Dr. Robert Buxbaum, a researcher in Michigan, and his company, REB Research & Consulting, recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to research new, high temperature alloys that would be used in new nuclear power generation facilities, and the results of his research will need to be watched by the welding industry.

Plans are being made to build nearly 150 new coal-fired electrical power generating plants across the United States to replace or to supplement the 600 coal-fired power plants that are reaching – or are beyond – maturity.

Despite previous opposition from environmental groups, environmentalists now view nuclear power as an acceptable alternative for some of those new coal-fired plants because of worries over global warming.

Nuclear power – as a low-carbon and energy efficient technology – is gaining approval as an option for new power generating facilities.

Building coal-fired power plants would place new demands for skilled welders, and having that many – 150 – on the drawing boards should intensify warnings about the dire need for skilled welders. Every part of such new power generating plants will generate the need for welding, and the welders who will be called on to perform that work will have to have solid skills, with pressure vessel certification.

Even greater welding skills will be needed to address the welding jobs that would be needed to build nuclear power plants, and that's where Buxbaum's research will be important.

His research is focusing on a relatively new alloy of titanium, aluminum and niobium, Ti2AlNb. That alloy is a relative of aircraft titanium, and appears to have greater strength and higher temperature oxidation resistance than other alloys. And, that's not the only exotic alloy that would be used in building new nuclear power plants.

The idea behind them is that they would allow nuclear reactors to run at higher temperatures, so they would burn more of their radioactive wastes to disposable ash and, later, allow nuclear reactors to be decommissioned more easily at the end of their lives.

The question is: If those exotic alloys are used in the design and plans for new power plants, how will they be welded?

Equipment will have to be designed or adapted for the higher temperature welds that the alloys would require and the particular qualities of the alloys. New filler metals and shielding gases would have to be developed to correspond to the metallurgy of the alloys and to ensure that the metallic bond is complete.

And, welders – presumably the top welders who already have pressure vessel certifications – would have to be trained to deal with the new alloys.

Buxbaum isn't the only researcher working on materials for a new generation of power plants. Bringing a new generation of nuclear reactors into the world will push metal technologies to new levels in many ways, and that is going to put new demands on the welding industry.

Those new demands will provide great opportunities for welding shops and welders, and the industry should be looking at ways now to prepare for the changes and requirements that the new technologies for power generating will bring.