By PHILIP HOPKINS
GRACE Stanke, who was the 2023 Miss America and is a 22-year-old nuclear engineer will be in the Latrobe Valley later this week, as part of a broader tour of Australia to talk about nuclear energy.
She will hold an information evening in Morwell on Sunday, February 2, from 6pm to 7.30pm along with two Australian nuclear experts – Kirsty Braybon, Adjunct Nuclear Law Lecturer at the University of Adelaide, and Mark Schneider, Chief Nuclear Officer for UBH Group in Australia. The venue will be released closer to the date.
The organisers say people will have the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the implications of adopting nuclear energy in the Latrobe Valley and to address their concerns directly to the panel.
The federal Opposition has proposed building a government-owned nuclear power station at the site of Loy Yang power station.
Ms Stanke’s visit has been organised by the founder of Nuclear for Australia, 18-year-old Will Shackel. The entrepreneur and philanthropist Dick Smith is the patron of Nuclear for Australia.
During Ms Stanke’s year as Miss America 2023, she was named the ‘New Face of Nuclear Energy’ by the Wall Street Journal and was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Energy. Outside the nuclear industry, Ms Stanke is an avid water skier, classical violinist and a travel enthusiast.
In a telephone interview from the US with the Express, Ms Stanke said she aimed to reach people who care about climate change and reliable energy.
“They have heard about nuclear but also have heard about safety concerns; they don’t know where to go to ask questions,” she said.
“I want to provide that opportunity – for people to ask questions, to provide an opportunity for warm and open conversation. I’m open to education and people who want to learn.”
Ms Stanke, who said nuclear in the US was a politically bipartisan subject, started as a nuclear engineering student in 2019.
“I didn’t know much about nuclear energy then. As I continued to get my degree, learnt so much about it, worked as a research assistant in a nuclear fusion lab, and worked for the company I now work for. I did two years’ full-time work while getting my undergraduate degree, and also a year’s service as Miss America when I was able to advocate for nuclear,” she said.
She completed her degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and now works as a nuclear fuels engineer and clean energy advocate at the nuclear company Constellation.
“I continue to do advocacy work like this,” she said, encouraging the worldwide change for clean, zero-carbon emission energy sources.
For a country like Australia, looking to possibly build its first nuclear power station, Ms Stanke said the most important thing was the workforce.
“We’ve got this global resource, one that sets apart nuclear as a whole is the community that exists with it. We are always looking to learn from each other’s mistakes – mistakes happen in every single industry,” she said.
“It’s the same for building; we have the workforce that has built nuclear stations in America. That workforce will continue training a larger workforce for a hopefully larger nuclear industry in America and globally.”
Electricity generation from commercial nuclear power plants in the US began in 1958. As of August 1, 2023, the US had 93 operating commercial nuclear reactors at 54 nuclear power plants in 28 states supplying about 20 per cent of the country’s electricity.
Queried whether new nuclear stations were being built in the US, Ms Stanke said currently a couple of experimental stations, Generation 4 reactors, were under construction right now, such as Bill Gates’ reactor in Wyoming. There were also a couple of micro reactors – companies were building their test reactors.
“There is a lot of innovation going on,” she said.
Regarding the existing commercial fleet, there was no new construction happening right now, at least not publicly announced.
“But power plants that have been decommissioned are coming back online. They’ve got licence renewals, so extending a lifetime fleet to allow more electricity through improved technology and modernisation. In addition, they are bringing back these power plants that have been decommissioned to come back online,” she said.
The most famous is the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.
“It’s a not very well-known fact, there are two units; it’s common for nuclear power plants to have more than one nuclear reactor – some Canadian power plants have up to six nuclear reactors, it’s very common,” Ms Stanke said.
“In the 1979 Three Mile Island incident – only one of the units had the partial meltdown. The other unit continued operating until 2019. It was one of the best performing reactors in America. They had a critical eye on it in that time, but it was decommissioned in 2019. Five years later, it was announced it will be restarted as a clean, green energy sector.”
Regarding the cost of nuclear compared to renewables, Ms Stanke said she was not an economic expert, but there were lots more costs here than just dollars.
“We’re looking at workforce, the positive impacts – jobs from nuke plants, tax dollars going back into communities, the longevity, the lifetime of these power plants,” she said.
“It comes down to healthy, reliable and resilient grid. What’s the point of this transition if you don’t have a reliable grid, if the lights don’t turn on. That’s where nuclear comes in. Combined with some renewables and other power sources that are clean – geothermal, hydroelectric or tidal – all these different power sources, we have to focus on having base load electricity, 70 per cent of power always available for people to use.”
Ms Stanke said the ‘nuclear waste’ “most people are talking about” referred to the commercial generation of spent nuclear fuel.
“When they refer to nuclear waste, they are talking about high-level radioactive waste that comes from nuclear plants, that is uranium oxide pellets put through three cycles of power generation,” she said.
“They’ve gone through six years of power generation then removed, but after they have been removed. Here’s the fun thing: 90-95 per cent can be re-used.”
It was happening in France, India, Russia, and soon in Japan, but not yet in the US. However, there were other options for spent nuclear fuel as a fuel in different types of reactors, she said.
Ms Stanke’s tour will include private events, a parliamentary briefing and meetings in all state capitals from January 29 until February 6.
