Nov 10 - The Daily Progress

Speeches and debates during the presidential campaign about the country's energy needs consistently included nods from candidates about the future of nuclear power.

But for companies with nuclear interests operating in Virginia, any revival of an industry that went somewhat dormant in the U.S. close to 30 years ago will require a sustained push to field more engineers.

In the last year, state colleges and universities have stepped up their response to that need, notably on the nuclear level.

Bill Hall worked for Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy for 30 years and now teaches at the University of Virginia, where there were undergraduate and graduate programs in nuclear engineering, plus a research reactor on Grounds until the mid-1990s.

"Nuclear energy was going to power every aspect of our life," Hall said of the country's mindset 40 years ago. But Hall said that at UVa, like many schools nationwide, it was the partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa., in 1979 that in many ways set back or buried nuclear programs on campuses.

Now, emphasis on finding alternative energy sources is bringing nuclear studies back, and UVa is discussing adding a minor in nuclear studies to its engineering school, Hall said. It's something he believes will find interest among students who see nuclear as an emissions-free way to combat global warming.

It's also a chance for students to get a foot in the door of a field where the starting salary can be in the mid-$60,000 range, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, roughly 45 percent of all workers in the nuclear industry could either be eligible to retire, or will have left the field, in the next five years, many of them engineers. And in the last decade, companies have recruited like never before.

"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.

A nuclear Virginia

For its part, Virginia Commonwealth University began offering a nuclear engineering track to its master's degree program in 2007.

That program is supported by Dominion and has found the majority of its interest among engineers who are already in the work force but who are looking for a nuclear skill set.

VCU is also using a grant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop a nuclear track for its undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, said Rosalyn Hobson, associate dean for graduate studies at VCU.

"We are responding to the demands of the industry," Hobson said.

VCU students are also working on a project to develop an electric-powered "see-through" reactor simulator that students can use to learn the operations of a real reactor, said Jim McLeskey, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at VCU.

Virginia Tech -- which once offered degrees in nuclear engineering and supported a research reactor -- also joined the push last year when it began offering graduate classes where students earn a master's or undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering with a nuclear engineering certificate.

Tech professors Gene Brown and Mark Pierson are also working to bring master's and doctoral degrees to the university by fall 2009.

Brown acknowledged the nuclear industry was the force behind the new and proposed programs.

Dominion already operates four nuclear reactors split between Louisa and Surry counties and has filed an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a third reactor in Louisa.

Last month, Areva and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s shipbuilding division said it was partnering to build a manufacturing and engineering facility in Newport News to supply components for what will be among the first nuclear reactors to be built in the United States in 35 years.

The $360 million plant is expected to create 500 jobs. Mike Hobbs, manager of workforce planning and staffing with Areva, said the company has upped its recruiting efforts in the last 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 on line in the U.S. between 2015 and 2030, Hobbs said.

Like Dominion and Babcock & Wilcox, Areva has in recent years fanned out across the country recruiting recent college graduates while also co-oping students while they're in school with the hope of offering them jobs later.

Co-ops typically mean rising juniors will rotate working for a company for one semester and then return to school the next, for two years.

Once they're in, there is an opportunity for young engineers to move up in their companies quicker than in decades past, Dave Van Auker, manager of college recruiting for Babcock & Wilcox, said.

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

"It's not just the wish that has been touted for so long; it's happening," Hobbs said of a revived nuclear industry.

And while President-elect Obama presented concerns during his campaign about the safety of increased nuclear power generation, he did acknowledge it will likely have a role to play, and university officials second that.

"Energy is a big issue, a complex issue," VCU's McLeskey said. "And no one thing is going to solve it."

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