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Page added on November 17, 2014
New nuclear power threatened by shortage of atomic engineers
Engineering and design consultancy Atkins is having to retrain engineers from other specialisms in nuclear technology to meet growing demand for atomic power in the UK and internationally.
The company is running an internal academy to deal with the shortage of suitably skilled engineers as the UK begins to gear up to build a new fleet of nuclear power stations and other countries hope to develop their own generation capabilities.
Uwe Krueger, chief executive of the FTSE 250 business, said: “You cannot believe how scarce these guys are. We are willing to support growth opportunities with resources and to encourage people into the field we have started an internal academy.”
Training can range from just learning the terminology of the industry so engineers understand its requirements, meaning they can design buildings on nuclear sites, to much more in depth learning for complex design challenges.
Martin Grant, head of energy at Atkins, said the UK nuclear industry was facing an issue as it has been so long since a reactor was built here.
“It’s a problem that is particularly acute in the UK,” he said. “The nuclear industry has a demographic problem because a lot of people with the experience are now retiring just as we are embarking on an expansive new-build programme in the UK for up to 10 new plants. That is driving up the requirement.”
The development comes after research by the Royal Academy of Engineering discovered that the UK requires 830,000 graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths by 2020. Currently UK universities produce about 23,000 engineering graduates a year.
Atkins has recognised the potential of the nuclear sector, saying the industry is gathering momentum worldwide as countries look to guarantee the security of the energy supply and build powerplants that do not emit harmful carbon dioxide.
The company has got an early foothold in the next stage of nuclear power, having been appointed as architect engineer partner to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France. This €15bn project aims to prove the viability of nuclear fusion, where atoms combine to release energy.
Current nuclear power stations use fission, which splits atoms. Fusion is seen as being more efficient – producing temperatures hotter than the sun at 150m degrees – and produce far less harmful by products than fusion. There is also no danger of a meltdown in fusion as the process stops when it is disturbed.
“As a physicist, fusion is the holy grail of energy,” said Mr Krueger. “We are looking at a 50 to 60 year time scale before fusion is widespread so this is long -term growth but its exciting as we are writing the rulebook on the design of power stations that will be the future.”
Current fusion reactors require more energy to create fusion than the reaction provides, but ITER is intended to show the technology is viable.
11 Comments on "New nuclear power threatened by shortage of atomic engineers"
Makati1 on Mon, 17th Nov 2014 7:34 pm
Sounds like Atkins needs some intelligence at the top also. Fusion is a joke Mother Nature is playing on foolish humans. But, if so many bright young people hadn’t been sucked into degrees in economics and financial games on Wall Street and the TBTF banks, there might be plenty of engineers now.
Maybe they should recruit in …GASP!… Russia or China? Seems they have engineers to spare, along with a functioning space industry, the world’s fastest computer, their own GPS system that is as accurate as that of the West, etc.
Nony on Mon, 17th Nov 2014 9:10 pm
The Russian nuke subs all crap out and fall to the bottom of the ocean. Ours don’t. Well, except for a couple back in the 60s. 😉
Speculawyer on Mon, 17th Nov 2014 10:43 pm
Build it and they will come. If they start building nuclear plants, people will study nuclear engineering. But you can’t blame people not getting a degree in a field that seems near dead.
SugarSeam on Mon, 17th Nov 2014 11:08 pm
also, where would the uranium come from for a world that currently can’t meet but 70% of demand already?
oh, wait… Thorium!!!
Kenz300 on Mon, 17th Nov 2014 11:54 pm
TEPCO has a 40 year plan to clean up Fukishima and then store the nuclear waste FOREVER…….
Chernobyl will never be cleaned up………….
The world needs to learn from these two disasters that could have been even worse…….
Nuclear energy is too costly and too dangerous…..
We need nuclear engineers to dismantle all the existing nuclear power plants and not to build any more.
Nuclear energy was sold by snake oil salesmen as “too cheap to meter”……. in reality it is too costly to exist……. how much will it cost to store all the nuclear waste around the world FOREVER?
When and where will the next big nuclear ACCIDENT be? What will be contaminated next time?
Fukishima could have been even worse……. and almost was.
Kenz300 on Mon, 17th Nov 2014 11:57 pm
There are safer, cleaner and cheaper ways to generate electricity.
Makati1 on Tue, 18th Nov 2014 12:56 am
Nony, it only take one direct hit from a nuke to take put your home town and everything near it. As of last count, they have some 300+ on their “sinking” subs, each with multiple warheads.
Don’t fall for the propaganda cool aid put out by the West to demonize one of the two countries that can tell the USSA to fuck off. China knows that it is next, therefore, it is visibly taking down the US economy and the power of the USD. Debt is America’s Achilles’s heel and the world knows it.
Davy on Tue, 18th Nov 2014 6:21 am
Mak, have you seen the internal debt China has in its system? How is that different? I would really like to know the difference. You ignore this and I would like to know why. Is it because you are promoting Asia?
Since Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the level of private domestic credit in China has risen from $9 trillion to an astounding $23 trillion. That is an increase of $14 trillion in just a little bit more than 5 years. Much of that “hot money” has flowed into stocks, bonds and real estate in the United States. So what do you think is going to happen when that bubble collapses? The bubble of private debt that we have seen inflate in China since the Lehman crisis is unlike anything that the world has ever seen. Never before has so much private debt been accumulated in such a short period of time. All of this debt has helped fuel tremendous economic growth in China, but now a whole bunch of Chinese companies are realizing that they have gotten in way, way over their heads. In fact, it is being projected that Chinese companies will pay out the equivalent of approximately a trillion dollars in interest payments this year alone. That is more than twice the amount that the U.S. government will pay in interest in 2014. Over the past several years, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-23-trillion-credit-bubble-in-china-is-starting-to-collapse-global-financial-crisis-next
Dredd on Tue, 18th Nov 2014 8:49 am
Oh boo hoo.
We need more people to help us commit omnicide.
Branko on Tue, 18th Nov 2014 3:37 pm
The only truly clean and useful source of energy IS nuclear. Solar, wind and other “clean” sources are is good for charging iPhones. For heating, transportation and heavy industrial use we need something reliable, save and carbon free. Nuclear fission fits all three requirements. Also, we know how to use it, safely and reliably.
BTW few nuclear accidents that happened in the past 60 years of civilian use of nuclear reactors have taken about 100 lives. This is unfortunate but it is a glowing example of nuclear reactor safety. As a contrast coal-powered plants take many tens of thousands of lives every year just through immediate airborne pollution.
Before replying kindly review and understand UN reports on Chernobyl and Fukashima
http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/13-85418_Report_2013_Annex_A.pdf
Our common enemy is energy produced by burning fossil fuels. We can harness some renewable potential now and in the future but such sources do require stable and reliable base load. Nuclear reactors are available at least 90% of the time and once built are extremely cheap to operate. New reactor designs (CANDU) can even burn what is today called nuclear waste – alleviating one of the main criticisms of peaceful nuclear use.
Kenz300 on Wed, 19th Nov 2014 8:49 am
Nuclear energy —- too costly and too dangerous
The transition to safer, cleaner, cheaper and more environmentally friendly sources of energy production continues……….
——————-
Asia Pushes Hard for Clean Energy
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/business/energy-environment/asia-pushes-hard-for-clean-energy.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia%20Pacific®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article