As in each country of Europe with nuclear power, there is a clear gap between those generation that have built the power plants in the eighties and the new generations with less than ten years of experience in the nuclear field. From its creation, Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares) has as an important scope to help transferring the knowledge between those generations in the way that it can be possible. Some years ago, JJNN have started organizing seminars periodically trying to cover as many areas as possible in the nuclear engineering field, and some of them outside the industry but related with it

Jiménez Varas, Gonzalo

Yague, L.

Servicio de Coordinación de Bibliotecas de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

HELPING TO CLOSE THE GENERATIONAL GAP IN NUCLEAR: 
THE SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES OF SPANISH YOUNG 
GENERATION IN NUCLEAR (JÓVENES NUCLEARES) 
G. JIMÉNEZ, L. YAGUE 
Spanish Young Generation (JJNN), 
Campoamor 17, 28004 Madrid, Spain 
gonzalo.jimenez@jovenesnucleares.org 
ABSTRACT 
As in each country of Europe with nuclear power, there is a clear gap between those generation that 
have built the power plants in the eighties and the new generations with less than ten years of 
experience in the nuclear field. 
From its creation, Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares) has as an important 
scope to help transferring the knowledge between those generations in the way that it can be possible. 
Some years ago, JJNN have started organizing seminars periodically trying to cover as many áreas as 
possible in the nuclear engineering field, and some of them outside the industry but related with it. 
Over the last years there have been some really interesting topics, from the communication in the 
nuclear industry like "How to manage with the journalists?" and "Communication in crisis", through the 
energy seminars like "The Spanish Electricity Market" to the seminars about the present and the 
future of the nuclear energy, for example "Past, present and future of the nuclear fuel cycle in Spain", 
"Uranium for the Nuclear Renaissance", "The firsts AP1000 in China" and "The Nuclear Renaissance 
in UK". All of the seminars were taught by experts on the issue and the most part of them were very 
experience people of the industry in order to share their knowledge with the young public that assisted 
to the seminars, more than 40 people in average, some of them nearly 100. 
It has been done also a cycle of seminars called "Chernobyl 2009" with some of the most relevant 
professionals and researchers of Spain. The seminars included in the cycle were "The base of the 
original RBMK design. Implications on the Chernobyl-4 accident, introduced improvements", "Effects 
on the population of the Chernobyl accident", "Chernobyl vs. TMI: searching the root cause" and 
"Facts and Hypothesis of the Chernobyl "experiment"" 
The experience of these seminars is highly positive, both for the experienced speakers and the young 
audience. It is being possible through these seminars to bring the knowledge of the two generation 
closer and to answer all of these questions that only those who have built the reactors are able to 
answer. 
Based on that idea, it will start in 2011 a new cycle of seminars based on the experience of the 
Spanish nuclear power plants construction, to bring light and share lessons learned with the 
generation that will build the new reactors in Spain in the future. 
1. Introduction 
Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares) is a commission of the Spanish 
Nuclear Society (SNE) which main goals are to spread knowledge over the society about 
nuclear energy. 
Over the last years there have been some really interesting conferences organized by 
Jóvenes Nucleares, covering topics from the communication in the nuclear industry like "How 
to manage with the journalists?" and "Communication in crisis", through the energy seminars 
like "The Spanish Electricity Market" to the seminars about the present and the future of the 
nuclear energy, for example "Past, present and future of the nuclear fuel cycle in Spain", 
"Uranium for the Nuclear Renaissance", "The firsts AP1000 in China" and "The Nuclear 
Renaissance in UK". All of the seminars were taught by experts on the issue and the most 
part of them were very experience people of the industry in order to share their knowledge 
with the young public that assisted to the seminars, more than 40 people in average, some of 
them nearly 100. 
It has been done also a cycle of seminars called "Chernobyl 2009" with some of the most 
relevant professionals and researchers of Spain. The seminars ¡ncluded ¡n the cycle were 
"The base of the original RBMK design. Implications on the Chernobyl-4 accident, introduced 
¡mprovements", "Effects on the population of the Chernobyl accident", "Chernobyl vs. TMI: 
searching the root cause" and "Facts and Hypothesis of the Chernobyl "experiment" 
In this paper, some of these conferences will be presented, as well as how they help 
transferring knowledge between generations. 
2. Conferences 
Jóvenes Nucleares has a long tradition of interacting with the media, that is why the topic of 
two really interesting conferences promoted by Jóvenes Nucleares was "communication". To 
get over the subject, it was a need to find somebody enough talkative and friendly to connect 
with the audience and this person was Piluca Nuñez, communication director of the Spanish 
