Nuclear Science and Energy

Center of Economic Excellence

Inception:
2008

About the Center:

The Center will focus on the design, development, and analysis of advanced materials that will be required to extend the life of existing nuclear power reactors and to develop a new generation of more efficient reactors.

No nuclear reactors have come on line in the United States in more than a decade, but as a new group of plants is being planned nationwide, the University of South Carolina (USC) is poised to be a major academic leader , especially as many nuclear engineering academic programs throughout the country have been terminated. According to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Energy, the number of independent nuclear engineering programs has fallen by about 50 percent since the mid-1980s.

South Carolina is already a national leader in nuclear power, generating more than 55 percent of its electricity via nuclear reactors. Within a 120-mile radius of Columbia, 11 large commercial nuclear power plants provide more than 10 percent of the nation's nuclear-generated energy. At the same time, USC has a strong presence in the clean energy/alternative fuels arena. This Center will help make South Carolina a force in finding solutions to the United State's reliance on energy production that results in pollution and other negative environmental effects.

In conjunction with the USC Nuclear Engineering program, this Center has
access to industrial partners including Duke Energy, Progress Energy, SCANA,
Westinghouse, and the URS Nuclear Center.

In 2010, the Center partnered with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Claflin University, the University of California-Berkeley, and AREVA, a global nuclear company. The
Center received two grants totaling $2.7 million from the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program, which supports research and development activities at universities through competitive awards focused on advancing nuclear energy technologies.

Funding level:
$3 million

SmartState Endowed Chair:

Dr. Travis Knight, co-principal investigator of both USC Nuclear Centers of Economic Excellence, works on a fluidized bed chemical vapor deposition coater to produce coated particle fuels for high temperature gas-cooled reactor applications.