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Tiny nuclear reactor looms large at UMass
Technology's revival an opportunity for Lowell campus
By
John Dyer
Globe Correspondent
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September 7, 2008
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Everyone knows nuclear reactors generate energy. At the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, scientists are trying to see if they can generate jobs, too.
The university's Board of Trustees is embarking on a study of how Massachusetts can benefit from nuclear technology, both as a source of energy and as a chance to attract and train engineers who might work in a new wave of reactors proposed recently for construction around the country.
Given that Lowell contains UMass's only reactor, which sits off the VFW Highway in a white, domed building that looks like a water tank, university officials are hoping the campus and region would gain from an examination of how splitting the atom could spur economic development.
"The technology, just like computers, has changed substantially in the last 20 years," said Richard Lawton, a university trustee who helped create the Nuclear Science and Technology Task Force. "They make fuel rods that are safer than ever before. Very sophisticated, very safe, very technically oriented stuff the university should have its hand in."
Lowell administrators welcomed the task force. The federal government has created incentives to research nuclear technology as the price of oil has skyrocketed, they said. At the same time, the nuclear industry is booming in countries like China. Science in Massachusetts should profit from the changes, they said.
"Everyone is recognizing there is a finite number of years fossil fuels will be available," said UMass-Lowell Provost Ahmed Abdelal. "It's a limited resource. There are changes in society about how nuclear energy will be viewed. We're responding."
Lowell and Massachusetts are uniquely situated to gain from nuclear science in the future, said John Ting, the dean of engineering. Lowell is one of 18 accredited programs in nuclear engineering in the country. It has one of the state's three research reactors, which are relatively small facilities designed not to create power but to emit radiation for experimental purposes.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute also have research reactors. Twenty-three other universities in the country also have them.
Already, research on nuclear technology in Lowell is on the upswing. In the 1990s, when the technology was out of fashion, the school demoted nuclear engineering to a minor in the chemical engineering program, and usually one student took the minor every few years, Ting said. But last spring, five students opted for the minor.
Industry is also ramping up its investment in the field. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing nine applications from companies seeking to build nuclear power plants in the United States, said Scott Burnell, the commission's spokesman.
Before last year, when the first of those applications were filed, the commission had received no applications since 1978.
Recently, said Burnell, Congress appropriated $12 million in grants for the commission to give to universities conducting nuclear research.
"Maintaining and perhaps even expanding the education pipeline is absolutely one of the priorities for the agency and the industry as a whole," he said.
When you enter Lowell's reactor facility in the Pinanski Energy Center off University Avenue it is anticlimactic.
A locked set of glass doors and an enormous vault-like portal bar unwelcome visitors. Sanctioned visitors need to wear a "dosimeter," a kind of pocket Geiger counter at all times while in the three-story building. Otherwise, the facility is a relatively mundane industrial space whose interior resembles a waste-water treatment plant.
The blue pool filled with 75,000 gallons of water to cool the compact-refrigerator-sized reactor seemed ominous, until reactor supervisor Leo Bobek said it was clean enough for swimming.
Lowell's 1970s-era reactor generates about 1,000 kilowatts of power. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts, so the reactor could power 10,000 100-watt light bulbs. That might seem like a lot, but it's a fraction of the amount powered by commercial nuclear plants.
The reactor contains a small amount of uranium that wouldn't be enough to cause a meltdown of the scale associated with commercial plants, either, Bobek said. "The system operates at a temperature that's no hotter than the water in the boiler in your home."
Local businesses are already using the reactor. Twenty-three firms from Boston's northwestern suburbs and further afield used the reactor last year to expose their products to radiation for various research-related reasons. The companies generate around $400,000 for the facility a year, said Bobek.
It costs $20,000 to launch one pound of material into orbit, said DiBugnara. At that rate, his firm wanted to make sure they didn't weigh down their electronics too much, while still making sure they were protected.
"The sun is spewing out [radioactive] particles at an incredible rate," he said. "There's a balance between how much to pay for shielding and how much to pay for parts that don't need shielding."
DiBugnara said the next closest facility that would serve the firm's needs is in Spain. "We'd be forced to exit the state if Lowell wasn't available," he said.
Critics of nuclear energy say they hope the trustees' task force examines how Massachusetts would deal with the radioactive waste that results from nuclear reactions.
"The idea that an industry that has not solved the waste problem from its first generation of nukes has the hubris to then build a second generation of nukes, without solving the problem from the first, is unconscionable," said Deborah Katz, executive director of the Citizens Awareness Network, an antinuclear group based in Rowe.
The university should focus on studying renewable energy that doesn't produce hazardous byproducts, she said. "The main thing is to be sustainable at this point," said Katz. "We're going to run out of uranium just like oil. What kind of legacy do we want to leave? Do we want to leave a legacy that will be toxic?"
Others said the advocates and critics of nuclear energy might be getting ahead of themselves.
Lisbeth Gronlund, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, said it was unclear whether the expected nuclear renaissance will ever take place.
Nuclear power plants cost around $12 billion to build, she said. Proposed plants need to pass through many hurdles before receiving approval. With the price of steel and other materials increasing, a new wave of reactors is not a sure thing.
"It's way too soon to tell," said Gronlund. "It is a giant unknown. The energy future in the United States is a big black hole."
The prospect of studying an unknown future was fine with Abdelal. Open-ended inquiry, after all, is a university's mission.
"As a university, we study everything," he said. "I always assume that through research you're going to be able to discover modifications that are desirable."
John Dyer can be reached at johnjdyerjr@gmail.com. 
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
