By Jim Romeo, Freelance Writer
In February 2010 after touring a clean jobs training facility in Lanham, Md., President Obama delivered a speech stating that his administration had approved $8.3 billion in new loan guarantees to build nuclear power facilities. His audience included electrical and communication workers who stood to benefit from the construction of such facilities.
The loan guarantees would help finance new reactors such as those at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in eastern Georgia. This would be a most welcome project for the surrounding economy as construction is expected to create some 3,400 construction jobs and 800 permanent jobs once the reactors are up and running.
But another industry sector should also benefit: nuclear training. Tim McGhee, dean of Engineering Technology at Chattanooga State Community College in Chattanooga, Tenn., said he believes the nuclear renaissance was kicked off in earnest with these recent loan guarantees. He said his college is excited as it had a jump in developing training for existing clients.
“Two years ago we started working with the industry— specifically, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)—so we’ve already started, but now it will be accelerated,” he says.
Loan Guarantees and Training
The Vogtle facility is currently staffing a training department to conduct classroom, laboratory, shop and simulator training for most of the new staff of Vogtle Units 3 and 4, said Charlie Nesbitt, AP1000 Training Deployment Manager in the Nuclear Development Organization at Southern Nuclear. Vogtle is to be staffed with about 60 instructors, supervisors and specialists, who will go on to train and manage other personnel as the plant is built.
Training programs consist of partnerships with Westinghouse for operations instructors, GSE for pre-training of instructor candidates and operator candidates and a partnership with Augusta Technical College for initial training of non-licensed operators and the maintenance disciplines.
“Initial simulator training will be conducted using a limited scope simulator, which will be ready for training use in early 2012,” said Nesbitt. “A full scope simulator will be available for training in early 2014, prior to operator license exams.”
In building the training program, Southern is training the trainers with certification programs that will span 2011 and beyond. “The first class of Vogtle 3 and 4 operations instructors completed courses in fundamentals, nuclear plant systems and integrated plant operations in 2009,” said Nesbitt. The class also has completed an instructor certification course taught by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). They are currently engaged in plant familiarization at Vogtle 1 and 2. These instructors were scheduled to attend Westinghouse classroom training on AP1000 Systems this spring and Westinghouse simulator training in the spring of 2011. A second class of Vogtle 3 and 4 operations instructors has begun a similar sequence of training, Nesbitt said.
The Vogtle projects are putting a new face on the industry. Industry leaders and pundits have faith that an underlying expansion is underway with the intent of creating more new jobs that require professional training.
Industry Expansion and “Clean Jobs”
Mark Rauckhorst, utilities managing director for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Atlanta said he sees the new construction as a sign of industry expansion and, more specifically, training to support the expansion.
“The expansion is underway with active projects in Georgia and South Carolina,” he said. “These projects are paving the way for the exploration and implementation of new training strategies to meet the requirements to effectively construct, manage and operate the new units.” The construction labor force has been in training for a while. In fact, he said, training of operations personnel for the plants scheduled to begin commercial operation in 2016 has already begun.
McGhee said that community colleges like his see the new construction cycle as an opportunity to be a part of the nuclear industry expansion and also part of a major “clean jobs” expansion.
“We’ve seen it already in the Tennessee Valley, with TVA currently finishing its second reactor at Watts Bar.” TVA also recently completed an additional reactor at Browns Ferry, 2.5 hours southwest of Chattanooga, and is considering bringing another reactor online at Bellefonte, an hour south of the city.
“With about 25 license applications now in the U.S., the expansion is in earnest now and we are on leading edge at Chattanooga State and in this region. We’ve been playing catch up on the education component and are now establishing uniform accredited curricula in accordance with national guidelines set by INPO, which recently established new guidelines.” McGhee said many plants have gotten out of the training business, but now with the renaissance they are beginning to work with two-year colleges to train current and future skilled technicians.
Mark Rauckhorst said, however, the loan guarantees will not in and of themselves create a boom in nuclear training. It will only be a true boom if more plants are started.
“The guarantees will allow utilities to invest in new plant construction, which will employee thousands of people either full-time or part-time during the construction period,” he said. When the plants are up and running, each plant employs a full-time workforce of 600 to 800 people. These employees will be trained on the same federally mandated, highly structured training requirements that all nuclear plants have. Every nuclear plant also employs several hundred temporary workers for a short period of time every year when they shut down to refuel and perform other maintenance duties. These workers receive training as well, but generally to a lesser degree than full-time plant employees. He said the net result in building new nuclear power plants will be an increase in the number of people who will receive training every year, but not necessarily the amount of training each persons. The delay in some project starts, caused in part due to the economic downturn, has been a much more manageable exercise.
