Paul Lorenzini, Founder, NuScale Power

Will Greensboro Have Its Own Nuclear Power Plant?

Paul Lorenzini graduated from the US Merchant Marine Academy in 1964, later earning a PhD in nuclear engineering from Oregon State University and a law degree from Loyola Law School. During his career he headed a 5,000-person operation at the Hanford nuclear site in Eastern Washington, later serving in several executive positions at PacifiCorp, including President of Pacific Power and Light, CEO, PacifiCorp Turkey, and CEO, Powercor Australia.

He has been a nuclear advocate since the 1970s when he co-chaired California’s campaign to defeat an anti-nuclear initiative in 1976, playing a similar role in working to defeat Oregon’s anti-nuclear Ballot Measure 9 later that year.

In 2007 he co-founded NuScale Power, aimed at commercializing a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) developed at Oregon State University. SMR’s have the advantage of being fabricated off-site in smaller units to give better financial controls, while significantly adding to plant safety. With the introduction of NuScale Power, the nuclear industry experienced a paradigm shift in its approach to commercial nuclear power. Today NuScale Power is the only SMR to have been fully approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2002 he was inducted into the Oregon State University Engineering Hall of Fame. He served for several years as a trustee of the Oregon State University Foundation Board, chaired the Board of Trustees in 2010–11, and currently serves on the Board of Regents for the Honors College. From 2016 thro0ugh 2020 he taught a colloquium for Honors students at Oregon State on “Humanizing the sciences.” In 2019 he received an award for Outstanding Professional Achievement from the US Merchant Marine Academy.

Publications and blogs relevant to nuclear power include:

• “Nuclear Power – How Environmentalism Lost its Way”, Nuclear News, November 2016. http://www.ans.org/pubs/magazines/download/a_1041
• “Saving the Environment from Environmentalism”:
  • “Part I: Must we destroy the environment to save it?” September 14, 2015, http://atomicinsights.com/saving-the-environment-from-environmentalism-2/
  • “Part II: Rethinking environmentalism” September 21, 2015, http://atomicinsights.com/saving-the-environment-from-environmentalism-part-ii/
• “Yes, we can have a conversation about clean, safe, nuclear energy”, February 3, 2015 (https://northwestcleanenergy.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/yes-we-can-have-a-conversation-about-clean-safe-nuclear-energy/)
• “If you really care about carbon”, Feb 3, 2014 (http://atomicinsights.com/really-care-carbon/)
• “On Germany, Coal and Carbon”, January 25, 2014 (http://atomicinsights.com/germany-coal-carbon/)
• “Pandora’s Promise and Robert F. Kennedy – What we missed”, July 12, 2013. (http://atomicinsights.com/pandoras-promise-and-robert-f-kennedy-jr-what-we-missed/)
• “Nukes kill more birds than wind?”, April 30, 2013 (http://atomicinsights.com/2013/04/nukes-kill-more-birds-than-wind.html)
• “Hearts and Minds”, Nuclear Engineering International, February 16, 2006. (http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=188&storyCode=2034355)
• “Chernobyl Myths”, American Spectator, January 23, 2006. (http://spectator.org/articles/47512/chernobyl-myths)
• “A Second Look at Nuclear Power”, ISSUES in Science and Technology, Spring, 2005. (http://issues.org/21-3/lorenzini/)

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