Alligator Online

Wanted: Graduate students to meet the need of the nuclear energy industry's most limited resource: workers.

Several universities including UF have begun confronting the Nuclear Energy Institute's 2004 predicted shortage of nuclear scientists and engineers in the United States over the next five to 10 years.

"If you are a nuclear engineer, now is a very good time," said Alireza Haghighat, chairman of the UF Department of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering. "You can name your price."

Commercial nuclear power generation utilities are expected to lose about 28 percent of employees to retirement, and replacements are few, according to the NEI Web site.

The problem stems from the years of slow growth that followed the initial rapid rise of nuclear technology.

"In the 1960s and 1970s, nuclear technology was top of the line," Haghighat said. "Everyone wanted a piece of it."

Orders for new plants were canceled after the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania; the last nuclear reactor was built in 1995. The industry focused on maintenance instead of growth and stopped hiring.

Now, as the industry looks to expand nuclear power to supply more than 23 percent of U.S. electricity needs, college graduates are needed.

"It's a problem nobody really talks about," Haghighat said. "We need time to train, and do we have it?"

In response to the situation, the NRE at UF, one of about 20 universities in the nation offering nuclear programs, is taking steps to increase the number of students entering utility jobs, Haghighat said.

"We have grown significantly in the last four years," he added.

Under Haghighat, the number of undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the department more than doubled, with 30 percent enrolled in nuclear engineering.

However, limited funds permit acceptance of only 10 percent of graduate applicants.

"We simply cannot afford all those students," Haghighat said.

Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy have started to build relationships with UF by providing scholarships, research grants and hosting recruitment events.

The rising demand places students in the position of control.

"The jobs really come to us," said Taylor Moulton, president of UF's chapter of the American Nuclear Society. "I have never had to send off my resume."