It’s a great honor to be here tonight and to see this many young people in one location talking about nuclear energy. It makes me realize that we do have a tremendous future ahead of us. I can tell you that the industry needs every one of you, so thank you for coming and for being involved with this conference.

I think it’s great that there are so many opportunities for you now, and I’ll talk more about that as I talk about your future and the future I see within the nuclear profession. But before we talk about the nuclear industry, I thought it would be interesting to look at some past predictions for other industries.

Here’s the first one:

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." That’s from a 1949 article in Popular Mechanics — I hope you all brought your 1½ ton laptops with you this weekend.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." From a Western Union internal memo, 1876. Well, certainly they did not make use of it, did they?

This next one has some value for those of you who have watched what’s gone on with the stock market in the last 90 days.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." That’s by Irving Fisher, a Professor of Economics from Yale University in 1929.

I really like the last one. This was by Charles H. Duell, the Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents in 1899.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Let’s hope that’s not true.

These are certainly some great predictions. And that’s what happens to us. We have a tendency to look only at what’s going on right now, so we miss out on some incredible opportunities because we fail to see the possibilities.

Have we failed over the last few years to see the incredible possibility of what nuclear power can do for our society? My response would be that we have. But I think we’re at a turning point.

In the past couple of years, certain factors have come together that are allowing us to reshape our future as an industry and to create some pretty exciting opportunities for people like you and for people who are involved in nuclear engineering or the nuclear professions.

Nuclear power is becoming more efficient, more reliable, and safer every day — and certainly more popular. The latest polls say approximately 65 percent of people in the United States today support nuclear power. That certainly is a change. If you poll Congress, the numbers are about the same — about 62 percent of our Congress supports nuclear power. And I think if we took that poll again today, we’d get higher numbers than that.

Overview of the Nuclear Industry
Right now, there are 440 commercial reactors operating in 31 countries around the world. Altogether, they generate over 350,000 megawatts of electricity, and they meet about 17 percent of the world’s electricity needs.

In the United States, there are currently 103 nuclear plants operating in 31 states. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, nuclear units in the U.S. generated 728 billion kilowatts of electricity in 1999. And nuclear power is the primary source of power in 6 states — Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Vermont. When you look at some of those states, you see some pretty interesting things.

Connecticut gets almost 47 percent of their power from nuclear energy, yet they were the last state to close down a nuclear power plant. About two years ago, they shut down Connecticut Yankee. Vermont, which has one nuclear power plant, gets about 85 percent of their electricity from nuclear power. But that plant is now up for sale and would have been shut down had there not been a tremendous change in the industry over the past 2 years.

In all, nuclear energy accounted for about 20 percent of all electricity generated in the United States last year. If you think back a few years to our last big energy crisis, you’ll see how oil and nuclear have swapped places. At that time, we generated about 20 percent of our electricity with oil and 3 percent with nuclear power. Today, oil only accounts for about 3 percent of our electricity generation.

In addition to our power plants, there are also 270 reactors operating worldwide that are used for research, for the production of medical and industrial isotopes or for training.

The Growing Demand for Power
It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the world’s existing sources for power generation will not be able to meet our growing demands for power. We’re seeing that in the United States right now, but where you’re really going to see it is elsewhere.

Today, the earth’s population is growing by about 1 billion people every 10 years. Some people think that population will double in the next 50 years. About 90 percent of that growth will come from poorly developed nations. If these nations are going to continue to grow economically, new infrastructure has to be built. That new infrastructure will create a much greater need for electricity.

It’s been projected that our need for electric power will quadruple over the next 50 years. Now if that’s true, that means you’ve got to build a new 1,000 megawatt plant of some kind every 2 days for the next 50 years to meet that need, or part of our society is going to be left behind.

The Energy Crisis
Even in our own highly-developed nation, we’re seeing the need for an increase in the capacity to generate power. The current situation in California is having a dramatic effect on the power generation industry. It’s estimated that across the United States, the demand for electricity will grow 2 – 2 ½ percent each year. A few years ago, the predictions were about 1 -1 ½ percent per year. But what we’re finding in California is a growth rate of about 4 percent per year.

