Elon Musk and Miss America are the new sponsors of nuclear energy in the USA
Does the United States need more nuclear energy? Yes, according to Miss America. Here are all the celebrities who have spoken out in favor of the atom
Nuclear energy is once again becoming part of the debate over future energy supplies, with supporters in both the Biden administration and the oil and gas industries.
She's also re-entered the American zeitgeist thanks to movies , billionaire backers and a pageant icon. Supporters of splitting atoms to produce electricity as a way to combat climate change include Stone, who just released a documentary on nuclear energy; Musk, who often calls himself a “doer”; and Altman, the head of artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, who plans to take a nuclear energy startup public – writes the WSJ .
GRACE STANKE, MISS AMERICA, THE NUCLEAR INFLUENCER
Grace Stanke, the reigning Miss America, is leading a year-long publicity campaign for the industry.
“Why isn't this being shouted from the rooftops?” asked Stanke, 21, a nuclear engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She's too nice to shout about, but so far in more than 20 states she has touted clean energy and nuclear medicine in schools, nursing homes, a state legislature and once on a water skiing podcast.
“It's the industry that saved my father from cancer twice,” Stanke said, referring to radiation and other treatments. “It's the industry that powers 20% of America.”
The youngest of three children, Stanke grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin. She began entering beauty pageants at age 13 to improve her violin playing skills and became interested in nuclear science in high school when her father, a civil engineer, told her not to go into that field because there was no 'it was future. “I got into it out of spite,” Stanke said. “When you're a 16-year-old girl and your dad tells you not to do something, you do it.”
Stanke spoke at the World Nuclear Association symposium in London this month and plans to remain an industry voice even after she is crowned the next Miss America. He is completing his final elective online and has accepted a job with Constellation Energy, which has the largest collection of nuclear power plants in the country. The work, which will begin in 2024, will include a mix of technical work – as a nuclear fuel engineer – and public advocacy.
ALL THE DIFFICULTIES OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
America's nuclear power sector has faced public relations challenges for decades, weighed down by high costs, long construction times, plant closures and concerns about disasters such as Fukushima and radioactive waste.
His Hollywood image includes giant mutants, the HBO series “Chernobyl” and the atomic arms race in the summer blockbuster “Oppenheimer.” Springfield nuclear power plant employee Homer Simpson dropped a donut into the core of a reactor to try to make the dessert bigger.
“He always plays the bad guy,” Stanke said. “It's what created Godzilla.”
Godzilla appears in Stone's new documentary, "Nuclear Now," although he argues that nuclear power is an obvious way to reduce the impact of climate change. It's a similar message to Stanke's, but cruder.
“We have to build and build fast,” Stone said in an interview. “What's wrong with nuclear energy has never been wrong. It was a brilliant, brilliant gift that we turned our back on. Americans are bored. They want a new car. They want a new TV. They must have constant technological change, but we must ask ourselves: what is wrong with the original proof of nuclear energy?”.
Atomic energy once had a glitzy image, inspiring mushroom cloud hairstyles and star-shaped home decorations. In a 1957 Walt Disney television presentation titled “Our Friend the Atom,” atomic energy was portrayed as a genie – “Behold with my right hand, I give you the magic fire of the atom” – whose destructive force it could be controlled for good.
In the 1950s, tourists flocked to the desert near Las Vegas to watch bomb tests. In a publicity photo for “Miss Atomic Bomb,” a showgirl wears a swimsuit decorated with a cloud of cotton mushrooms.
“It was exciting because it was American,” said Spencer Weart, a physicist and author of “The Rise of Nuclear Fear.” “It was a thumb in the eye for the communists and at the same time it was seen as something that would bring great economic benefits. It was the future. It would be run by nuclear power.”
The advent and proliferation of the hydrogen bomb during the Cold War changed public perceptions, leading to the antinuclear movement, Weart said. A former Miss America, Yolande Betbeze Fox of 1951, joined the antinuclear movement. In the 1960s, objections to weapons began to migrate towards nuclear energy, then consolidated by plant accidents.
Americans still have ambivalent views about this technology and are much more supportive of wind and solar energy, although opinion is changing, according to the Pew Research Center. About 57% of Americans favor increasing nuclear power plants, up from 43% in 2020, according to a Pew poll released in August.
THE ROLE OF THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT AND NEW INVESTORS
The industry now has a chance to secure billions of dollars in federal funding through the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Act of 2021, and government-backed loans for new projects, thanks to its ability to provide energy around the clock 24/7 without greenhouse gas emissions.
Investors in the dozens of startups that are designing smaller reactors include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, and Altman, who believes nuclear power will also be necessary for artificial intelligence. Musk has called on the utility industry to build more generation and called himself a proponent of fission at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council in May.
The topic has been the subject of TED Talks and popular social media accounts. Last spring, Stanke posted a photo of her 21st birthday celebration, spent traveling and visiting the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia, which was on her list of Miss America appearances. Another highlight: a tour of the Palo Verde Generating Station in Arizona.
One of Stanke's main messages is the need to hire younger workers.
The average age of a nuclear reactor operator is more than 40 years old, he said. “This is a big problem.”
Jon Wentzel, vice president of communications for the trade group Nuclear Energy Institute, who falls into this age group, agrees.
“The exciting thing is that he's not 50 years old,” he said.
(Extract from the eprcommunication press review)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/miss-america-energia-nucleare/ on Sun, 01 Oct 2023 05:15:27 +0000.