Education and Training in Nuclear Decommissioning Conference in Birmingham

Education and Training in Nuclear Decommissioning Conference in Birmingham

Notes by William Gaskell, at University of Birmingham School of Physics and Astronomy, 16-17th April 2015

Identifying needs for E&T in Nuclear Decommissioning

Mrs Helena Harding – Radioactive Waste Management

Geological deposition:

·         555 jobs required over 140 years of the project’s life

·         50% would be “skilled” 25% “management and professional” class workers

Communication:

·         Need to commercialise safety cases so that people can understand them better

·         Communicating effectively to broad range of people, from technical to non-English-speaking stakeholders

Mr Axel Backer – Energiewerke Nord EWN GmbH, Germany

Licencing procedures need to be utilised to allow work to progress as quickly as possible by creating synergies.

Dr Steven Judge – National Physical Laboratory, UK

SQEP – Suitably Qualified & Experienced Person

Training can be demonstrated [using quoted studies] to clearly improve accuracy and precision of work.

Mr Massimo Flore – EC-JRC-Patten, European HR Observatory in Nuclear, Netherlands

Need to plan ahead with training and education to have SQEBs in place when they would be needed in the future.

Mr Masamori Hirota – IAEA, Waste Technologies Section

Opportunities in IAEA:

·         Junior Professional Officer

·         Internships

The governments involved would be responsible for inviting participants to the IAEA training course.

Career Development in Nuclear Decommissioning

Mr Paul Meneely – HR Director, Cavendish Nuclear, UK

You would have the following from a technical career in decommissioning:

·         Security

·         Be well-paid

·         Intellectually stimulating work

Mr Richard Taylor – NNL, UK

1000 new people needed in next 5 years due to “churn” in addition to 200 extra staff needed for growth.

Motivation to get involved with NNL:

·         Become a Technical Authority

o   Develop cogency

o   Be able to defend a theorem/their own work

·         Huge variety of varied opportunities in decommissioning around the world [mindset]

Training opportunities in decommissioning

IAEA run several courses for E&T purposes and also there are over 200 publications available from them on best practice.

Mr Bent Pedersen – EC-JRC-Ispra, Italy

The Decommissioning Summer School at JRC-Ispra:

·         100 participants

·         5 + 3 days

·         Including time spent at the Ispra decommissioning site

Dr Michele Coeck – SCK.CEN, Belgium

·         SCK,CEN Academy offers guidance to young researchers for their PhD Thesis etc

·         Other relevant courses

Gen2 Training UK

·         Set up by 5 major nuclear engineering companies

·         Purpose: For technical people in Cumbria to get work at Sellafield

Education & Research opportunities in Nuclear Decommissioning

Dr. Ir. Georges Van Goethem – EC-RTD

·         Legislation is still a barrier to education, research and skills sharing

·         Need to focus on encouraging free movement of specialists within Europe and Safety Culture

·         Language

Dr. Alan Herbert – University of Birmingham

[He gave a very thought provoking Industrial Lecture to me as a student on PTNR 2012-2013 about geological disposal of nuclear waste.]

Thinking about Nuclear Image.

Prof. Vladimir Slugen – Slovak University of Technology, Slovakia

It is a fallacy to think it possible to convert old generation of nuclear experts to decommissioning work

·         Need a new generation of experts

NPP A1 accident in Slovakia (it was a gas-cooled heavy water reactor)

Dr John Roberts – European Nuclear Education Network & University of Manchester, UK

·         ENEN gives €1000 to 3 PhD students to attend a Nuclear Conference

Promotion of E&T in nuclear decommissioning

Mr. Bart Deconinck – Consultant, Belgium

When and how should we let children know about nuclear and decommissioning?

Mr. James Pearson – Radioactive Waste Management Consultant, AMEC Foster Wheeler

How well are young people being integrated into AMEC?

Mr Richard Adams – European Economic and Social Committee

We need to get nuclear/energy security issues talked about on social media, in primary schools, at the pub, at the rowing club in church etc.

Conclusion

Prof. John Perkins – CBE FREng, UK

There is a need for collaboration and standardisation of European Safety Culture