Please explain this perhaps misperception to me??

Question

I recently learned about Nuclear engineering and how it works. It seems very complicated and certainly the engineers there must be quite intelligent. But on TV and other sources, nuclear power plant workers are perceived as not very smart! Why is this? Clearly, to be an engineer, you must be smart. So why would working at a Nuclear power plant be almost like something that bad engineers or engineers low in ranking do? Is that true?

Answer 1

Nuclear engineering is a complex field, and good nuclear engineers tend to be very bright and very educated

It is just a media joke to portray nuclear power plant workers as below average in ability

Not only does it make for "funny" situations, but it is in keeping with the media's constant subtle anti-industry anti-nuclear and anti-lots-of-things propoganda

Having this vague idea out there that nuclear workers are incompetant helps maintain the false notion that nuclear power is less safe than other power generation

Finally, most of the people that work a nuclear power plant are not nuclear engineers (or any kind of engineers). Just like most of the people that work at an oil refinery are not chemical engineers. In both cases the engineers design, troubleshoot, and control the technical aspects of the plant, but there are many other people working there. Operators who man the day-to-day controls, mechanics who fix things, secretaries that do important clerical tasks. It is my experience, that because the people in a nuclear plant are fiercely screened and well paid, they tend to be some of the most capable workers anywhere

Homer Simpson is a cartoon. He's funny. He has nothing to do with reality.

Answer 2

It might be the misconception that you are viewing the difference between those who run the plant, and those who design the plant. Nuclear engineers design the process to be implemented, mechanical and structural engineers are responsible for designing structures and machinery, others like electrical engineers will design the control systems the run the process machinery, yet in the end, non of those designers are necessary to run the plant. Some engineers will come around and be paid to make sure things are still running correctly, but it would not be cost effective to pay engineers to run the plant. Think of your cell phone, a team of engineers created it, but now that its your, you needed a little training in the beginning and now you operate it, a plant, though far more complicated, still falls under the same conditioning. It has an instruction manual (to some degree) and thus is operated by those that need only be smart enough to follow directions.

Answer 3

Many commercial nuclear engineers were located in office complexes near Pittsburgh for Westinghouse and Schenectady for General Electric. Government test facilities also employed nuclear engineers at Oak Ridge, Savannah River, Hanford, and the Idaho Reactor Sites. I don't know what is going to happen in the new upcoming so-called fuel recycling return to nuclear power development. Many decisions need to be made and it is not a given that the reactor designs that have been tried in France will be introduced here. I hear that there are to be 1000 openings for nuclear engineers soon in Pittsburgh. It could be that some are biding their time as plant operations personnel in order to stay with the technology while keeping an eye on the future. Questions from young ladies about how technical professionals are ranked always are met with some humor and those immersed in engineering fields are aware of higher standards than are evident from ordinary surface appearances.

Answer 4

They ARE very intelligent. Consider that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of nuclear power generating facilities all over the world. Do you hear in movies or on TV that they provide 20% of America's electricity, or that there hasn't been a major problem with a single nuclear facility anywhere in the world in well over a decade? No. Stuff working as it was designed doesn't create headlines or good movies.

Hollywood and the main-stream media focus on the negative. Also, because they are mostly liberals, they dislike...hate, even...the people who make the world work: corporate executives, politicians, engineers, scientists, etc. etc., so they bash them at every turn. Without all these people, and the companies they create and administer, we would not have cars, oil, TV's, computers, refrigerators, electricity, plumbing........

When was the last time you heard someone suggest that we owe a debt of gratitude to the likes of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Howard Hughes, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, and Walt Disney?

Why aren't the names of the people who invented refrigeration, the cathode ray tube, the silicon chip, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines household names?

Just some stuff to ponder!

Answer 5

the idea...the process... are engineering marvels...
to harness the power and convert it into usable energy is amazing...
to operate the marvel, you don't have to be the sharpest tool in the shed
(see US Navy submarine's operated by non-college educated personnel).. no offense... just stating a fact

knowing when to slow down the process is all you need to know to prevent a meltdown....leave the complicated stuff to the Engineers

Answer 6

It's kinda like how you don't need to know a helluva lot about thermodynamics to flip burgers at Micky D's. Cheap labor maximizes profits.


Doug

Answer 7

Homer Simson....

'Nuff said.