Hamoud's Site

In my freshmen year, I wish if I had an opportunity to take a survey class because they would help me and other freshmen get exposed to the engineering filed of interested or even interact with the seniors in that major and see if that what you want to do as a future career. NE231 was one of these classes and I am glad that it was offered. It mainly focused on the ethics, the view of nuclear power, and how it changes from being the reason of distraction to providing energy to the world. But it also gave me an exposure of what is it like to be as a nuclear engineer from the ethical standpoint. 

During that class, we came across a lot of ethical issues. Ethical issues involve the safety, health, and welfare of the public and fellow workers, work to protect the environment. The main exposure to these ethical issues was during group discussions or through lecture slides. Also, these discussions changed my view of nuclear energy from being unsafe and dangerous to being the reason for saving the world from global warming. 

My future educational goal is to finish my undergrad degree as an EMA student. Then go to graduate school for either aerospace engineering or mechatronics engineering then hopefully find a place at a university to be a lecturer. 

What I learned from the seniors?

The project is a small nuclear reactor or nuclear generator which is a very small source of power. They got their inspiration from knowing that there are small demands of power in small cities and remote places like small cities in Alaska or small demands in case of a natural disaster like what happened in Puerto Rico and their energy crisis. That small demands made the seniors’ team realize that a small power is needed but it has to be reliable and doesn’t kill the environment. Their design goal is to make it as safe as possible at a point where a very small number of people needed to operate that reactor or kind of run by itself. The ethical implications of their design might be spelling some materials so it would be hard to clean up which but their design is mostly good ethical implications and that because it provides people with cheap and clean sources of energy. 

During designing their reactor they came across some specific design challenges that they have to overcome. These challenges were due to their new passive design which includes materials that aren’t well-known or haven’t been used in the industry, for example, they tried to use neon gas but they discovered it doesn’t conduct enough heat which leads them to discover the limitations of some of the materials. 

Generally, The design course helped them to come up with this idea than come up with these challenges that they have to overcome and solve then write a paper about it. Also, the design course did a good job when it comes to questioning their design and pushing the senior to use tools in the industry like Solid-works and other design tools which meant to be for the nuclear industry. Also, it pushed them to use hand calculations and implementing different skills that they learned in different classes. These skills and tools are key critical for their career path. 

Some of the senior told me that they going to graduate school in different states, while others want to be in the nuclear industry or even start their own company. Also, they told me their vision might involve different careers paths like regulations, working for a national lab, or working for universities. Theses career paths need some skills which undergrad need to develop. One of the ways the seniors told me about how they developed their skills was by taking internships or other courses electives like NE 506. Lastly, I asked the seniors what elective I should take and they told me EP 471 because it makes engineers used their knowledge of physics to solve nowadays problem.

Goals for My Undergraduate Education.

As an undergrad, there is a lot to learn and a lot of skills to gain. One of these skills that I want to gain is how to be an effective communicator. Also, I want to know how to work in a collaborative environment and be good at problem-solving as well. Time management is an important skill to learn. Overall, all these skills is a key for me to become a better leader. 

When it comes to topics that I want to learn, the different aspects of engineering is the one of interest. Taking NE231 has helped me to get exposed to the field of nuclear engineering and ethics involved around it.

There are a lot of opportunities at UW-Madison for an undergrad student to seek. One of them is doing on campus researchers or internships. I am thinking of doing an research here because I am not sure if I want to go to grad school or not. Doing an independent study with one of the professors here is one of the sources that I could use on this campus. Also, there are other resources for undergrad like a learning center, student org, and online sources. 

During the last lecture, we had an argument about whether nuclear energy is sustainable, renewable or both? In my opinion, I think it is sustainable only and not renewable. Sustainable because it doesn’t harm the environment as must as other energy sources do. Not renewable because soon we will run out of nuclear fuel unless we start looking on space mining.

This week’s lecture covered an overview of Nuclear Safeguards. Safeguards are people who make sure that a state has only what nuclear materials it claims to have and make sure that they don’t have the amount of nuclear material for which might lead to a nuclear explosive device. Also, during the lecture, we discussed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1970) and their goals which include promoting peaceful uses of nuclear technology and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons technology.

I was surprised to learn about these amazing people who make sure that nuclear energy stays ethical and doesn’t lead to a massive destruction. However, I don’t think I will be interested in that job.

During the last lecture, I got to watch a video about the molten salt reactor. It was so interesting that the technology is not new but we chose not to use it. Current nuclear startups are looking into this technology due to its safer and low-cost design. Hopefully one day we will see one of these molten salt reactor commercially available.

On Monday lecture we watched a video about nuclear Smuggling. The event happened in a nuclear facility in South Africa where a couple of people got to a highly secure area easily but didn’t steal anything. It was shocking to me how something as dangerous as nuclear weapons could be stolen even with all the high security. I think nuclear weapons should be hidden that is not available to the public to see and governments should collaborate together to increase the safety of these facilities.

During Monday lecture, we learned about the energy market and its influence on nuclear power. Moreover, we learned about how nuclear power favors regulated market over deregulated utilities and markets and how it can make more profit in the regulated market. whereas in the deregulated market, it has a higher risk of shutting down due to the low rate

For the learning progress, I enjoyed having these little breaks with questions that helped recap what we learned.

On Monday lecture, I learned about people perspectives about nuclear power from the nuclear age until now. During the lecture, we discussed how nuclear accidents might influence people’s opinion about nuclear power and that opinion might lead the government to oppose nuclear.

For the learning process, listening is effective but not in long lecture because we could get distracted easily or get bored. So small breaks during long lecture might increase the outcome.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission was the main topic of this week lecture. During the lecture, we discussed the regulations of the NRC, How licensing works for them and how long does it take to get it. There was two way of getting a license, one called two-step licensing process which is the longest and the other one called the combined license. Also, we discussed some of NRC future goals of licensing different types of reactors. Finally, At the end of the lecture, we talked about the national government’s plan to shrink the land of a national monument for mining companies. The ethics issues that it might involve and how it might affect the people living there.

On Monday lecture, nuclear weapons were addressed, their certain types, mechanisms, and destructiveness. My perspective changed about nuclear weapon because some of the many issues that were mentioned during the lecture. One of these issues could lead to destroying the entire world. Some ethical issues were also discussed in the lecture especially when mentioning the statistic about the possibility of India and Pakistan going into a nuclear war. The war won’t just affect the two countries but it will also affect the entire planet because of the nuclear fallout and the radioactive clouds. The idea of minimizing the number of nuclear weapons around the world is the solution to stop something like this from happening.
For the learning process, listening might be not as effective as visualizing things in 3D models but having pictures and charts to look at while listening helps. Also, having raw data and informative conversations are good for the learning process. Asking questions about materials that weren’t discussed in the lecture to get to know other topics.
Lastly, I would love if we addressed more ethical issues with testing nuclear weapons and some of their effects on human body like the radiation.