Building Nuclear Energy In The U.S. | C4E Presents #047

Steven Biegalski closely monitored the development of the United State's first nuclear power facility in the last decade at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia. Host Heather Lynch and producer J.D. Allen spoke with Biegalski, chair of the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering program and Medical Physics program at Georgia Institute of Technology, in October 2025. This is a director’s cut of America's Nuclear Future, a national radio broadcast special from American Public Media.Learn more: “Evaluation of machine learning algorithms for nuclear monitoring applications” (2026) Elevated radioxenon detected remotely following the Fukushima nuclear accident (2011)Nuclear Power Isn’t What You Think — and That’s a Good Thing (Georgia Tech)Skip ahead to the chapter that interests you:01:11 Meet Steven Biegalski01:32 What Nuclear Engineers Do02:52 What Drives Nuclear Demand05:39 AI Data Centers Inflection08:42 Why Renewables Fall Short11:41 Can Nuclear Scale Fast14:23 SMRs Versus Big Reactors17:48 Workforce Supply Chain Gaps20:23 Community Perception Shifts24:02 Three Mile Island ReturnsTell a friend and share a link to this episode.You can find all our episodes at www.stonybrook.edu/c4e or wherever you stream audio.Sign up for our newsletter: https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/c4e/newsletters.phpFor all things Stony Brook on social media: https://gosbu.co/m/socialC4E Presents is a production of Stony Brook’s Collaborative for the Earth.Host: Heather LynchEditor: J.D. AllenProgram Manager: Jennifer Gilday