Nuclear engineering, profession

We must take up the complex question of what constitutes human welfare, and we will need tools such as everyday ethics in order to have such a conversation. This is because the shaping and communication of engineering values happens both implicitly and explicitly, and these values can be invoked and inculcated in contradictory ways. The engineering profession may encourage certain values, for example, even if it does not insist upon them in explicit codes of ethics. Possible examples include eco-skepticism as discussed by Didier and Talin in Chap. 12, and the effects of climate change on the standards used in planning and building nuclear power plants by Schneider, Tidwell, and Fitzwater in Chap. 15. 

There is no detailed documentation of the number of chemists and chemical engineers employed in the nuclear power industry. Within AECL there are 300 in a total staff of 6000 (5%). Within Ontario Hydro (26) there are approximately 145 in a total staff of 3300 associated with nuclear power generation (4.4%). The Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) estimates that in 1976 there were about 18,400 people employed in the Canadian nuclear industry, excluding the uranium industry (27) If about 4% of these were chemists or chemical engineers, one can estimate that a total of about 700 were employed in the industry at that time. There is likely to be considerable expansion of the industry by 1985, particularly in the utilities such as Ontario Hydro, Hydro Quebec, and New Brunswick Power which already have additional nuclear capacity under construction. The expansion will in turn provide new opportunities for members of this profession. 

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