Now, what’s causing that? A lot of people say one reason is the big demand for computers. You might say, “Well, my computer doesn’t require a lot of power.” But when you look at all the systems that are associated with the computer industry, it has created a big demand. So that demand is increasing 3-4 percent and we’re just getting further and further behind.

There’s been very little generation built in the last 15 or 20 years – basically none of any kind. As people have waited to see what’s going to happen with the regulated and deregulated market, most people have just put generation on hold. And as a nation right now we’re hurting. Right now, the Northeast is almost as scared as California. There’s going to be a difficult summer on the West Coast, and I can tell you from talking to many people in the Northeast that they may face similar problems. Most of the South should be fine – we’ve got the generation – if we have the transmission to move it. It’s as difficult to build transmission as generation, and it hasn’t been built in recent years.

This environment is providing a unique and exciting opportunity for the nuclear industry.

Nuclear’s Environmental Advantage
Power plants burning fossil fuels, particularly coal-fired plants, are subject to increasing environmental restrictions, both from past laws such as the Clean Air Act and current agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, which could commit the U.S. to a 7 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2012.

I know the press has recently said we’re not going to meet many of those requirements, but I assure you the political pressure will come. We’re going to have to meet a lot of those requirements over the next several years. Don’t be fooled into thinking that’s not going to happen. The international community will require it — will demand it — from us, and I think you’re going to see the political pressure to reverse that decision in the coming months.

Such restrictions, while necessary for reducing the problem of global warming and air pollution, are very costly. From 1987 through 1994, spending by utilities for clean air compliance doubled, going from $3 billion to $6 billion, and it’s projected that if we have to meet the 2012 requirements, it could cost up to $22 billion.

Nuclear’s Cost Advantage
For the first time in its history, nuclear energy is emerging as one of the cheapest ways to produce power. In 1999, the average non-capital cost (fuel, operations, & maintenance) of nuclear-generated electricity was 2 cents per kWhr. At the end of 2000 this dropped to 1.83 cents, which is the lowest it’s ever been.

Now to put that in perspective, the average cost in 1999 for coal-fired production was 2.07 cents per KWhr, oil was 3.18 cents and natural gas was 3.52 cents. So we’ve got a competitive way to generate power that we didn’t have in the past.

During this last winter from November to January, Entergy’s regulated customers saved between $450-500 million due to the fact that 8.3 million megawatt-hours of their electricity was produced with nuclear power rather than natural gas. I’ve asked NEI to compile that for nuclear plants across the nation because our savings represent only 5 plants out of 103. I believe that across the industry, that number would be astronomical for this past winter when natural gas prices were so high.

While the federal government has spent $12 billion since 1978 to subsidize renewable methods of generation such as wind, solar, and hydro, these methods have managed to capture just 2 percent of the total electricity market. They’ve been very expensive and remain very expensive. And most projections indicate that they will continue to be expensive.

We’re all aware of the recent escalating prices of natural gas. For the nuclear industry it has caused a huge turnaround in Congress. It has gotten people’s attention for the first time, and much of what I think is going to happen would probably not have happened this year were it not for high natural gas prices this past winter. And if you look at the market, we don’t see gas prices coming down much. We’re seeing that people are starting to buy for the next 8 years at the current prices.

Nuclear units, on the other hand, provide a high level of forward price stability that other methods of generation like natural gas just don’t have. And when people invest money, they want stability. So if we can show (and we have shown) that the nuclear industry has that stability, we will be a true competitor in the use of capital for building nuclear plants.

The use of nuclear power also allows us to achieve two potentially opposing goals — meeting increasing demands for electricity and economic growth — while protecting our environment at the same time. I don’t think we’ve talked nearly enough about that in recent years.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, nuclear energy accounted for 70 percent of our country’s emission-free electric generation in 1999, and it accounted for 90 percent of all carbon emission reductions in the utility industry from 1973-1997. Worldwide, nuclear energy avoids the emission of 550 million tons of carbon per year and, in the United States, 2.4 million tons of nitrogen oxide and 5.1 million tons of sulfur dioxide annually.

