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Developing The Nuclear Infrastructure

By Eric McErlain
Last week at the ANS Winter Meeting, my friend Rod Adams attended a presentation by Tom Houghton, one of my colleagues at NEI about an issue that many outside the industry aren't aware of when it comes to new nuclear build:
This ramp up from current production rates will place a strain on many pieces of the infrastructure that must provide the raw materials and qualified parts needed to build new nuclear plants. In many cases, there will be competition for the production capacity from these suppliers, not only from the nuclear construction industry but also from industries like oil refining, LNG processing, and transportation that use common parts, materials and work forces.
Our CEO, Skip Bowman, talked about just this subject last month in Budapest at the World Association of Nuclear Operators Biennial Meeting:
There are ambitious plans to expand nuclear energy production around the world. And that means we’re going to lean heavily on the companies that provide and bend the metal, pour the concrete and supply nuclear-quality components.

NEI is taking a close look at the global nuclear infrastructure, evaluating the administrative, personnel, financial and manufacturing resources to enable new-plant construction.

We must engage companies that may be considering the nuclear business and help them make the business case for doing so.

The renaissance of nuclear energy around the world represents tremendous earnings potential for suppliers of equipment, services and fuel. We must identify the weak links in our supply chain and turn them into business opportunities.

We are also devoting significant attention to workforce issues, ensuring that we will have the personnel necessary to design, build and operate new nuclear plants.

Our workforce is aging. We must move aggressively to resupply the pipeline of people. We also must address our other critical infrastructure needs—manufacturing of nuclear-grade forgings and reactor vessels and other components—with a similar sense of urgency.
It's important to remember that building a new generation of nuclear power plants is going to require ramping up activities in a number of areas outside of the regulatory space.

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