Nuclear Industry Creates World University

A worldwide shortage of nuclear engineers, workers, scientists, and students has led the World Nuclear Association, an international trade group with headquarters in London, to launch a new global body: the World Nuclear University. Supported by both the WNA and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the WNU plans to offer summer courses, strengthen links among academic and research institutions, and eventually establish an international standard for graduate degrees, says John Ritch, the WNAs director general.

The university was officially inaugurated in September to celebrate the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative. The idea for creating an international university had been around for several years, but was taken up only last year by the WNA and IAEA. Former IAEA director general Hans Blix, who led the UN search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, will be the WNU’s first chancellor.

The WNU will operate out of a small office in London, and its staff will initially consist of volunteer experts from research institutes, industry, and government agencies. The first summer courses are scheduled for 2004, and the WNU is working on what it hopes will be the first in a series of reference books, a manual called English Language Skills for the Global Nuclear Industry. Other planned programs will look to preserve the knowledge of the existing generation of nuclear workers before they retire. “There will be no actual campus, as we can make use of existing academic infrastructure,” says Ritch.

By 2011, the supply of nuclear engineers in the US will fall short of demand by 50%, says Melanie Lyons, spokesperson for the Washington, DC-based Nuclear Energy Institute. Similar shortages are predicted to occur in many countries that use nuclear reactors. “Germany needs an additional 6000 skilled nuclear staff and so does France,” says Helmuth Böck, a professor of reactor physics at the Atomic Institute in Vienna, Austria.

The projected worldwide shortages would arise even if the nuclear industry did not expand much beyond the 440 existing power plants (see the story on page 34). However, the WNA anticipates a high rate of reactor construction as energy-generation costs and environmental concerns increasingly favor nuclear over fossil fuels, says Ritch. An increased demand for new workers, he adds, will underscore the need for setting international education standards.

Another WNU role arises from the recent call by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei for a fundamental review of the entire fuel cycle of the nuclear industry worldwide. Instead of national facilities for uranium fuel enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing, he suggests studies directed toward placing a limited number of facilities under full multinational control. The aim would be to eliminate any opportunity for nuclear weapons proliferation. He also suggests that countries collaborate more on waste disposal. Already these ideas are topics of WNU working groups. “In the future,” says Ritch, “we hope the WNU will become a vibrant symbol of a nuclear technology that is green and indispensable.”