Schools restart nuclear programs

Nuclear engineering studies is making a comeback in Virginia.

Some of the state's universities have added programs, are planning to do so or are considering it because of renewed interest in the nuclear industry with growing emphasis on finding alternative energy sources.

Last year, Virginia Commonwealth University began offering a nuclear engineering track to its master's degree program, and the school plans to offer an undergraduate program in 2009.

Virginia Tech -- which once offered degrees in nuclear engineering and supported a research reactor -- began offering classes for students to earn a nuclear engineering certificate. Tech is working to bring master's and doctoral degrees by fall next year.

The University of Virginia, which a decade ago shut down its reactor after 38 years of research, is discussing adding a minor in nuclear studies to its engineering school.

"We are responding to the demands of the industry," said Rosalyn Hobson, VCU's associate dean for graduate studies.

Many universities in Virginia and elsewhere once offered undergraduate and graduate programs in nuclear engineering.

But schools stopped providing them as interest in the field waned after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Virginia Tech and U.Va. were among the schools that eventually shut down their graduate programs and research reactors.

Universities offer 31 nuclear engineering programs in the U.S., but twice as many programs were offered before the Three Mile Island accident.

Now, rising gas prices, concern about fossil-fuel use and global warming has prompted renewed interest in the nuclear industry and in programs to train the next generation of workers.

In the United States, 20 percent of electricity comes from nuclear power. Virginia uses 40 percent, and that makes the state a logical choice for the nuclear industry to focus, said Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, chairman of the mechanical engineering program at VCU and a professor in biomedical engineering.

"Virginia is already a very important player in the nuclear power industry," he said.

Companies with nuclear power interests, including those operating in Virginia, are pushing for an educational revival as the need for engineers grows with more nuclear reactors being planned.

"For 30 years, there were no new nuclear reactors," Gad-el-Hak said. "Suddenly, that landscape is changing. The alternatives to fossil fuels are renewable energy. The technology for those exist, but it's too expensive. Nuclear can compete with fossil fuels."

As of September, applications had been filed for 32 new nuclear power plants in the United States, many in the Southeast.

Yet in the next five years, roughly 45 percent of all workers in the nuclear industry could either be eligible to retire or will have left the field, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The starting salary can be in the mid-$60,000 range, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"In the next five to 10 years, there's going to be a lot of hiring going on," said Kerry Basehore, director of nuclear analysis and fuel for Richmond-based Dominion Resources Inc.

Tech professor Gene Brown said the nuclear industry is the force behind the new and proposed degree programs.

The VCU program began at the prompting of Dominion, Gad-el-Hak said. Employees from the utility teach the nuclear courses.

Much of a nuclear degree consists of mechanical engineering courses. VCU professors are teaching those, while adjunct faculty from Dominion covers the nuclear courses.

Next fall, VCU hopes to add two nuclear professors to the faculty, Gad-el-Hak said. The master's program is part-time right now and has about 20 to 25 students, with the first class set to graduate in 2010.

Also in 2009, a bachelor's degree track will be offered, with hopes of eventually attracting 100 students.

Dominion and other companies in Virginia have a need.

The state's largest utility operates two reactors each at its North Anna plant in Louisa County and its Surry Power Station in Surry County. The company has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license that would give the utility the option of building and operating a third reactor at North Anna.

In October, Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding announced a $363.4 million joint venture with the French firm Areva to build components for holding nuclear fuel in commercial power plants. No nuclear materials or fuel are to be produced at the facility, which will bring 540 jobs.

Mike Hobbs, Areva's manager of workforce planning and staffing, said the company has increased its recruiting efforts in the past eight years, realizing it needs to get engineers in the door who can then be mentored by the employees with nuclear knowledge who are nearing retirement.

Areva employs roughly 70,000 people worldwide -- 2,000 in Virginia -- and is trying to bring seven new power plants online in the U.S. between 2015 and 2030, Hobbs said.

Other companies with ties to Virginia also have fanned out across the country recruiting recent college graduates as well as students for internships.

Once hired, young engineers now have a greater opportunity to move up in their companies quicker than in past decades, said Dave Van Auker, manager of college recruiting for Babcock & Wilcox, a Lynchburg-based company that also builds heavy-pressure vessels to hold nuclear fuel.

The recruiting efforts are paying off nationally, according to a survey by the Nuclear Energy Institute, which showed a 34 percent increase in the number of engineers under 27 entering the utility work force between 2005 and 2007.

Nuclear power "is going to become a bigger piece of the energy equation in the next couple of years," said Gregory H. Wingfield, president of the Greater Richmond Partnership, a regional economic-development group. "Having VCU and other schools putting a pipeline together will give [Virginia] a competitive edge."
Staff writer Emily C. Dooley and Aaron Lee of The Daily Progress in Charlottesville contributed to this report.