Why nuclear energy (Ramón Cruz)

Ramón Cruz Penn State University Nuclear Engineering student Pennsylvania, USA Adversity and living in poverty helped me find my calling in life. One memorable moment in my years in the Dominican Republic helped shape my perspective about engineering and innovation, and eventually ignited a passionate pursuit to help the Dominican Republic through nuclear engineering.

Growing up as a child, I often accompanied my father to his farming land and spent hours helping him to cultivate pineapples. We used to wake up at five o’clock every morning, except on Sundays, to plant, maintain, and harvest the pineapples depending on the season. My father woke up every morning with a smile on his face showing me that he loves what he does. That expression of my father gave me plenty of motivation to work hard at the farm. Even though it was a very tough job to handle, it taught me responsibility and good work ethic. However, it was amazing seeing the beauty of the pineapple fields, the cows and horses eating grass, and nature in general. I loved those days. Close to my father’s farm, there was our little village which, at that time, depended economically on agriculture. However, my father told me that before I ever was born the village looked the same as it did back then. Such comment from my father paused me to think, why is our village has not changed since then? This is where I start to think as an engineer.

So, my desperate search to answer my question led me to read some literature about the growth and development of a city. Well, the reading was educational, but I did not find any reasonable answer to my question. At that time, I was sitting at night in the living room of my wooden farm house with my father, and I started to look deeply at a lightedup candle. While I was staring at the candle for few minutes, I realized that there was no electricity in my house. In my village, we did not have steady electricity and the maximum time of such privilege only lasted about eight hours a day. The Dominican government cannot give the whole country electricity for a whole day because its electric

power generation comes from petroleum, a fuel that is bought expensively from Venezuela and the USA. This sudden reflection lit my brain’s light bulb where I said, “The reason why my village is not progressing is because we do not have enough electricity.” This analysis turned out to be accurate, but I also realized that not only my village needed more electricity but the whole country as well. Here was the beginning for my interest in becoming a nuclear engineer.

This experience instilled in me the desire to learn about nuclear reactor designs and reactor thermal-hydraulics. This is where my career goals and my desire in graduate studies come in place. When I moved from the Dominican Republic to the USA, this desire from back home inspired me to apply to Penn State and study Nuclear Engineering. As an undergraduate student, I came up with a lot ups and downs in my grades as well as in determining my goals because I was having trouble adjusting to the system here in the USA. But as I approach close to my graduation, my grades are improved and those goals are becoming clearer than ever. My career goals, which I have slowly been working towards my last two years at Penn State, is to become a specialist in nuclear fuel management and thermal-hydraulics of light water reactors (LWRs) to develop models for computational implementation in the nuclear industry’s thermalhydraulics codes like COBRA-TF and VIPRE. This is where The Graduate School at Penn State comes in. I believe that earning a Master of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering in the area of Reactor Physics/Fuel Management and Thermal-Hydraulics will make possible to achieve this goal. After I finish with my graduate studies, I will pursue a career in these areas in a well-established company like Westinghouse, GEHitachi, AREVA, and others.

My dream is that one day I can go back to the Dominican Republic and give my country the opportunity to build a small modular reactor (SMR) from the advancements that I wish to contribute to a nuclear power plant vendor and designer like the companies that I previously mentioned. With a SMR, they can increase their electric power generation without producing any greenhouse gases to develop new technology, enhance a better health care, and increase the economic while preserving the beauty of those farming lands of pineapples when I worked with my father. Thus, my success, as a student, come from the work ethic of watching my father working hard at his farm. I learned to wake up early in the morning, manage my time accordingly to the tasks that needed to be done, and approach everything I do with joy and love. These are lessons that I will never forget, and I believe that they will help me to achieve success in my graduate studies. So ever since I was a child, I always thought that if I become a nuclear engineer I can change the faith of my country of being a developing country. However, I realized that I cannot change it, but only contribute to its development as I continue to grow in my career; so one day the Dominican Republic becomes a wonderful place to live.