The Nuclear Waste “Problem”
While nuclear power does produce some radioactive waste, in reality it’s minimal and is easily contained and monitored. A typical nuclear power plant produces about 20 metric tons of used uranium fuel each year. While this may sound like a lot, all the used fuel produced by the industry in the U.S. over the past 40 years of operation—about 40,000 metric tons—would only cover an area the size of a football field to a depth of about 5 yards. Used nuclear fuel is a solid — it can’t leak or spill, and it’s been stored safely on-site at our existing plants without incidence for the past 50 years. In the history of the industry there’s never been a release of radioactivity to the public from stored spent fuel.

And I will predict that this year you’ll see a nuclear waste bill go to the President. Just six months ago, folks in Washington were telling us there was no way we’d get a nuclear waste bill this year.

Nuclear: The New Growth Strategy
Nuclear is becoming a key growth strategy for many of the nation’s power companies. In 1998, 7 of the top 10 investor-owned utilities, ranked by profit, were nuclear utilities. In the past 2 years, 9 nuclear plants have been sold. It’s a changing environment.

This new market for nuclear plants provides a perfect example of the value of the nuclear industry. In 1999, Entergy made the first purchase of a nuclear power plant in the competitive arena, paying $80 million for the 670 MWe Pilgrim Nuclear Station, or approximately $120 per kilowatt of capacity.

Since that time, a true sellers’ market has emerged, and the prices have gone up. Last year in March, we paid $967 million, or $536 per kilowatt hour, for the Fitzpatrick and Indian Point 3 plants in New York. The price was almost five times greater than Pilgrim’s. In August last year, Millstone Station was sold to Dominion Resources for $1.3 billion — a new record-high at $600 per kilowatt hour. We used to build these things for less than that, and I’m convinced we can today if we put our minds to it.

Opportunities and Changes in the Nuclear Industry
But what do all of these numbers mean to you as you think about where you want to be 5 or 10 years down the road? You may be thinking, “There’s no room to grow in the nuclear industry. No one’s building new plants, and existing plants are getting older every day. And I don’t think they’re going to be around for me.” These are misconceptions — some exciting new developments are emerging based on the needs and economics I’ve already discussed.

The average age of nuclear plants in this country is 18 years. These plants were originally licensed to operate for 40 years. Twenty-year license renewals have already been granted to 2 plants, and 3 more have applied. Originally, it was estimated it would take 3 to 5 years for these renewals. We submitted applications for our Arkansas Nuclear One plant in February last year and the NRC is finished with that today. So I think the time table of getting license renewals down to one year is realistic. And I think you’ll see more than 80 percent of plants extending their lives — it’s expected that 30 percent of existing plants will apply for license renewal by 2003.

And new plants are being built throughout the world. Twenty-six new commercial power reactors are currently being built in 11 countries, and many experts predict that a new plant will be built in the United States within the next 5 to 10 years. And I think we will see it. Hopefully we can be part of it. In fact, in September last year the Nuclear Energy Institute established a task force to explore the feasibility of building new plants in the U.S.

New plants provide opportunities for new and innovative engineering design, as the next generation of nuclear plants will incorporate new inherent or “natural” safety features and will require fewer operations and maintenance activities. And I think they will be much more accepted by the general public.

On February 1, New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici introduced legislation to Congress that would provide almost $240 million in funds over the next five years to university nuclear science and engineering programs. And just this month, Domenici introduced the Nuclear Energy Assurance Act of 2001, a bipartisan bill encouraging greater use of nuclear power. It would allocate $406 million for research and development, capital improvements for increasing capacity, restructuring of regulatory and government agencies, and studies on the feasibility of new construction. This is really important legislation — the first time we’ve seen legislation like this introduced for years and years.

Plans are now under way in South Africa to build a new plant using a pebble-bed modular reactor. It has the potential of being one of the safest designs we’ve implemented to date. And the industry is also currently studying the possibility of building the next generation of plants in the United States. They’re going to be more economical, easier to build, and faster to build, with superior safety features.

Existing plants are also strategically seeking to improve their generating capacity.

