Your Source for Energy Jobs & Industry News
In celebration of October 21 to 25, which officially serves as Nuclear Science Week across the globe, the Energy Central Community Team wanted to provide some expert insights and education from the nuclear leaders within our midst. To that end, I invite you to check out the 'Goin' Nuclear' playlist from the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast. From Dan Yurman's..
Energy Central…
The post Why Do People Choose Careers in Engineering? [PODCAST] appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Do you want to solve important problems, contribute to society, and help people? Well, then, you may want to become an engineer. At least that’s why some successful engineers have said they entered and persist in the occupation, according to a recent study published by DiscoverE, an engineering outreach organization based in Alexandria, Virginia.
The research was conducted by DiscoverE in partnership with the Concord Evaluation Group. It specifically sought to answer the question: What are the common factors that motivate girls to pursue—and then persist—in engineering education and careers?
Thea Sahr, director of Communications and Programs with DiscoverE, discussed some of the findings as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “We’re finding that the women who are staying in engineering have a really strong support network, whether that’s family or friends or they have role models, that network is super important,” said Sahr.…
The post How Utilities Can Manage Supplier Risk [PODCAST] appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Power companies are turning to external suppliers and contractors now more than ever. Utilities are getting help with tasks ranging from the relatively simple, such as vegetation management and the handling of customer calls, to the complex, including turbine repair and large infrastructure projects. Although the benefits of utilizing contractors are often obvious, the dangers, which include cyber, reputational, financial, legal, and regulatory risks, may not be as easy to assess.
Two Boston Consulting Group (BCG) experts, Mike Lewis and João Maciel, were recent guests on The POWER Podcast. Both men are managing directors and partners with BCG based in Houston, Texas. Lewis leads the firm’s Houston office, while Maciel specializes in green energy, energy efficiency, and the environment. The pair helped author a paper on supplier risk management best practices and shared some tips during an interview for the podcast.
Maciel noted that outsourcing amplifies three main risks that utilities are typically already exposed to in their businesses.…
The post Good Water Treatment Systems Need Both Equipment and Chemistry [PODCAST] appeared first on POWER Magazine.
Proper water treatment is vital to successful power plant operation. The water treatment system must be designed appropriately, implementing a suitable water chemistry program, and operated and monitored correctly. Having adequate training and utilizing the services of a knowledgeable partner can be invaluable.
Three water industry experts from U.S. Water, a Kurita company, were recent guests on The POWER Podcast. Kevin Milici, vice president of Marketing and Technology; Nathan Bach, vice president of Engineering Services and Equipment, and Joe Tirreno, vice president of Strategic Corporate Accounts shared insight from their years of experience helping customers develop sound water treatment solutions.
Bach noted that many older power plants are shifting from primary ion exchange, that is, cation-anion mixed beds, to membrane treatment systems for their demineralized water needs. Meanwhile, some that may have had older-generation membrane treatment systems, such as reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodeionization (EDI) systems, have been upgrading to include ultrafilters ahead of the RO to reduce fouling and extend membrane life or utilizing two-pass RO units to reduce the loading on EDIs.…
The post Using Extreme Visibility to Protect Industrial Control Systems [PODCAST] appeared first on POWER Magazine.
What does it mean to have “extreme visibility” in an operational technology (OT) environment? According to Claroty, a New York-based company that offers cybersecurity products for industrial control systems, it’s having the ability to see all assets on a network, knowing what they are, and understanding what functions they perform. The company says the more organizations know about their OT network assets, the better equipped they will be to detect and investigate suspicious behavior.
“In order to really understand how to protect these networks, you really have to have your finger on the pulse of the threat landscape,” Dave Weinstein, Chief Security Officer with Claroty, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast.
“With respect to industrial control systems, nation-state actors continue to monopolize, if you will, the threat landscape. That is to say that the barriers to entry are sufficiently high enough at this point to prevent your average script kiddie or high school hacker from doing serious damage to, for example, the electrical grid,” Weinstein said.…
The post What Can You Do with a Superconductor? A Lot! [PODCAST] appeared first on POWER Magazine.
What is a superconductor? One definition says, “a material that can conduct electricity or transport electrons from one atom to another with no resistance.”
“At the base physics level, what a superconductor does is it moves a lot more power per unit volume or per unit weight, so you have a very high energy-dense material that can move lots of power,” Daniel McGahn, CEO of American Superconductor (AMSC), explained as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “So, from a very simple standpoint, we can move transmission-level power at distribution voltage simply with the energy density.”
AMSC is a global energy solutions provider serving both the power grid and wind industries. “Everything we do revolves around resiliency—either of the grid, infrastructure, or of Navy ships,” McGahn said.
“We do a lot of grid interconnection of wind to the grid. We do voltage support within the grid.…