“The announcement reinforces the need to ensure the industry has a properly trained workforce, but a boon in demand will only exist if more plants are started,” he said.
Training Innovation
Training can take many forms and organizations that make their living from training people, such as schools and training companies, stand to benefit from nuclear expansion. The expansion also opens up opportunities for innovations in training and for the industry to continue improving on its already existing high quality standards.
“The engagement of local technical colleges to develop and teach fundamentals such as math, science and other core skills has been an effective training initiative,” said Victor Synylo, utilities director for People and Change with PriceWaterhouse Coopers, based in Chicago. “It allows for people local to the plants to be trained and evaluated to determine their aptitude to move forward and has been a great early step and one which can continue to provide new personnel to the industry.” He said the use of local schools is part of the utilities’ efforts to be a partner to the community and continue to support the local areas. “This will be an initiative that will continue to provide a good source of candidates for the plants,” he said.
Synlo said that the nuclear industry added a new initiative a few years ago to put in place an online infrastructure and curriculum for common training that all nuclear power plant contractors are required to take.
“This would be similar to General Employee Training (GET),” said Synlo. This infrastructure, the National Academy for Nuclear Training e-Learning (NANTeL), aims to minimize the need for contractors to repeatedly take training that is common across the industry, making it easier for them to do work at different plants. “This infrastructure continues to evolve and gain adoption in the industry,” he said.
McGhee is working to establish programs with standards set by INPO where performance would be measured by the local utility. “In the past, we have not conducted this type of educational program since most community colleges weren’t charged with training,” he said. Now that two-year schools are partnering with the utilities, TVA training managers monitor class curriculum, syllabi, performance standards and so on. “The standards of a training program are very detailed, so schools must outline exact competencies and specific classes in which each competency will be covered,” he said.
He cited Chattanooga State’s Radiation Protection program as an initiative with specific plant standards that must be met. “TVA provides internship opportunities through Bartlett Nuclear Services to help train students in the processes,” said McGhee. This way, students are in the position to perform real-world tasks under the mentorship and guidance of experienced radiation protection professionals. Nuclear-related training programs are unique due to third-party curricular standards set by INPO. Schools like McGhee’s usually don’t have to worry about meeting any specific industry standards, so this is different from the way business has been done in the past.
“It’s a great show of confidence by the utility to give our students this opportunity and it’s a great opportunity for the utility to pass some of its training to Chattanooga State,” he said.
Chattanooga State has worked on forging a partnership with TVA that has facilitated training readiness. The utility is coming to the school with its need to build a curriculum.
“We’re taking this right out of the uniform standards,” said McGhee. The school is working on another accredited program for a potential start-up this fall and started other programs not necessarily unique to nuclear power plants but essential to next-generation nuclear power plant construction, such as nondestructive testing and quality assurance/quality control. “We plan to educate and train our students in anticipation of the growth of the industry and the attrition of workforce, which is retiring exponentially faster than it can be replaced,” he said.
Because nuclear safety is such a sensitive issue, training should play a key role to instill confidence in the public and in lawmakers. Confidence in trained professionals using safe practices is important to long-run viability of nuclear power. Safety and quality of personnel, however, begins with recruiting and hiring from the right pool of candidates.
“Utilities are developing strategies which will consist of the use of multiple pools of resources,” said Rauckhorst. Some will enter the workforce from the Navy and will come with an understanding of the technology and the operation and will need training in the type of plants being employed commercially. Some will be from the existing fleet operations so they have an understanding of the operations requirements and safety culture that is critical to this industry. Some will enter the industry for the first time. “Each will require fundamental training in the technology and how the systems operate,” he said. “The expectations and requirements will remain consistent with today’s operations staff.”
Professionals entering in the industry will be trained with the benefit of lessons learned from existing operations. A higher standard of training will subsequently instill greater confidence in the public at large and create more interest and legislative support for nuclear power.
“Training for the new units is based on a strong training foundation established and implemented for the existing plants,” said Rauckhorst. This is an issue which has been reviewed and planned for by the industry for several years. Already new training platforms have been established to provide potential candidates with the proper fundamentals including the use of technical schools who have worked with utilities to develop curriculum to support the new plants. The strong operational and safety performance of the existing plants has provided an opportunity for new people to enter this industry.
Public support will remain, Rauckhorst said, “as long as the plants—both existing and new—can continue to demonstrate this type of performance.”
