Looming Crisis
Just to point out that there are no easy solutions to a lot of complex problems, the media has just noticed what nuclear utilities noticed several years ago: there is a shortage of nuclear workers which only threatens to get worse if new plants actually get built. The problem? Not enough people studying nuclear engineering.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the top U.S. nuclear regulator addressed industry leaders in March, he spoke about a problem often neglected in public debates about nuclear energy: the threat of a labor shortage.
"Where are we going to get the educated and skilled workers to safely run the current fleet (of reactors) over extended lifetimes and the potential nuclear plants of the future?" asked Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Where are they being educated? Where are they being trained?"
The U.S. government, energy experts and even some environmentalists see a revival of nuclear power as a clean energy alternative, but that resurgence may be held up by a lack of qualified workers.
As nuclear power went out of fashion in the wake of the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, college nuclear engineering programs were shuttered and fewer workers have entered the field.
Some 103 reactors currently generate about 20 percent of U.S. electricity, with the last one coming on line in 1996 in Tennessee.
That number could increase. A new focus on global warming, which most scientist say is caused by gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, has brought coal-, oil- and gas-fired generation under scrutiny. While nuclear reactors produce radioactive waste, they do not emit greenhouse gases, and energy experts say a new nuclear plant could break ground as early as 2010.
Financial incentives laced through a 2005 energy law have some excited about a "nuclear renaissance."
But the nuclear engineers and technicians who landed their jobs in the 1970s are retiring and there are few trained to take their places.
Carol Berrigan, who researches nuclear infrastructure for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobby group, described the coming labor shortage as a "looming trend."
A 2005 study by the Institute found that half of the industry's employees were over 47 years old, while less than 8 percent of employees were younger than 32. Most Americans retire after turning 65, and the survey found more than a quarter of nuclear workers were already eligible to stop working.
Even the government's regulator, the NRC, is scrambling to add 200 new employees this year just to monitor the sector, Klein said.
The utilities I worked at noticed this problem some time ago - not just in the nuclear field, incidentally. There are very few colleges offering power engineering these days. So most utilities (the article notes this) have put aggressive recruiting programs in place to try to get engineering students lined up to work in the field before they even graduate. The problem is particularly acute in the nuclear industry, which this article is discussing.
By Woodsprite, Friday, 27 April , 2007 @ 2:47 pm
I feel compelled to note that Oregon State University offers degrees in both power engineering and nuclear engineering. As an added bonus you get to say “Beaver” a lot.
To any high school seniors out there… It’s a great field with a far more stable employment than high tech. Sparkies and nukies get all the chicks too.