Memorandum 91
Submission from Professor R G Faulkner,
Loughborough University
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
UK ENGINEERING CAPACITY
FOR NEW
BUILD
1. The Government's sale of BNFL was an
untimely and, in view of recent events, disastrous move from the
viewpoint of engineer skill provision for nuclear new build. The
nuclear engineer skill base has been reducing by approximately
10% per annum for the past 15 years. There are precious few nuclear
engineers with deep experience left in the UK workplace. Many
of those who could have helped are either retired or have globalised
and gone to work for EDF, Siemens, and Areva in Europe or the
Far East. There are small pockets of capability in British Energy,
British Nuclear Group, and Nexia Solutions. The latter group have
developed good skills in fuel reprocessing and de-commissioning.
A few ageing academics and consultants from the good days with
Nuclear Electric, BNFL Magnox are still available to help build
the knowledge base for the next generation.
VALUE OF
TRAINING A
NEW GENERATION
OF NUCLEAR
ENGINEERS
2. The skills base in nuclear engineering
is still just above the critical nucleus size to allow training
of the UK nuclear engineer skills required for the future. The
scale of the difficulty lies in the spread-out nature of existing
training facilities. There are some reactor and training facilities
at Imperial College. BNFL, before its demise, set pu the Dalton
Centre in Manchester, but this urgently needs re-direction since
it has lost its focus since the withdrawal of support from BNFL.
There are areas of good physics and materials nuclear engineering
experience in the Universities at Loughborough, Birmingham, Liverpool,
Bristol, and Oxford.
3. We are competing against much greater
forces in the US. Currently there are 21 Nuclear Engineering programmes
operating in the States. My recommendation is that we get on with
it and re-build our University skills base to match the American
model as soon as possible.
4. It would be very sad if we abandoned
the skills that we still possess in the UK from a training viewpoint,
and relied on foreign input. Many of us have built good relationships
with nuclear engineers in the USA and France in recent years,
and this networking will now begin to pay off if UK based training
courses were re-introduced.
ROLE OF
ENGINEERS IN
SHAPING UK'S
NUCLEAR FUTURE
5. It is important to stress that development
of environmentally and economically viable nuclear plant in the
UK depends entirely on the skills of engineers. This is one area
where having a good business degree will not be an advantage.
There are many new technological developments that have to be
harnessed by engineers with respect to making nuclear cleaner
and cheaper. The Generation IV systems, including high temperature
reactors, pebble-bed reactors, AP1000 designs (based on the current
PWR at Sizewell "B"), are all requiring more research,
development and construction. The goal is worthwhile because all
of these designs will improve fuel efficiency and reduced resource
and operating costs. The long term solution to electrical energy
supply with no resource problem, that of Fusion, is already well-underway
with excellent teams of UK engineers in place at UKAEA, Culham
and at the ITER site in Cadarache, France.
6. There is no question that the new generation
of UK nuclear engineers will be trained to work in the global
market: it simply remains for us to create sufficient numbers
of these people to maintain the UK's still-leading role in the
global nuclear marketplace.
CIVIL/MILITARY
CONFLICTS
7. In my 40 years of experience of nuclear
engineering, there has always been a very large gap kept between
the engineering activities in the civil arena and those at Aldermaston.
Certainly, there are many potential student nuclear engineers
who would be discouraged to enter the Industry if they thought
their work was likely to be of military significance.
March 2008
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