NEI Nuclear Notes

The following is a guest post by Elizabeth McAndrew-Benavides, senior manager of strategic workforce planning.  Elizabeth McAndrew-Benavides Interns this summer will deliver more to the office than their energetic personalities, they will be bringing a new generation into the workforce. This year’s crop of interns includes the first wave of new post-Millennials who were born between the late 1990s through the 2010s. As we will see, these college students have grown up with a significant amount of their socialization being online and in a world where their schools are not always safe. It is now time for companies to understand what this new group of employees will bring to the table. This generation after the Millennials has yet to be named, but I like to think of them as Generation Swipe. From an early age, these young adults were able to “swipe a finger” and create Minecraft worlds. They swipe to watch videos and they swipe to chat with grandma. We know less about this n...

Clarence Fenner As part of the STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) ongoing workforce development efforts, 24 entry-level apprentices were recently brought onboard with STP. The apprentices will join Operations (10); Electrical Maintenance (5); I&C (4); and Mechanical Maintenance (4). The new employees were all part of the company’s “Grow Your Own” initiative, which is a focused effort on building pipelines through partnerships with local community colleges and four-year institutions. The employees were part of the Educational Incentive Program as well as Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship students. “We couldn't have accomplished attracting this many solid candidates without the NRC’s scholarship investment,” said Clarence Fenner, Workforce Development/Knowledge Transfer Coordinator. “Our company’s and the NRC’s efforts to build a pipeline of knowledgeable candidates who are ready to work in the nuclear industry are paying off for STP,” Fenner said. STP...

I can attest that the STEM crisis is real and is causing challenges for the nuclear energy industry. My experiences contradict the conclusions of the newly published IEEE article by Robert N. Charette that declared “ The Stem Crisis Is a Myth . ” According to Charette, industry and government are conspiring to help depress salaries for STEM workers. “Clearly powerful forces must be at work to perpetuate this cycle.” Unfortunately for industries like ours, the STEM crisis isn’t a crackpot conspiracy theory. In fact, it’s all too real. In the nuclear energy business, we have an aging workforce that is rapidly approaching retirement age. We’re facing a significant demographic challenge with 38 percent of our workforce eligible to retire by 2016. Here are some disturbing trends I’ve identified over the last five years that have helped lead me and other workforce professionals to conclude we are facing a real -- and not a manufactured -- crisis: ·     ...

The May issue of Nuclear Energy Insight is now available online. The cover story features the NEI-sponsored race car and driver Simona de Silvestro, winner of the Atlantic Championship season opener. Other featured articles discuss the construction of new nuclear power plants around the world, plans for small-scale reactors for use in remote locations, the nuclear industry’s strategic role in emergency response and federal grants given to community colleges for energy-related job training.

We have posted several new and updated fact sheets and policy briefs to NEI’s public Web site during the past few weeks. They cover such topics as new-plant financing, advanced fuel cycle technologies and plant security. Here is a list of the publications and their links. The documents are available in HTML and PDF formats. We hope you find these products helpful and informative. Policy Briefs New policy brief: Financing New Nuclear Power Plants . Updated policy briefs: Uranium Fuel Supply Adequate to Meet Present and Future Nuclear Energy Demand , Advanced Fuel-Cycle Technologies Hold Promise for Used Fuel Management Program , Nuclear Power 2010: A Key Building Block for New Nuclear Power Plants. Fact Sheets New fact sheet: Nuclear Industry’s Comprehensive Approach Develops Skilled Work Force for the Future . Updated fact sheets: Nuclear Power Plant Security , Water Consumption at Nuclear Power Plants , Nuclear Power Plant Fire Protection , Licensing New Nuclear Power Plan...

The October issue of Nuclear Energy Insight is now available online. In it, you'll find an article about the first full license application for a new nuclear plant filed in nearly 30 years. There also are reports on how reactors helped defang the dog days of summer and nuclear plant neighbors' welcoming reception of new-plant plans. Another article remembers NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan, while other articles discuss the energy sector's work force options, multiple studies' conclusions that nuclear is needed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the nuclear sector's completion of a key security review. You also can read about how nuclear technology is improving Zambia's prognosis for cancer treatment.

Goeffrey Styles : Two weeks ago I looked (5/25/07) at the risk that higher biofuels mandates would deter the expansion of US refineries. Today's Wall Street Journal examines another constraint on those expansions: an industry-wide shortage of experienced personnel, along with higher construction costs. This problem is another consequence of the extended "wilderness years" from which the sector has only recently emerged. Two decades of low margins and large investments to comply with expanding environmental regulations imposed cost pressures that forced refineries to run as leanly as possible. In the meantime, an entire generation found employment in other, flashier industries. Unfortunately for consumers, the bill is coming due now. That sounds a lot like the situation the nuclear sector faces, as our work force continues to age, and we need to recruit more new workers into the employment pipeline. For more, click here .

I've got two stories on the nuclear workforce that came across my desk today. First, here's a feature from PRI's Marketplace on a recent visit to ANS' most recent student conference : SARAH GARDNER : It's a Friday afternoon on the campus of Oregon State University. Young people from all over the U.S. are here for the American Nuclear Society's annual student conference. If this were the '80s, there might be protesters outside. But times have changed, and Idaho State nuclear engineering major Caleb Robison feels it. CALEB ROBISON : There's a lot more buzz about nuclear going on. Robison says when student groups on his campus got together recently, he met some unexpected allies. ROBISON : You wouldn't have ever expected it because the uh, I guess I'd call 'em tree huggers, I don't know what organization they were from, they came over and you would have thought that we were best friends. They said it was s...