If you look at what’s happened in the industry in the past few years with power uprates and increases in capacity factor, we see that we’ve created the equivalent of twenty-three 1,000-megawatt power plants to our generating force. So we’ve added 23,000 megawatts in the past 10 years. Now, if you look at the amount of capacity that’s been added in the United States, 70 percent of it was from uprates or running our nuclear fleets better. Only 30 percent of it was from building new plants. The average capacity factor of plants in the U.S. has risen from 65 percent in the mid- ‘80s to 87 percent today. But this trend won’t continue without young people like yourselves who are willing to be innovative and to solve the problems inherent in implementing new programs.

The Nuclear Engineering Workforce
Nuclear engineers currently make up a small portion — 1 percent — of the total engineering work force. A recent survey of 10 nuclear utilities by Bisconti Research of Washington, D.C. revealed that there is an increasing emphasis in the industry on employing new hires right out of college. But that’s not just nuclear engineers — that’s all engineers. According to the Department of Labor, nuclear engineers and technicians held over 12,000 jobs in 1999. Most were in utilities, the Federal Government, or in engineering consulting firms. But that list doesn’t do justice to the variety of opportunities that are available to you in the nuclear industry. From power generation, to agriculture, to medicine, to space exploration — the opportunities for nuclear engineers are broad and the need is great.

And nuclear engineers have a very high earning potential compared to engineers in other fields. Statistics from the United States Bureau of Labor indicate that in 1999 the median annual salary for nuclear engineers was $74,600. The top 25 percent earned a median annual salary of $87,090, and the highest 10 percent earned an average of more than $105,000 per year. As a whole, nuclear engineers tend to earn more than engineers in any other field across all degree levels.

Opportunities in the Nuclear Field
Engineers working in the nuclear power industry are designing, constructing, and operating fission reactors or working in research and development of fusion reactors. They’re investigating methods to improve plant efficiency and extend the lifetime of critical components in the plant. In certain countries, they’re working with nuclear fuel cycle technology, searching for the most efficient ways to recover fissionable material from spent nuclear fuel.

Nuclear is also key to our national security. It’s widely used by our Navy to power its submarine program and its aircraft carrier fleets. The success of this program is dependent upon a continued supply of skilled engineers who can work in analysis and design, fuel management, and support technology for construction, operation, and maintenance. National and international security are also dependent upon our ability to secure nuclear weapons materials. We cannot determine the best way to dispose of uranium and plutonium used in weapons programs without qualified technical personnel.

And nuclear plays a great role in the medical technology and health care arenas. Radionuclides are used in the research and development of new drugs; in medical diagnosis and therapy; and in “tracer” tests where biological substances in the body are tagged with a radioactive substance so we can trace their movement throughout the body.

The use of radiation to improve food safety has become a growing field as we look for more and better methods to ensure that our food is free of bacteria and to extend its shelf-life. And we’ve used nuclear technology for years to be able to find flaws and to determine the thickness of materials.

This just touches on some of the fields in which nuclear science is used. The continued development of the nuclear industry and its workforce are clearly vital for the health and economic wellbeing of society. The field of nuclear engineering offers unique choices and challenging opportunities that you won’t find in any other field.

The Safest Industry Around
And despite what some believe, nuclear engineers work in one of the safest industries in the world, with over 9,800 reactor years of experience worldwide and an industry accident rate less than 1/10 of all U.S. industries. Protecting the health and safety of workers, the community, and the environment is the number one priority in the nuclear industry.

If you look at fatality rates in other industries in the United States, the nuclear industry is probably the safest in which you can work. Our safety accident rate has dropped from 2.1 lost-time accidents per 200,000 worker-hours in 1980 to 0.34 in 1999. In contrast, the 1998 rate for all of U.S. private industry was 2.9.

And containments for reactors are made safe by design - multiple barriers are built in to ensure that harmful radiation is not released. Radiation produced in nuclear plants is scientifically understood and can be easily detected and precisely measured and controlled. And the industry is getting better all the time. Nuclear power companies, for example, constantly share information across the industry to ensure that best practices are used. Over the past decade, we’ve cut the average yearly radiation dose to a worker by 33 percent. The average person gets more radiation from the environment than they would by working in a nuclear power plant. In fact, you were exposed to more radiation if you flew here than you would be if you lived within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant.

