How to ethically design a nuclear power plant

Marketplace Tech

American Public Media

Technology, News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rising demand for electricity, largely to power the artificial intelligence boom, has stirred a resurgence in nuclear energy. Older plants like Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania are being brought out of retirement, but there’s also investment in smaller-scale reactors with different designs. The fresh interest in nuclear generation has also renewed discussion about how to build these facilities ethically, in other words, with an approach that’s sensitive to the needs of the community and the world at large. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Aditi Verma, assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan, who co-created an undergrad course about ethically designing modern nuclear facilities. Verma discussed her effort to train young engineers to transform the industry.

For some engineers, it’s also renewed a discussion about how to build these facilities ethically. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Aditi Verma, professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan who co-created a course for undergraduate students about how to ethically design modern nuclear facilities, about why it’s so important to be teaching this to young, would-be engineers now.

Transcript

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1:04.3	The ethics of a nuclear power renaissance.
1:07.7	From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.
1:09.1	I'm Megan McCarty Carrino.
1:25.0	Demand for more electricity to power the AI boom has brought a nuclear energy resurgence,
1:29.0	not just the restarting of older plants like Three Mile Island,
1:35.7	but investment in new, small, modular reactors. For some engineers, it's also renewed a discussion about how to build these facilities ethically. Aditi Verma is a professor of nuclear engineering
1:42.2	at the University of Michigan, and she co-created
1:45.2	a course for undergraduate students about how to ethically design modern nuclear facilities.
1:51.1	She told us why it's so important now.
1:54.3	If you look around at the nuclear fission and also fusion energy technologies that are being
2:00.0	developed, there's a whole range of
2:02.9	different kinds of energy technologies of a whole range of different sizes. It used to be that our
2:10.3	nuclear reactors were gigawatt scale systems that were connected to the grid quite distant from
2:16.6	population centers, but the newer
	...

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