Nuclear Industry Can Lead a Revival in Skilled Labor and Manufacturing in the United States
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the American Nuclear Society and the North American Young Generation in Nuclear have been investing time and money into focused workforce development programs for several years. The people leading the effort are taking the action to ensure that there are educated and trained people who are ready to meet the challenge of continuing to reliably operate and maintain our existing fleet of 104 nuclear reactors at the same time that we are reestablishing our nuclear plant manufacturing and construction industry.
The below is an op-ed describing the effort by one of its leaders.
Nuclear Industry Workforce Education Revitalizes Skilled Labor and Manufacturing Careers
By Elizabeth McAndrew-Benavides
President
North American Young GenerationIn 1950 manufacturing accounted for more than 30 percent of all U.S. employment. These skilled labor careers provided an unprecedented standard of living for more than two decades following the end of World War II, allowing millions of Americans to purchase homes and autos and pay for their children to go to college.
By 2006, manufacturing employment shrunk to a mere 10 percent of U.S. employment and with it the bulk of America’s well-paying skilled labor careers. Prognosticators predicted manufacturing’s ultimate demise as a significant driver of the American economy. But a look at the U.S. nuclear industry tells a different story: a narrative where job growth in the skilled trades is on an upward trend and the industry can serve as a role model for the revitalization of the U.S. manufacturing sector through the creation of new careers and economic expansion. In fact, it already has.
At this point 13 license applications for up to 22 new reactors have been filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the industry expects four-to-eight new plants to be operating by the end of the decade. Construction activities already have begun at plant sites in Georgia and South Carolina. As a consequence, over the past three years more than 15,000 careers, not just jobs, have been created as the nuclear industry has invested over $4 billion in new nuclear plant development. Plans call for the investment of another $8 billion to be in position to supply the materials needed to begin large-scale construction in 2011-2012. Many of these careers don’t require a college degree, but have earnings potential that equals, and even exceeds, that of college graduates. Teachers can play an instrumental part in creating awareness among their students of these careers.
K-12 educators should incorporate what we call “Energy Literacy” into their teaching plans and thus can play a significant role in encouraging their students to consider the career possibilities as electrical and mechanical technicians, radiation monitors, health physicists and engineers of all kinds. The nuclear industry has resources to help educators explain to students what career opportunities are available in nuclear power. For example, FREE curriculum and lesson plans are available from groups such as the National Education Foundation and The Ford Foundation on all sectors of energy production including nuclear power. The industry offers expert speakers from diverse nuclear-oriented groups including Women in Nuclear, the North American Young Generation in Nuclear and the American Nuclear Society, and there is a successful nuclear energy mentoring program known as Power Set that could be replicated around the country.
But is there proof of a revival in the American nuclear industry that warrants teachers’ interest? You bet there is.
For example, Alstom just opened a new $300 million turbine manufacturing facility in Tennessee to supply turbines for use in North American power plants; Shaw Modular Solutions constructed a 410,000-square-foot nuclear modernization facility in Louisiana to assemble structural, piping, equipment and other modules for new nuclear plants that will employ 700 to 1,400 assembly line and skilled technical workers at full capacity. AREVA and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding broke ground last summer on a $360-million manufacturing and engineering facility in Newport News, Va., that will manufacture heavy components such as reactor vessels, steam generators and pressurizers. Expected to open in 2012, this facility will create more than 500 skilled hourly and salaried careers. And this is only the beginning.
Over the next five years, 38 percent of the current nuclear industry work force employed at the nation’s 104 operating plant will be eligible for retirement, leaving a shortfall of more than 25,000 skilled workers. In addition, each new nuclear plant will create up to 2,400 temporary and highly-paid positions over the five-year construction period and 400-to-800 new permanent careers.
Much as a major league baseball team must build a pipeline of young players in their farm system years in advance so they’ll be ready to replace retiring players, so must the nuclear industry replenish its work force to avoid any skills shortage and be ready for expansion. The nuclear industry realized this trend years ago and is doing just that.
The industry is keeping close track of the job openings and student enrollments to ensure that the pipeline of new workers fits the number of careers available. The industry has set up partnerships with 43 community colleges across the country and implemented what’s known as a uniform curriculum program to ensure that the proper educating and training of the next generation of nuclear industry workers is done in a cohesive manner. This past May, the first graduates of this program at Chattanooga State and Salem Community College in New Jersey moved into careers with average salaries ranging from $66,000-to-$72,000 a year. Since nuclear plants operate for up to 60 years, it’s as close to a lifetime guarantee of employment as possible.
The world has changed dramatically since the golden age of U.S. manufacturing and the high percentage of skilled labor and blue collar careers of the 1950s through the ‘70s. But the revitalization of the nuclear industry in America, where we expect to see dozens of new plants built over the next two decades, offers proof that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of manufacturing’s death in the United States are greatly exaggerated.
