving cars, and to read them now, one would have thought the technology was around the corner.  And this was before all the modern computer and other technology that is being applied to the current demonstration models of self-driving cars.

As it happens, these two articles were sent to me just days after someone else sent me a list of predictions being made today in a variety of areas.

My point here is not to delve into the the pluses and minuses of all the recent predictions, or to try to assess the details of self-driving cars, then and now.  I am not an expert in most of these areas, and will leave that assessment to others.  But what did strike me is that elements of both these discussions seem eerily similar to the expectations for nuclear power in the early days.

When I worked at DOE in the early 2000s, I often gave talks on the Generation IV activities we were then just beginning.  One of my points addressed the "new" nuclear reactor technologies we were planning to pursue, such as molten-salt technology.  I remember one memorable evening when the first person that I recognized in the Q&A session after I completed my talk chided me gently for calling molten-salt reactor technology "new."  He himself, it turned out, had participated in the early work on molten-salt reactors--some 50 years before my talk!

And furthermore, that work on molten-salt reactors was associated with an ambitious program to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft, an effort that, for a number of reasons, never came to fruition.

All of which brings to mind that famous quote:  "It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future."  (I had always seen this attributed to Yogi Berra, but I have recently seen claims attributing it to a number of other people, including Neils Bohr.)

This is not to say that all predictions are wrong.  Far from it.  Clearly, the successful implementation of a ground-breaking new technology depends on a number of factors.  Sometimes, the technology just isn't advanced enough.  Sometimes it costs too much.  Sometimes there is a better alternative introduced at the same time.  Sometimes the need isn't there yet.  Sometimes, politics or public opinion or unexpected current events create barriers.  Sometimes, some or all of these factors change over the course of 50 years, and what didn't succeed before ends up succeeding the second time around.  Or the third time.

I personally am very hopeful about this current generation of self-driving cars, and I am very hopeful about the current round of development on advanced reactor technologies.  But I take heed of the lessons of history to note that all new technologies face challenges and potential roadblocks, some from the technologies themselves and some from other sources.  This is not pessimism, it is realism, and it suggests that proponents and advocates need to understand all the complex factors that may affect their plans and try, wherever possible, to address them in a timely fashion.  

I can only end by invoking another quote, this one, I'm pretty sure is only attributed to Yogi Berra:  "It ain't over 'til it's over." 

***

Women and Engineering:

Still a Long Way to Go

I started my education, and a few years later, my career, in an age where women were still a relative rarity in the sciences and education.  My undergraduate class at MIT was only 5% women.  As a graduate student, I was the only female student in the entire nuclear engineering department (at that time, only a graduate department).

Therefore, I tend to view the current statistics on women in science and engineering as nothing short of miraculous:  Recent MIT entering classes have edged near 50% women.  Wow!  I am now seldom the only professional woman at a meeting.  Super!

Thus, I read with interest an article in the Harvard Business Review noting that many women who enter the engineering profession end up leaving the field.  As a result, while considerable progress towards equal representation has been made in other technical disciplines, nearly 40% of women who study engineering never enter the engineering workforce, and women still constitute only 13% of the engineering workforce.  By contrast, the article points out that the number of women in medicine and law is approaching the number of men in the field, and the number of women in the basic sciences is on the rise (although they give no numbers).  Clearly, I had been looking at one set of numbers that looked very promising, but digging deeper, the picture gets murkier.

The article cited several factors behind these trends.  They focus most on subtle forms of discrimination in team-related and internship activities.  These include things like the teams assigning the female members the more routine, non-technical tasks.  Certainly, being cut out of the most interesting work must make engineering seem like a less exciting profession.

The article also indicates that women, more than men, seek "socially responsible" work, and they feel they do not find that in the engineering profession.  I must admit that I find this argument a little puzzling, as I've always felt that engineering professions offer more opportunities than most professions to provide direct benefits to society.  While it is not the only profession that benefits society, it offers a broad range of possible ways of improving people's lives and welfare, whether by helping provide more energy, cleaner water, safer transportation, better labor-saving devices, or in a host of other ways.

