NiCE Club: Empowering Students and Promoting Nuclear Energy Awareness and Advocacy at Cal Poly

The Nuclear is Clean Energy (NiCE) club, formed at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in January 2024, works to spread awareness about issues relating to nuclear energy and also teaches its members about the importance of scientific communication and advocacy. Inspired by clubs at MIT and Berkeley and a local nonprofit group, Mothers for Nuclear, the club aims to give Cal Poly students the opportunity to start conversations about nuclear energy and make informed decisions about its role in our energy mix. Despite the current global warming crisis, not many members of the public seem to know much about nuclear energy as an energy alternative, even STEM students. Any association people have about nuclear energy is dominated by tragedies such as Fukushima or Chernobyl. Popular culture is not helpful in this regard, with the origin stories of characters such as The Amazing Spider Man and The Incredible Hulk using radiation as catch-all to anything supernatural or fantastical. Such trends can be very damaging and show how much of a necessity it is to give people access to reliable and factual information on nuclear energy. This poster will detail the NiCE club’s experiences at Cal Poly, strategies for spreading information, and future as it goes into the next academic year.