Training Tomorrow's Nuclear Engineers

Janury 25, 2009

McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Patricia Daddona The Day, New
London, Conn.

Almost five years ago, Ryan Robillard earned an associate's degree in
nuclear engineering on a full scholarship and then went to work.

Funded by the Millstone Station Scholarship program, the two-year
degree from Three Rivers Community College in Norwich prepared the
26-year-old Brooklyn resident for a job as a plant equipment operator at the
Millstone Power Station in Waterford.

Building on that training one day last week, Robillard stepped into
the Millstone Unit 3 control room simulator, an exact replica of the real
thing, and tackled what he describes as a "grueling" exercise in preparation
for his reactor operator's license.

In a single hour, Dominion instructors put Robillard and two
supervisor candidates through their paces, overseeing the simulated failure
of an instrument that measures water pressure in the reactor's cooling
system, and ending not only with a simulated manual shutdown of the plant
but a fake -- but lifelike -- loss of power.

"Hectic" is how Robillard assessed the experience and his own tendency
to race as he corrected plant malfunctions with the help of his
supervisors-in-training.

"I should've slowed down more," he observed, "and not let the event
dictate how fast I go. And you really don't have to (rush) because we have
procedures to dictate what to do."

The scholarship program that led Robillard to the work he does and the
new job he is training for today provides funding to educate students to be
nuclear, mechanical and electrical technicians through Three Rivers.

Many of those technicians start their careers at the nuclear power
complex at Millstone Point in Waterford, and later further their studies to
become engineers and, like Robillard, take on more critical roles at the
plant.

"The nuclear industry needs well-educated technicians and there really
is no pipeline," says Professor Jim Sherrard, the scholarship program
coordinator at Three Rivers.

"It's our pipeline," Ken Holt, a spokesman for Dominion, said of the
26-year-old scholarship program.

Dominion of Virginia, the parent company, owns Dominion Nuclear
Connecticut. DNC in turn owns Millstone and invests in students, many of
whom end up working here.

The associate's degree scholarship program for nuclear engineering
technology is the only one offered at community colleges in New England,
Sherrard said.

Thomas Kauffman, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.,-based Nuclear
Energy Institute, confirmed that elite status. There are only 22 community
colleges that participate in this kind of program nationwide, he added. Such
programs help to meet the needs of the existing national fleet of 104
reactors and an aging workforce, he said.

"This really works out great because we can get these programs started
and as we build new plants, we can expand them further," Kauffman said.

"The fact is, the nuclear renaissance has already begun and the demand
for engineers is growing by the day."

About 130 people have not only made it through the program but also
ended up working at Millstone since the program's inception in 1983, when
Northeast Utilities first funded it, said Sherrard.

Since DNC bought the property in 2001, about 40 scholarship recipients
have come to work at Millstone, said Sherrard and Trad Horner, a scholarship
recipient 22 years ago and current Millstone nuclear training supervisor.

Those recipients, who can earn upwards of $18,000 in tuition,
supplies, fees, stipends and internship, are under no obligation to work at
Millstone, but the community college setting fosters that local connection
more often than not, said Sherrard.

"We have the only nuclear program in the state, so we provide a
well-educated, well-trained technician work force primarily for commercial
nuclear power, but they can work in other areas because of the depth and
complexity of the program," Sherrard said.

The 79-credit associate's degree program is rigorous, he added. The
college this spring should graduate 12 scholarship and two non-scholarship
students, he said.

Years after his initial schooling at Three Rivers, Robillard struggled
to pinpoint what he did right during his simulator training. But senior
instructor Chriss Miller had noticed how Robillard quickly detected that
some valves hadn't repositioned properly, and manually aligned them.

"Ryan's already on top of this," he said.