I know that some will observe that the study doesn't say much about what happened to the women who left the engineering profession.  Did they, indeed, end up doing work that benefited society more directly than they could in most engineering positions?

While I can agree that would be nice to know, the fact remains that in the year 2016, we still have behavior in academic settings that effectively sends a message to women that they are not equal, and that takes away from them the full opportunity to contribute to projects and to enjoy the challenges of the profession.  This doesn't do anyone any good, and I hope this study causes the academic community to look more closely at the team projects and how they are run, and to seek ways to address the types of behavior the study found.  In addition, I would hope that the professors and others make an effort to explain the value of engineering activities to society.  It is apparently not as obvious as some of us in the profession think it is.

***

Another WISE Summer:

An Internship for Engineering Students

I am pleased to report the conclusion of another successful session of the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering Program (WISE).  This program, sponsored by a number of national engineering societies, brings a dozen or so engineering students, usually (but not always) rising seniors from colleges and universities all over the country, to Washington every summer to work at the interface between engineering and policy.

I am particularly pleased because, this summer, the faculty member in residence for the program was my husband, Michael Marcus.  I was the faculty member in residence 3 years ago, and I guess he thought it looked like so much fun, he wanted to do it, too.

The program is unusual among internship programs in that the normal arrangement does not involve the student working in a single office.  Rather, most students pick an engineering policy topic and research it by meeting with government officials and others to learn about the issues, then writing a paper to discuss the issues and identify possible approaches.  The students also meet as a group with various government a
nd non-government offices in Washington to get a broad perspective on issues, viewpoints, and all the voices involved in the policy process.

This summer saw a diverse range of interests in the topics pursued by the WISE students, ranging from drones, to our water supply infrastructure, to gene editing, to manufacturing, to high performance buildings, to protecting earth from meteor hits, and more.  The American Nuclear Society has been a sponsor of the program almost from its outset, and this year, the ANS sponsored student was Logan Sit, a nuclear engineering student from North Carolina State University, who studied Small Modular Reactors.  Most of the papers and presentations are available here.

The WISE program has been in existence since 1980, and I am pleased to say that I have been involved with it in one way or another almost from the beginning.  In the early years, I was on the Steering Committee representing ANS.  That position is now ably filled by Alan Levin.

Over the years, many students who have participated in the program have found it had a profound influence on the direction of their further education and their careers.  Some have completely changed career direction.  Almost all have felt that the understanding they have gained of the decision-making process, and the evidence they saw of how important it is for engineers to be engaged in that process, have been important to them.

I would personally encourage engineering students, particularly those in the nuclear field, who are looking for a valuable way to enhance their education and broaden their perspective to look into applying for one of the internships next year.  While it is too early for the professional societies to be soliciting applications formally, in addition to the American Nuclear Society, other societies currently supporting WISE internships are:  AIChE, ASME, ASHRAE, ASTM, IEEE, and SAE.  New to the WISE program this year is the American Ceramic Society.

It has been especially fun for me this year participating with my husband in some of the WISE meetings and activities.  In a way, it renewed my interest in the program, so I really hope to reach students and encourage participation in the coming years.

***   

 

Another Nuclear Milestone:

Record Long Run

It's always good news to hear about nuclear power plants that perform well, so the news this week from the World Nuclear Association's World Nuclear News that the Heysham II nuclear power plant in the United Kingdom broke the world record for continuous operation of a commercial nuclear power station was very welcome. 

It achieved that record on August 1, when it reached 895 days of continuous operation, breaking a record of 894 days set by Pickering's unit 7 in 1994.

It also may be of interest that a number of the longest-running plants are not light water reactors (LWR).  Heysham is an advanced gas reactor (AGR), and Pickering is a Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR).  The previous record holders were also an AGR and a PHWR. 

