Community colleges: meeting the demand for nuclear workers.

On its surface, the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics" most recent outlook report for nuclear power jobs seems out of step with signs of an accelerating nuclear renaissance. Despite dozens of applications for new reactors since 2007, the bureau sums up America's nuclear employment future as having "little or no change." But appearances can be misleading. There's an enormous demand for skilled workers in the nuclear-power industry, and its looming workforce requirements are creating educational and economic development opportunities in the Carolinas.

Two factors drive today's nuclear labor market. First, the industry didn't create many jobs after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and second, cost cutting in the 1990s hit younger workers disproportionately. Consequently, as the nuclear-power industry plans for its biggest expansion in decades, many of its most valuable workers are planning for retirement. "Even if we don't build another plant, we've got 104 (nuclear plants) operating in the United States ... and it's critical that people enter these fields, because we're going to need them to keep those plants operating," says Jay Potter, dean for the applied technologies division and construction technologies division at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte.

In other words, if the federal job growth projections prove too conservative--and they could, as there are applications for 28 new nuclear reactors pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--the first crisis of the nuclear renaissance could be a labor shortage.

Faced with that reality, community colleges in the nuke-heavy regions around Charlotte, Columbia and South Carolina's Upstate have been updating their course offerings and thinking creatively about partnerships. In Fairfield County, home to S.C. Electric & Gas Co.'s V.C. Summer nuclear power station, plans for two new reactors also brought about plans for an expansion at Columbia-based Midlands Technical College. Midlands Tech's Quick Jobs Center in Winnsboro is scheduled for a ceremonial opening in October and will begin offering classes in January. "This is the first footprint of a Midlands Tech campus in Fairfield County," says Terry Vickers, president of the Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce. "That's something that had been worked on for a number of years and has come about because of the nuclear construction and the jobs available during and after construction."

SCANA pitched in $100,000 toward the...