Apr 24 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Eric Anderson Albany Times Union, N.Y.

The agency that oversees the nuclear power industry is facing "massive" retirements and is scrambling to recruit as nuclear energy is once again expanding.

But unlike a decade or two ago, "young people today see a real future in nuclear," said Dale E. Klein, who chairs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Klein visited Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Wednesday morning to talk with nuclear engineering students about the outlook for the industry and its regulators. He was joined by President Shirley Ann Jackson, who once held the NRC post.

"We're not an advocate for or against nuclear power," Klein said. But his agency has a central role in making sure the industry is operated safely and securely.

"RPI has had a long history of nuclear education," said Jackson, who added that the college also is facing a wave of retirements among its nuclear engineering faculty. But in a sign the school sees a bright future for nuclear power, "we're replacing them at a 3-to-2 ratio," she said.

The NRC currently has nine site applications pending for 14 reactors. In one change to reduce the financial risk to utilities, the agency now issues construction and operating permits together, instead of waiting until the multibillion-dollar plants are built to determine whether they'll be allowed to operate. The NRC instead monitors a plant through its construction phase.

It reduces the financial risk to the industry, Klein said.

The NRC oversees 104 reactors that generate electric power, but Klein said that number would have to grow to 150 just to maintain nuclear power's 20 percent share of the overall electricity market over the next 30 years, when overall consumption is expected to increase by 50 percent.

Safety has been a concern in the wake of such accidents as the one at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania nearly 30 years ago, and at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986.

Another is what to do with the spent nuclear fuel, which remains radioactive. Klein said governments around the world are looking to dispose of it "geologically," by burying it deep underground.

He expects the U.S. Department of Energy to submit an application for a license to operate a national disposal facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada by June, although the review could take three to four years.

Concerns about growing greenhouse-gas emissions and what they're doing to the environment also have some advocating a greater role for nuclear power, which doesn't emit carbon dioxide and other gases.

"What's driving (plant construction) is an increase in baseload demand and concerns about global warming," Klein said.

"We need a myriad of energy options for the future, and nuclear power is one of them," said Jackson, noting that Klein's talk at RPI comes one day after Earth Day and three days before the Chernobyl accident's anniversary.

Klein also talked about the need for inspectors at the NRC, calling the "tightness of the human supply chain" a concern of utilities and the regulator.

One RPI graduate student, Rian Bahran, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, said the job market is very strong.

"The industry's hiring like crazy," he said before Klein's speech. But Bahran, who is from Yemen, said he'd like to pursue a public policy role, "where you can have impact."

One place he may look: the International Atomic Energy Agency. He said his technical background will give him the tools to understand whether reactor designs face a risk of meltdown, or whether they're capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium for extraction.

Eric Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.