Why exactly would anyone trust nuclear engineers here, who's careers obviously depend on this situation blowing over

These kids could be 6 figures in the hole for an education that, other than research, in time will end up going down the drain. The career pie chart shows around half of them would have ended up in the industry. I feel for you guys. Incorporating other departments with expertise in something besides magnets and shooting stars would have been a logical start.

One size does not fit all

Preamble

Recognizing the profound importance of nuclear science and technology in affecting the quality of life throughout the world, members of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) are committed to the highest ethical and professional conduct.

http://www.new.ans.org/about/coe/

Fundamental Principle

ANS members as professionals are dedicated to improving the understanding of nuclear science and technology, appropriate applications, and potential consequences of their use.

To that end, ANS members uphold and advance the integrity and honor of their professions by using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare and the environment; being honest and impartial; serving with fidelity the public, their employers, and their clients; and striving to continuously improve the competence and prestige of their various professions.

ANS members shall subscribe to the following practices of professional conduct:

Practices of Professional Conduct
1.We hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public and fellow workers, work to protect the environment, and strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development in the performance of our professional duties.
2.We will formally advise our employers, clients, or any appropriate authority and, if warranted, consider further disclosure, if and when we perceive that pursuit of our professional duties might have adverse consequences for the present or future public and fellow worker health and safety or the environment.
3.We act in accordance with all applicable laws and these Practices, lend support to others who strive to do likewise, and report violations to appropriate authorities.
4.We perform only those services that we are qualified by training or experience to perform, and provide full disclosure of our qualifications.
5.We present all data and claims, with their bases, truthfully, and are honest and truthful in all aspects of our professional activities. We issue public statements and make presentations on professional matters in an objective and truthful manner.
6.We continue our professional development and maintain an ethical commitment throughout our careers, encourage similar actions by our colleagues, and provide opportunities for the professional and ethical training of those persons under our supervision.
7.We act in a professional and ethical manner towards each employer or client and act as faithful agents or trustees, disclosing nothing of a proprietary nature concerning the business affairs or technical processes of any present or former client or employer without specific consent, unless necessary to abide by other provisions of this Code or applicable laws.
8.We disclose to affected parties, known or potential conflicts of interest or other circumstances, which might influence, or appear to influence, our judgment or impair the fairness or quality of our performance.
9.We treat all persons fairly.
10.We build our professional reputation on the merit of our services, do not compete unfairly with others, and avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment.
11.We reject bribery and coercion in all their forms.
12.We accept responsibility for our actions; are open to and acknowledge criticism of our work; offer honest criticism of the work of others; properly credit the contributions of others; and do not accept credit for work not our own.

Engineers love their families

Science Magazine reports that Japanese scientists have become so concerned about the health of their children that they have initiated their own radiation monitoring program and made their own maps. The results are shocking.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/16/985938/-eSci:-Unsafe-Radiation-...

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6036/1368.summary

Parents in Tokyo's Koto Ward enlisted the help of Tomoya Yamauchi, a radiation physicist at Kobe University, to measure radiation in their neighborhood. Local government officials later joined the act, ordering radiation checks of schoolyards and other public places and posting the results on their Web sites. An anonymous volunteer recently plotted the available 6300 data points on a map. And Yukio Hayakawa, a volcanologist at Gunma University, turned that plot into a radiation contour map.

It shows one wide belt of radiation reaching 225 kilometers south from the stricken reactors to Tokyo and another extending to the southwest. Within those belts are localized hot spots, including an oval that encloses northeast Tokyo and Kashiwa and neighboring cities in Chiba Prefecture.

Radiation in this zone is 0.4 microsieverts per hour, or about 3.5 millisieverts per year. That is a fraction of the radiation found throughout much of Fukushima Prefecture, which surrounds the nuclear power plant. But it is still 10 times background levels and even above the 1-millisievert-per-year limit for ordinary citizens set by Japanese law. The health effects of such low doses are not clear and are passionately debated. But it is known that children are more susceptible to radiation than adults, and few parents want to take chances with a child's health. Besides, “The law should be observed,” Yamauchi says. Kyo Kageura, an information scientist at the University of Tokyo, says there should be a public discussion of the issue, “based on a scrupulous presentation of the data, including to what extent the 1-millisievert limit can be achieved.”

A map of citizen measured radiation levels shows radioactivity is distributed in a complex pattern reflecting the mountainous terrain and the shifting winds across a broad area of Japan north of Tokyo which is in the center of the of bottom of the map.

http://www.nnistar.com/gmap/fukushima.html

Radiation limits begin to be exceeded at just above 0.1 microsieverts/ hour blue. Red is about fifty times the civilian radiation limit at 5.0 microsieverts/hour. Because children are much more sensitive than adults, these results are a great concern for parents of young children in potentially affected areas.

http://www.nippon-sekai.com/main/articles/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-powe...

trust?

When you understand what makes people tick certain elements of motivation and behavior become crystal clear. Things like scientific and personal integrity are likely at the top of the list for academic individuals that gravitate toward this field. Once bruised, bloodied and engaged in 'for profit' industry things do change. As to job prospects they will only increase for decades to come. Nukes will not decrease as fast as the flood of people leaving the industry at this point and the growing radiological mess made in these nukes today and over the last fifty years will consume an ARMY of engineers...The current 'best solution' for waste disposal requires a reactor. There will be both changes and jobs aplenty in this field for decades to come.

Right on.

The current 'best solution' for waste disposal requires a reactor. There will be both changes and jobs aplenty in this field for decades to come.
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One of the best solutions to the nuclear waste problem is not to attempt to bury the long lived actinides for thousands of years; but to burn them up in an actinide burner reactor like Argonne's Integral Fast Reactor or IFR:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.

Courtesy of the DOE Office of Science and Argonne National Lab:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx7.htm