On July 18, 2022, a project of the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to popularize small modular reactor (SRM) technologies among future nuclear engineers will be launched on the basis of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (NDTC NRR).
The project will take place for the second time, and this year among the teachers there is Anastasiia Oleksenko, a student of Lviv Polytechnic National University, who completed a training course at ANL last year and successfully presented her project work.
Over the course of three weeks, 13 senior students of Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa Polytechnic Universities will listen to lectures from the best specialists of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety and the Argonne National Laboratory. The topics will cover the licensing of small modular reactors, safety aspects of this technology, economic components and its potential role in the future energy network of Ukraine. In addition, course participants will get acquainted with the latest technologies of hydrogen economy.
As last year, at the end of the studies, each student will present his graduation thesis, which he will work on throughout his studies, and will have the opportunity to prepare his university diploma project on the basis of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety. Actually, several students – graduates of the project in 2021 – received such an opportunity. In addition, according to the training organizers, young people will have the opportunity to undergo an internship at the Argonne National Laboratory. The selection will be made on the basis of the evaluation of final papers.
The State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety acts as the main contractor of the project, providing technical materials as well as the teaching of theoretical material to students. All lectures and communication with teachers take place in English.
Organizational and financial support is provided by the Department of Energy and the United States Department of Energy within the framework of American-Ukrainian cooperation in matters of energy and nuclear and radiation safety.