Universities Prepare for Nuclear Reaction

By SAM KEAN

For the first time in decades, new reactors are being planned, and a new generation of engineers must be trained

When a reactor core at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant melted down in 1979, no deaths or illnesses resulted. The people living nearby could not even have gotten a decent X-ray from the amount of radiation that leaked. There were some casualties, though: almost 40 universities' nuclear-engineering departments.

In the wake of Three Mile Island, students shied