The longest-running LWRs so far have been the LaSalle 2 boiling water reactor (BWR), with a 739-day run ending in 2007, and the Calvert Cliffs 2 pressurized water reactor (PWR), with a 693-day run ending in 2009.

I note that when I wrote my book on nuclear milestones, I deliberately chose to limit the milestones I covered to "firsts."  Thus, I did not cover a number of achievements such as biggest reactor, or performance-related achievements such as highest total generation or longest continuous run.  It was a tough decision, because these are really milestones, too, and they are very impressive and important milestones.  However, firsts stand forever, but, as this achievement by Heysham II demonstrates, milestones related to measures such as size or performance are inevitably broken. 

In this case, the previous record was set over 20 years ago.  In other cases, however, such records stand for much shorter times.  Hence, a book that covered every possible milestone is a book that is likely to become outdated very quickly.  And while one has to hope that the industry keeps exceeding its past performance, it wouldn't be good for book sales!

But since I didn't cover such milestones in my book, I am especially happy to be able to celebrate such a significant achievement in this blog.  Congratulations to EDF Energy, the Heysham II operator and to all who contributed to achieving this milestone!

***

From Fusion to Poetry:

Bridging Different Interests

I always enjoy learning about people whose careers take unexpected turns, so I was delighted to read a story in an MIT publication about a nuclear engineering major who is now the poet laureate of Hawaii. 

When I was much younger, I dabbled in poetry myself.  Although nothing ever came of it for me (well, OK, I did win a minor award in an undergraduate poetry writing contest), I was always perplexed when people laughed when they learned that I liked both science and poetry.  Not only did they find it contradictory, they apparently found it funny.

From my own perspective, it gave me a chance to exercise different interests and think about different things.  And maybe I thought that the idea of being creative transcended the particular area of endeavor.

I never really lost my interest in poetry, but for me, it was never more than a hobby, and over the years, I found less and less time to pursue it at all.  So, I don't claim to be a poet.

But I have to admire others who manage to pursue more than one passion, and who even manage to marry the two.  Thus, I was fascinated to learn about how Steven Wong (now called Kealoha), MIT Class of '99 and nuclear engineering major, has ended up as the first poet laureate of Hawaii, and how his work melds science and art.

In fact, he now has a show, complete with musicians and dancers, that starts with the Big Bang, includes dancers building the periodic table with disco moves, portrays human evolution and migration across the planet, and looks at climate change and the future "through the lens of science."

This sounds fascinating enough for me to try to look for an opportunity to catch the show.  What an excuse for a visit to Hawaii!

***

Women at ACRS:

Another Step Forward

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just announced the appointment of 4 new members of its Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS).  They are:  Margaret Sze-Tai Chu, Walter Kirchner, Jose March-Leuba, and Matthew Sunseri.   Their bios can be found in the above NRC news release and will not be repeated here.

What is particularly noteworthy about the new appointments is that it will be the first time there will be more than one woman serving on the Committee at one time.  Margaret Chu joins Joy Rempe, who is the only other woman to have served on the ACRS since its inception in 1947 under the Atomic Energy Commission.

I have had the privilege of knowing both of these women.  Joy Rempe has been serving with distinction on the Committee since 2003.  Margaret Chu joins the Committee after a distinguished career, and I know will bring a lot to the Committee as well.

Not mentioned in this announcement is the fact that the former Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials (ACNW&M) had a female member long before the ACRS did.  The first--and only--woman to serve on the ACNW&M (which began in 1988 as the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, or ACNW) was Ruth Weiner, who at that time was at Sandia Laboratories.  Ruth Weiner, who I also have had the privilege of knowing, served with distinction on the ACNW&M from 2003 to 2008, when it was disbanded and its responsibilities absorbed into the ACRS.