A Bright Employment Outlook
The employment outlook for nuclear engineers is highly favorable. A recent study by the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization found that there was a shortage of over 360 nuclear engineers in ‘98 and ‘99. And it’s estimated that this shortage will only increase over the next few years. The study estimated that there could be a shortage of 460 engineers by 2003 — a little less than 2 years from now. In an August interview, Bill Magwood, Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science & Technology with the Department of Energy, stated that there were currently more job offers for graduating nuclear engineers than students enrolled in the discipline.

Adding to the opportunities in the field are the large numbers of nuclear engineers who are nearing or are currently eligible for retirement. By 2005, about 33 percent of Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will be eligible for retirement. Forty-nine percent of their research staff is now eligible. And in their Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation alone, approximately 42 percent of technical staff and 77 percent of senior executive staff are eligible to retire today. In the next 10 years, 40 percent of staff in DOE laboratories are expected to retire. In testimony before the Congressional Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Magwood estimated that almost half of the power industry’s nuclear engineers will be eligible for retirement over the next decade.

Preparing for a Career in the Nuclear Industry
If you’re interested in a career in the nuclear industry or related fields, financial resources and unique training opportunities are available, and it’s up to you to take advantage of them. In fact, there may be more scholarships and grants in nuclear engineering than in most other fields. Since 1980 the U.S. nuclear utility industry has provided over $18 million in scholarship and fellowship funding to more than 3,200 engineering students through the National Academy for Nuclear Training Educational Assistance Program. The American Nuclear Society awards scholarships to sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are working towards a degree in the field, and the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology provides tuition, stipends, and practicums to selected nuclear engineering and health physics students. The Department of Energy also provides assistance to universities with reactor fuel needs and reactor upgrades; they provide research grants and matching funds; and they enable universities to share their research reactors with institutions that do not have such facilities.

In any field, of course, one of the best ways to prepare yourself is to participate in work experiences prior to graduation. Get a summer internship, if you can. Go out and find out what the industry’s all about. No matter what you’re going to do, that’s important — and it’s valuable experience.

The Nuclear Industry: Here to Stay
I hope I’ve sparked just a little excitement in at least some of you regarding the future of this industry. There’s going to be a tremendous demand for new personnel. I do think we’re at a new road - I’ve just seen so much happen in the last 2 or 3 years.

This industry is not going away. Recently, NBC ran a feature on nuclear power. At the end, they interviewed someone from an anti-nuclear organization and asked him what his thoughts were. He answered, “We thought we had the industry killed. We’re a long way from killing this industry. It is alive and well.” You’re getting into an industry that’s being recreated from what those of us who saw these plants in their infancies know.

In closing I would like to leave you with a comment on the industry taken from the report Nuclear Engineering in Transition: A Vision for the 21st Century. “….the nuclear engineering profession is essential to the well being of the country since it brings great benefits to society in terms of energy security, national defense, medical health, and industrial competitiveness….the nuclear engineering profession is in a period of transition from one focusing primarily on nuclear power to one encompassing a much broader range of applications of nuclear science and radiation technologies. The country has a persistent demand for nuclear engineers that will almost certainly increase in the future…..”

And I couldn’t agree more. Indeed, five years ago I never thought I’d be standing here today talking about how nuclear power will be expanding. I was really pessimistic five years ago. But it really is growing. I think this is the first time in my lifetime I have heard a Vice President openly say that we must have nuclear generation in our energy mix going forward. It’s the first time I’ve heard a Secretary of Energy say we must have nuclear energy in our mix going forward. That has a huge impact on this industry and its growth.

Our world and our field are growing and changing. And now more than ever, we need bright new minds to help society meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. I hope you’ll take advantage of the tremendous opportunities. I hope each of you, no matter what field you choose, will have fun with your careers. I hope you do what you want to do, and what you believe will add value to society. And most importantly, that you have a good time doing it.

This industry will be there for you, if you’re there for it.

Thank you.