US offers new grants for nuclear power research
Date: 11-Jun-02
Country: USA
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham awarded $5.5 million to four groups of universities for nuclear power research plus 73 scholarships and fellowships to nuclear engineering students.
The initiative is "absolutely critical to preparing the next generation of nuclear engineers and scientists," Abraham said in a statement.
The university support is part of an administration push to breath new life into the U.S. nuclear power industry.
The Energy Department in February said it wanted to speed up licensing procedures and clear the way for at least one utility to build a nuclear power plant by 2010.
The government is also helping to fund the initial studies of sites for potential new nuclear power plants. To overcome resistance from private landowners, the Energy Department has offered land at its existing nuclear engineering laboratory in Idaho, a nuclear weapons plant in South Carolina and a uranium recycling facility in Ohio.
No new U.S. nuclear plants have been built since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. The failure of a water cooling system at that Pennsylvania plant led to the partial melting of the reactor's uranium core. The $1 billion accident effectively halted the U.S. nuclear industry in its tracks.
The Bush administration has endorsed nuclear power as a clean source of energy to generate electricity.
Some environmental groups say no new plants should be built because of safety concerns and the growing volume of dangerous radioactive waste generated by the 103 existing plants in the United States.