While I like to celebrate the successes of women in the field and am delighted to see a step forward, I have slightly mixed emotions in this case.  I have to scratch my head and wonder why it took so long to appoint a woman to either body, and why there are still only 2 women out of the more than a dozen members of the ACRS.  When you think about it, there have at times been two women serving as NRC Commissioners at one time, and that is a body of only five people.

With a growing number of women now in the technical workforce, I look forward to a time--hopefully, in the not-very-distant future--when it is no longer so unusual when a woman is appointed to the ACRS.

***   

Too Cheap to Meter--Take 3

The Beat Goes On

I was delighted to find a message in my mailbox a few days ago from Thomas Wellock, the NRC historian, pointing me to his NRC blog on the frequently cited "Too Cheap to Meter" speech that has haunted the US nuclear industry for more than 60 years.  I was pleased because this was a subject of longstanding interest to me, and I had previously written on the topic.  In fact, my blog had elicited so many thoughtful comments that I did a followup to reflect and respond to some of the comments.  I was grateful both that he had remembered my interest, and that he had done some more definitive research into the issue than I had previously seen.   

For those who may not recall, the phrase was uttered by Lewis L. Strauss, then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, in a September 16, 1954 speech to the National Association of Science Writers in New York.  For years, that phrase has been interpreted by many as a promise that fission power would make electricity free, a promise that, by implication, the nuclear industry has failed to meet.  Others have countered that he might have been talking about fusion, rather than fission.

Tom's blog addresses the various comments and records he has unearthed that help us delve into what Strauss might have been thinking about.  He recounts the evidence I had cited that Strauss was aware of a still-secret fusion program.  However, he also finds several bits of evidence that I had not seen before that suggest that Strauss was very bullish, and outspokenly so, on fission power at the time. 

But I was most pleased that Tom provided a link to the entire original speech.  Previously, I had seen only the famous excerpt in which he talked about electricity being too cheap to meter.  While the speech doesn't answer the question definitively, of course, it does shed a little more light on his statements, at least for me.

In the first place, the speech does talk extensively about recently declassified work on fission.  For this reason alone, it is not unreasonable for someone to conclude that everything in the speech relates to fission.  He does not mention fusion (which, of course, he would not do if it was still classified).

But the most telling thing to me is that, early in the speech, he alludes to knowing what his audience would like to hear, and he says, "This, of course, involves forecasts, and the Commission as a serious governmental body ought not to indulge in predictions.  However, as a person, I suffer from no such inhibition and will venture a few predictions before I conclude."

If this statement does nothing else, it makes it very clear that Strauss thought he was speaking for himself, and not for the Government.  This may sound quaint to us, in this day and age, when even the most casual remark by a government official can be blown out of proportion--and government officials have, consequently, become exceptionally careful about their public statements.

I couple this with the actual language of the paragraph in which he uses the phrase "too cheap to meter," and I think about how many of his other predictions have come to pass: 

Transmutation of the elements, unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered--these and a host of other results all in 15 short years.  It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter; will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history; will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age.  This is the forecast for an age of peace.

Yes, we enjoy more power today than in 1954.  Yes, we have faster airplanes and a longer average lifespan.  But even though most of the developed world no longer faces famine, there is still widespread famine in the developing world; travel under the seas has not become widespread; and there are many diseases that we have not yet conquered.

So, in the end, we are still left to guess what Strauss really had on his mind 62 years ago.  Certainly, he thought he was speaking for himself, and he made it clear that his views did not represent the position of the AEC.  Clearly, he was thinking much more broadly than just fission or fusion reactors, as some of these visions don't involve electric power at all.  And very obviously, none of the visions he outlined have been fully achieved.

But after 62 years, it seems to me it is time to recognize that a prediction is not a promise, that a personal viewpoint is not a government commitment or a yardstick by which to measure an industry, and that the time is long overdue for us to refresh our visions for the future based on what we know today and not try to make judgments based on the predictions of one individual made long ago.

***