On May 1, 2026, the MMA Board of Trustees made a historic decision. They voted unanimously to approve a new academic program – Nuclear Engineering Technology (NET). In doing so, the Board established the Academy as the first maritime university in the United States with a major in this critical discipline. Complementing the minor that was introduced two years ago, this action also reaffirmed MMA’s longstanding leadership in the workforce development for the nuclear industry. In 1959, the Academy answered the nation’s call to provide licensed crew on the world’s first nuclear powered merchant ship, the N.S. Savannah. Today, our graduates will be prepared to advance the technology of the Generation IV small modular reactors (SMRs) for shoreside nuclear power plants, as well as their near-term application in commercial shipping.

Why Nuclear?Rising demand for electricity, particularly in the Global South, along with the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the primary economic drivers for nuclear energy. So is the increasing geopolitical vulnerability associated with price fluctuations and supply of fossil fuels, as evidenced by the recent blockage in the Strait of Hormuz.

Environmental considerations also feature prominently. In December 2023, at the Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28), the United Nations pledged to work toward tripling global nuclear power capacity to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In the high case scenario of the new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) outlook, nuclear electrical generating capacity is projected to increase to 950 gigawatts by 2050. Here, global capacity in 2050 would be slightly more than 2.5 times what it was in 2023. In the low case projection, capacity rises 40 per cent to 514 gigawatts.