Though I fully support Elizabeth and her colleagues in their efforts to encourage nuclear and technical training efforts, my hope is that the industry leaders who sometimes look no further than their next quarterly earnings call with analysts recognize that kindling a new fire takes focused attention. The nascent workforce development programs are beginning to pay off with well-trained and motivated young people at a time when the industry really needs them to gain experience and build upon their academic knowledge.
If the leaders allow an interruption in hiring programs or determine that it makes the P&L look better to lay off some people for a few quarters, the momentum will reverse and be difficult to recover. The kinds of hard working, steady, motivated, people with high levels of integrity that the nuclear industry has worked hard to attract will find plenty of opportunities in other lines of work. If they feel betrayed because they invested 4-8 years of hard academic endeavor with the promise of good job opportunities and end up treading water for a few months after graduation, it will be hard to encourage them to return to the industry that betrayed them.
Nuclear industry leaders should follow the lead of ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron. None of those oil and gas majors are acting like companies that believe that natural gas prices are going to be low for a long period of time. If they believed that line, they would not be spending tens of billions to develop more capacity to extract and deliver natural gas. They are looking past the current market situation, knowing that building the physical capacity to supply natural gas energy – like building the human intellectual capacity needed to supply nuclear energy – requires patience and continued investment. Company leaders need to make the case for these investments to overcome the “advice” of short term fund managers who have no idea how long the lead times can be in the energy business.
I’d like to also highlight the NRC’s efforts in this field– The NRC has been extending course and staff development grants to engineering schools throughout the U.S. who wish to establish nuclear engineering classes. They are also extending scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students in exchange for service in nuclear related industries, not just the NRC.
I’m the proud recipient of one of these scholarships, and I think that with the NRC’s efforts I’d have written off the nuclear industry for what I though would be greener pastures.
To what extent do you think it likely that a lot of the ‘new’ manufacturing jobs related to nuclear might end up in other countries? Obviously, the ‘on-site’ construction jobs to actually build the plant can’t be outsourced (although, I suppose temporary workers from other countries could potentially be brought in, and I would imagine that at least some percentage of the workers, engineers, etc would be ‘brought in’).
But, let’s take the concept of small modular reactors which are factory built. If they’re being factory built, why wouldn’t they end up being built in Mexico, China, India, etc and shipped to the U.S.? I have noticed a trend in car makers, in recent years, where most of the ‘foreign’ brands have built factories in the U.S., so apparently there’s some sort of economic forces that make it better to build cars and trucks in the U.S. instead of shipping them. Anyone know what those economic forces are, and will those same forces make it more likely that reactors and other nuclear plant parts are mostly made in the U.S.?
Looking at cars again, I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that even though final assembly is mostly done in the U.S., a lot of components and parts are manufactured elsewhere, then shipped here for assembly. Is that also likely to be true for nuclear plants?
” I have noticed a trend in car makers, in recent years, where most of the ‘foreign’ brands have built factories in the U.S., so apparently there’s some sort of economic forces that make it better to build cars and trucks in the U.S. instead of shipping them. ”
The answer to this is tariffs. If you’d like to explore the motivations of a foreign car maker setting up plants here in the U.S. you should check out the This American Life episode called Nummi available at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi
The need to train the next generation of skilled workers is getting critical, as the current pool, made up mostly of Baby Boomers, ages. Since many skills are based on craft techniques that must be transmitted by OJT, we are running out of time and risk loosing some skills forever, or at least making their recovery very hard.
@Edmundton – I think you have been attacked by an affliction that affects many of us as we write quickly for web publication. You wrote the following sentence that would make more sense if you modified two words.
I’m the proud recipient of one of these scholarships, and I think that with the NRC’s efforts I’d have written off the nuclear industry for what I though would be greener pastures.
I am guessing that you meant make the below modification before you hit post.
I’m the proud recipient of one of these scholarships, and I think that without the NRC’s efforts I’d have written off the nuclear industry for what I thought would be greener pastures.
It is fairly expensive to ship cars (and anything large) and can add several thousand dollars to the cost. It is much easier to ship small components that will be placed in those cars and the car manufacturing industry uses parts from suppliers around the world because these are built to a specification rather than having to be individually designed. This allows a auto assembly plant to farm out electronics as long as the “black box” has the right input output. It does not matter how it got there, just if it produces the right outcome and is reliable.
Small Modular Reactors would be similar in that parts could be manufactured in several countries that meet the specifications, shipped to the factory and installed. The parts would have to be N certified which limits the number of potential manufacturers but would likely still be international. For example – computer systems are mainly manufactured in Asia and I expect that the processors and main boards at least would come from Asia for a SMR built in the USA.
That being said, most of the major parts would be manufactured and assembled in the USA.
Correct Rod; The takeaway is that you should never post from an iphone since the auto-correct will auto-magically make you sound like a fool.