Both lawmakers and university leaders would like to see more nuclear power in Missouri, but a federal agency leader said Wednesday nuclear education must be prioritized.
William D. Magwood IV spoke as part of the 4th President’s Distinguished Lecture hosted by UM System President Mun Choi at the Bond Life Sciences Center. Magwood explained a global shift in conversations of nuclear energy around the world that comes with a wide variety of road bumps as it does opportunities.
Magwood highlighted security, first of a kind barriers and financial disparities as among the issues facing a nuclear future.
“It’s not how many professors you have in your universities or how many laboratories or how many classrooms,” Magwood said. “The real issue is how many kids do you have to work with in the first place.”
Many of Choi’s "Distinguished Lectures” have been on the topic of energy because he’s been enthusiastic about the expansion of University of Missouri Research Reactor.
Matt Stanford, executive director of the research reactor, said nuclear power is “on the rise” in Missouri.
An education and energy focused future
In his lecture, Magwood emphasized that the main issue around nuclear advancement is communication. He said students don’t know the array of opportunities presented to them within the global infrastructure and medical applications of nuclear studies. He stressed focusing efforts on finding an effective way to communicate to students early on what the nuclear sector really looks like.
“You say nuclear, people think bomb and then they run away from you,” Magwood said. “With a little bit of education, a little bit of discussion, you turn that around very, very quickly.”
Magwood also noted how gender diversity in the industry is a prevailing issue.
In a survey conducted by the Nuclear Energy Agency, out of data sourced from 96 nuclear energy organizations, on average around only 20% of the STEM workforce was female. Countries evaluated by the NEA varied from 30% female workforce all the way down to 3% in the study.
Magwood said that a slow but necessary step is waiting for interest to rise in jobs in the nuclear field by pushing for the jobs to become more apparent.
He said it would be presented in a multidisciplinary fashion by allowing students to choose between a more compact, four-year education, or a longer, fleshed out approach.
“Everything is changing so fast,” he said. “It’s really hard to squeeze all that into four years.”
Magwood said the focus of the nuclear future is getting students interested.
“If we’re gonna make a difference in the world, it starts with the students,” Magwood said.
State government support for nuclear in Missouri
Nuclear power is also on the minds of many Missouri lawmakers, as data centers, electric vehicles and manufacturing drive demand for electricity.
This year, through an executive order, Gov. Mike Kehoe created the “Missouri Advanced Nuclear Energy Task Force” to spur nuclear power development in the state.
Republican lawmakers in the Missouri legislature have also expressed strong support for nuclear energy development, but differ on how to pay for it.
This spring, some lawmakers advocated for what’s called “construction work in progress” or “CWIP” — a policy Missouri voters banned in 1976 during the construction of the Callaway nuclear power plant.
CWIP enables utilities to charge customers while building power plants — which is especially attractive, and political, when it comes to nuclear energy due to the time and money the plants take to construct.
Magwood called CWIP a "fantastic approach" and said it works, evidenced by how it’s been used in Europe.
“Someone has to absorb those risks and that's a reality we're going to have to deal with,” he said. “But that's the same question that everyone's asking around the world. How do you deal with those first of a kind risks?”
Magwood also emphasized that America needs more nuclear power plants to both meet growing electricity demand and help lower carbon emissions. But, he noted, relatively novel technologies such as small modular nuclear reactors will be expensive and potentially risky.
“Somebody has to bite the bullet. Somebody has to take the risk and what I think the industry would really like would be if the government somehow put a safety net under the first projects,” Magwood said.
Magwood said after decades of stalled nuclear development, it's now “back on the table” for many countries around the world as they aim to reduce carbon emissions by 2050.
“This is a combination of climate change, energy security (and) meeting electricity growth. And we put all these factors together, there really is no practical way to do it without nuclear,” Magwood said.
