The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Syracuse University a $1 million grant earlier this month to fund the development of nuclear energy technologies and training and educating the next generation of U.S. nuclear industry leaders, according to an Aug. 9 news release from the Energy Department.

The grant, announced Aug. 9, is part of a $12.4 million grant given to universities to develop fuel cycle research and development, according to the release. Researchers in the program will develop and display methods to recycle used fuel to allow the safe, sustainable and secure expansion of nuclear energy. Research conducted in the program is aimed at developing options that use resources effectively, lessen the creation of waste and enable efficient waste management, according to the release.

Peter Lyons, assistant secretary for nuclear energy, was cited in the release as saying up to $39 million in total grants would support close to 51 projects at universities around the United States.

Lawrence Tavlarides, a professor of biomedical and chemical engineering at SU, wrote the proposal that received the grant. Tavlarides’ research aims to ‘develop dynamic, reactive, multi-component adsorption models’ to capture a number of toxins like iodine, krypton, xenon and tritium, which are produced in fuel-recycling facilities, according to Tavlarides’ proposal.

President Barack Obama’s administration hopes to use nuclear fuel to reduce dependency on carbon-based fossil fuels, according to the release.

‘As part of our commitment to restarting the American nuclear industry and creating thousands of new jobs and export opportunities in the process, we are investing in cutting-edge nuclear energy research projects that can develop the technologies required to advance our domestic nuclear industry and maintain global leadership in the field,’ said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in a statement.

Nuclear energy, once a promising sustainable fuel market, has been plagued by the dangers of working with extremely hazardous material. But by providing the United States’ leading universities with funding, the Energy Department hopes ‘to restart the nuclear industry as part of a broad approach to create new clean energy jobs and cut carbon pollution,’ the release stated.

Nuclear energy was first harnessed in the 1950s just as its devastation put an end to World War II in Japan. Now Japan and the United States, along with France, are three of the world leaders in nuclear energy output, according to the World Nuclear Association’s website. France is the only country to gather a majority of its energy — 75 percent — from nuclear fuel, according to the website.

By percentage, the United States is far behind these countries, with only 20 percent of its energy coming from 104 reactors across the country, according to the website.

Nuclear energy has been stagnant in the United States since the 1970s, caused by ‘the high cost of building reactors and long delays in construction,’ said Allan Mazur, a public affairs professor in the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, in an email.

Disasters like the core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania are contributing reasons why none of the 104 plants now operating began construction after 1974, according to an article published in The New York Times on Dec. 10, 2010.

And public opinion has not changed much since the 1990s, especially in the wake of the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima. Since Fukushima, polls have dropped to 43 percent in favor of the construction of more nuclear plants from 57 percent in 2008, according to a CBS poll released March 22. The same poll found that people specifically did not want nuclear plants near their community. Only 35 percent of those polled approved the idea of building a plant near their homes.

Nuclear fuel recycling has gone unused in the United States for sometime and could provide rejuvenation to the industry, Mazur said.

‘President Carter stopped recycling in the U.S. for fear that the plutonium that is produced in the process might be used to build bombs. It may be time to rethink that policy,’ Mazur said. ‘Recycling cuts down the amount of waste that must be stored and reduces, somewhat, its danger.’

jreisenf@syr.edu  

Published on August 29, 2011 at 12:00 pm