Nuclear renewal spurs demand for engineers

updated 1:31 p.m. ET Oct. 7, 2008

TROY, N.Y. - Jackie Young was always good at math and science, but when she started college she never figured she'd end up pursuing a career in nuclear energy.

Then professors at the University of Tennessee's nuclear engineering department briefed her and other undeclared freshmen about what they call a "nuclear renaissance" as the nation prepares to build dozens of new plants in coming years to meet burgeoning energy needs and wean the country off oil.

"They told us how it was so big in the '70s and is just now picking back up, and I was very interested," said Young, who's starting her junior year. "There are going to be so many career opportunities."

Young is not alone. Nuclear engineering programs at universities nationwide are brimming with students eager to break into what they see as a growth industry.

This rebirth of learning comes after a decades-long slump that prompted many schools to scale back nuclear engineering programs and some to close altogether, a trend that has some experts worrying whether enough new workers can be trained in time to support the potential growth.

There are now 65 nuclear power plants with 104 reactors operating in the country, most built during a flurry of construction in the 1960s and '70s. There have been no new plants built since 1996.

The nation's enthusiasm for nuclear energy turned to antipathy in 1979 after an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania released radioactive materials. It was the most serious commercial nuclear plant accident in American history.

Seven years later, horrific images of people injured in the Ukraine after a reactor in the Chernobyl power plant exploded cast an even darker pall on the industry.

Tighter regulation, rising construction costs and falling fossil fuel prices also contributed to the shift away from nuclear.

23 permit requests
But the recent rise in the cost of fossil fuels and concerns about the level of greenhouse gases from coal and natural-gas fired power plants has the nation again looking at nuclear as a source of electric power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to rule on 23 nuclear-plant construction permits over the next six years.

Among those with applications pending before the NRC are NuStart Energy — a consortium of 10 power companies — Duke Energy, Exelon and Progress Energy. A complex regulatory environment, the vagaries of world energy markets and continued resistance by environmental interests make it impossible to predict how many new plants — if any — will be built.

But policy makers have taken a more favorable view of nuclear power. Both presidential candidates have talked about nuclear as part of their energy policy plans.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has said nuclear power should be an option, but only if key issues such as security and disposal of waste can be adequately addressed. Republican Sen. John McCain has said he'd put his administration on track to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030.

"The core message is we need a comprehensive energy strategy," said Shirley Jackson, president of upstate New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a past chairman of the NRC. "Nuclear energy can and should be a part of that overall comprehensive energy strategy, but nothing can happen without the human resources."

Jackson is among a growing number of industry experts who worry about a shortage of qualified workers.

In 2007, American universities granted 729 undergraduate and graduate nuclear engineering degrees. That's up from 480 in 1998, according to a survey by the U.S. Energy Department's Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

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