By Lenka Kollar

Earlier this week, we posted about the new construction at the VC Summer Nuclear Generating Station. The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia also started new nuclear construction last year with an addition of two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. 

Votgle units 3 and 4 plan to start generating electricity in 2017 and 2018. This massive construction project is making history with the materials needed and the amount of people that will be employed. When finished, the four units at Vogtle will make the largest nuclear generating station in the United States. Watch the video below to learn more!

By Lenka Kollar

The Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station made history in 2013 by being the first nuclear power plant to start construction in the United States in over 30 years. The concrete base was placed in March 2013 and other components were added throughout the year, including heavy equipment shipped from South Korea. See a recap of the construction last year in the video below.

VC Summer currently has one nuclear reactor that has been generating electricity since 1984. The two reactors under construction are the new Westinghouse AP1000 design are are planned to be online in 2018.

By Lenka Kollar

The nuclear deal with Iran negotiated last November goes into effect this week. Iran has stopped enriching uranium above 5% U-235 at the Natanz and Fordo facilities and has begun downblending its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium. This is all in exchange for relief from some US and EU sanctions that could amount to about $7 billion in petrochemical exports. However, most of the sanctions that began in 2006 will remain in force. (Read more on BBC News.)

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have are also gaining access to the Iranian enrichment facilities this week to perform inspections to ensure that Iran is not enriching uranium above normal (commercial) amounts. These inspections are required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran is a signatory. Iran has a history of not giving inspectors full access and thus raising suspicious about their nuclear activities. (Read more on NPR.)

The enrichment program of Iran has been suspicious because even though they claim it is for uranium production for their commercial nuclear energy plant, they have enriched uranium above needed commercial levels and also not allowed the IAEA full access (as required by the treaty). Under the same treaty, Iran absolutely has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful nuclear energy production. However, they must remain transparent in their program.

In my personal opinion, I think that in their initial motivation, Iran did want to enrich uranium for both ensured nuclear fuel supply and the ability to break out into developing nuclear weapons if tensions in the region worsened. Now, I think that Iran is suffering under the sanctions and wants to adhere to the treaty but is not willing to give up it's enrichment program. What do you think?

By Lenka Kollar

Meet a young engineer who helps design and regulate the fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy. She got a mechanical engineering degree from MIT and then signed up as a Navy nuclear officer. She goes out to ships and makes sure that the crew is ready to operate. Learn more about her job in the video below.

Learn more about Navy nuclear careers here.

By Lenka Kollar

Did you know that all nuclear reactor technology originated at Argonne National Laboratory? The Manhattan Project, in which the first fission chain reaction was sustained, started at the University of Chicago. The lab was then moved to the Chicago suburbs and became known as the Argonne National Laboratory, the first of it's kind in the United States. Argonne expanded to Argonne-West in Idaho to run reactor experiments away from the densely populated Chicago area. In 2005, the US Department of Energy merged Argonne-West with the Idaho National Energy and Environmental Laboratory to form the current Idaho National Laboratory.

All reactor technology that is used around the world originated at these sites or were designed by Argonne. The tree below shows the development of each generation of reactors. The base of the tree is CP-1, the world's first reactor developed as part of the Manhattan Project, below the bleachers at the unused football stadium at UChicago. Next came research reactors (the bottom left branch) and then pressurized water reactors and production reactors (bottom right branch). Production reactors were used to produce plutonium for weapons and pressurized water reactors were developed for use in submarines and later electricity production. Boiling water reactors (top left) were also developed for electricity production. And finally, fast reactors (top right) are the next generation of advanced reactors to be used for electricity production. They can actually consume nuclear waste as fuel!

To learn more about each of these types of reactors, see the interactive tree image on the Argonne website.

Have you ever wondered how uranium gets from the ground to a reactor to make electricity for your home? Watch the prezi below to find out!

Click here for full size version.

By Lenka Kollar

I see many of my friends and followers posting and re-posting scary articles about Fukushima on social media. I understand why people are concerned, I would be if I wasn't a nuclear engineer that knew the facts and monitored the situation. The thing is, people love conspiracy theories and catastrophes which is why these exaggerated articles are shared on the internet. However, they often reference false references and misuse "facts." 

How do you know if what you hear about Fukushima on the internet is correct?

• Listen to only to trusted news sources and not websites you've never heard of.
• Click on and actually read the references in the article.
• Check the TEPCO website for accurate and up-to-date information.
• Ignore scare tactics (e.g. "radiation cloud").
• If it sounds like a conspiracy theory, it is probably false.
• Remember that U.S. and international agencies are working with Japan to monitor the site constantly and would alert us immediately if we were in danger. 

This is a follow up to my post last week on Fukushima radiation reaching the West Coast.

Link the most ridiculous articles you've seen on Fukushima in the comments.

By Lenka Kollar

I received a question from one of my readers this morning regarding the damaged Fukushima Daichi nuclear reactor having another meltdown and a radiation cloud reaching the West Coast of the United States. There is so much misinformation on the internet about Fukushima that I'm not surprised that people are concerned. If I wasn't a nuclear engineer that knew the facts, I would be concerned too. 

The article the reader sent to me warns that steam emanating from the damaged reactor building is evidence that the nuclear material has reached criticality and is melting down and releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere. However, the steam is likely rainwater evaporating according to this report directly from TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company). No change in radiation dose has been observed since the steam started appearing. No worries, there will be no "radiation cloud" reaching California "within 3-5 days" that would harm your health.

There have also been many rumors of radioactive contamination on the West Coast due to Fukushima but they are false. There has been leakage of radioactive material into the ocean but it is so small compared to the massive size of the ocean that it does not raise the radioactivity level of the ocean more than what is already there. The image above explains this visually. There is about 500,000 times more natural radioactivity in the oceans than was added by Fukushima. I would be far more concerned about chemical waste (agriculture runoff, oil spills) than radioactivity in the ocean. 

Check out Hiroshima Syndrome, a blog written by one of my nuclear engineering colleagues and a good source for debunking Fukushima conspiracy theories on the internet.

By Lenka Kollar

Many of you are making New Year's Resolutions right now, maybe involving getting to the gym or eating healthier. But why not make a resolution that will be good for you, your community, and future generations? Resolve to be more sustainable this year.

This Huffington Post article suggests having a "theme" for the new year that you add to your daily life, instead of resolving to do something concrete. I challenge you to add sustainability to your daily life. Before you do something, ask yourself, am I doing this task in the most sustainable way possible? For example, could I walk to the grocery store instead of drive there? You may already have a "green" way of living if you take the train to work or recycle at home, but there is always more you can do. Here are some suggestions:

• Walk or take the train/bus instead of drive
• Carpool to work
• Upgrade your car to a hybrid
• Make your home energy efficient
• Encourage your workplace to be more energy efficient
• Tell your congressman to support clean energy (nuclear is a great option!)
• Stop using plastic bags, including zip-lox ones
• Start using quality re-usable items, like water bottles and storage containers
• Eat less meat (do Meatless Mondays!)
• Take stairs instead of elevator

Consequently, being more sustainable can help you in other areas of life that you want to improve on. Being energy efficient will save you money and eating less meat and taking the stairs will make you healthier. 

Post more ideas for being sustainable this year in the comments!

Don't forget to vote for my post on Nuclear Energy's Role in Sustainable Development in the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week blogging contest here.