Nuclear Forum. In the first conference, "How to manage with the journalists?" she talked 
about the difficulties that the nuclear energy has in terms of public acceptance. She 
reminded that one of the problems is the lack of adequate information in the media, which is 
not always enough clear and reliable. The main goal was to learn how to communicate 
effectively with the journalists to give the adequate message to them. 
Figure 1. Piluca Nuñez at the "How to deal with journalists?" conference 
In the presentation some examples and experiences were related to show how difficult can 
be to give a message of calmness when everybody is trying to find a message of alarm, 
which is very typical in this field. The conclusión was that is very ¡mportant to have the 
message clear before starting the communication to avoid boring or confusing the interviewer 
with technical explanations that could be not so clear for the people outside the nuclear field. 
In the second conference called "Communication in crisis", she focused the attention on how 
to be efficient in the communication during a crisis, which is especially relevant and useful 
nowadays. The conference was very popular and well appreciated by the audience, with 
many interesting questions. 
Some years ago, the Spanish electricity market became a free-basis one and Jóvenes 
Nucleares saw the need of inform to the people about the new situation. In the conference 
called "The Spanish Electricity Market", the lecturer Víctor Niharra Hernández, from the 
Spanish Market Operator, explained the audience with simple words but very clear how the 
market is composed. 
The lecturer taiked about the different laws of the market and the companng between the 
Spanish Electhcity market and some European ones. After the lecture, there was an 
animated discussion with the lecturer. 
As the nuclear Renaissance is becoming a fact, Jóvenes Nucleares though that it could be 
convenient to do a series of conferences to inform the public about the different aspects of 
the nuclear new age. 
The first conference "UK and the Nuclear Renaissance" was based on the new ideas of 
construction in Europe from the perspective of one of the Utilities that are going to build 
plants in the UK, the international Spanish company Iberdrola. The lecturer, Manuel Prieto 
Urbano, started the lecture talking about the beginning of this new age in UK with the energy 
planning of the Government in 2008, with the decisión of starting the dismantling of the oíd 
power plants and the construction of new ones in the next decades. 
Figure 3. Manuel Prieto at "UK and the Nuclear Renaissance" conference 
The main part of the conference was based on the Generic Design Assessment process, 
which is the licensing basis of the new reactors, very different one from the oíd licensing 
ones. 
Finally, he spoke about the different energy planning of the political parties, trying to guess ¡f 
a Nuclear Renaissance ¡s possible ¡n Spain. 
The second conference of the "New Age" was about the AP1000 construction ¡n China and 
the Spanish collaboration though Westinghouse Electric Spain. The lecturer, Miguel 
Palazuelos, spoke about the challenges and success of the Chinese four unit construction 
and the lessons learned for the future constructions in Europe and the USA. As the 
construction is modular based, the making of the equipment and the site works are parallel, 
so the planning is going very well and it is expected to finish on time. 
The third conference was called "Uranium for the Nuclear Renaissance". In this conference, 
the lecturer, Francisco Tarín from ENUSA, the Spanish fuel company, spoke about the 
uranium resources that are actually available and the future perspectives. 
Figure 4. Francisco Tarín at "Uranium for the Nuclear Renaissance" conference 
The key issue was the fact that with this planned development, it will be enough fuel for the 
future, as there are many unexploited resources that will be used if the uranium is more 
expensive in the future. 
In the last series of thematic conferences, Jóvenes Nucleares faced the big challenge on 
every debate about nuclear energy. In a project called "Chernobyl 2009", four different 
conferences were planned plus a trip to Chernobyl paid by Jóvenes Nucleares. 
The conferences were: "Chernobyl vs. TMI2" by Juan Manuel Blanco, "Facts and hypothesis 
of the Chernobyl "experiment"" by Luis E. Herranz, "Chernobyl: effects on the population" by 
Eduardo Sollet, "RBMK reactor design and the Chernobyl accident" by Agustín Alonso 
Figure 5. Jóvenes Nucleares at Chernobyl 
3. Conclusions 
The experience of these conferences is highly positive, both for the experienced speakers 
and the young audience. It is being possible through these seminars to bring the knowledge 
of the two generation closer and to answer all of these questions that only those who have 
built the reactors are able to answer. 
Based on that idea, in 2011 it will start a new cycle of seminars based on the experience of 
the Spanish nuclear power plants construction, to bring light and share lessons learned with 
the generation that will build the new reactors in Spain in the future 


Helping to Close the Generational Gap in Nuclear: The Seminars and Conferences of Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares)

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Helping to Close the Generational Gap in Nuclear: The Seminars and Conferences of Spanish Young Generation in Nuclear (Jóvenes Nucleares)

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