Posted on 01/14/2014 5:36:39 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
"....Not everyone is equipped to operate and maintain a reactor, or to monitor radiation levels inside a plant and on its own employees. Nuclear energy officials feared they would soon lack the manpower to operate the country's current reactors as their licenses were renewed, let alone the new ones.
"It's at all levels, from the managers on down,"Koehl said of his company's needs, adding that specialty engineers and people with other industry-tailored skills are particularly hard to find.
That includes Jesse Wells, who has coordinated 18 of STP's planned outages, the monthlong powering down of a reactor to refuel it and perform thousands of maintenance operations—a process that happens once every year and a half.
Wells, who came to STP after spending years working with the Navy's nuclear program and has stayed for three decades, is set to leave in May in what he calls the plant's first wave of retirements.
Wells, 57, said he was anxious about the move but only on a personal level. He had no doubts, he said, that someone capable would fill his job. Still, he put off postponing his initial retirement plans to work one last outage alongside his successor.
Company officials have unleashed an aggressive plan to transfer knowledge within the company, and to educate students to fill voids left by retirement.
The company, Matagorda County's biggest employer, is mostly looking in its backyard. In the last six years, it has spent millions of dollars designing the curriculum at local high schools and community colleges and awarding scholarships to students in the area.
Graduates of the two-year nuclear power technology degree program at Wharton County Junior College, for instance, can expect to earn starting salaries of $65,000 to $70,000 if plant officials, who closely monitor enrollment, offer them jobs.
"We're trying to homegrow as much as we can," Koehl said........."
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
With such huge stores of cheap natural gas available, there is absolutely no reason that Texas should operate this obsolete and expensive source of electricity generation. Tear them down.
Does it matter that the Texas grid was so strained that it almost shut down during last week’s bout of cold weather?
I suspect STP will expand and build more units before it shuts down the existing ones.
US Natural Gas is not going to stay as cheap as the average over the last couple years.
The whole country needs to update the grid. We need skilled workers , and somehow I don't think we'll find them sneaking across the border.
Perfect example of the excellence of the american educational system
We need to take advantage of *every* energy resource available to us...and that included nuclear and coal.Fukishima taught us that it *might* not be wise to place nuke plants in known earthquake zones...particularly those located in coastal areas.However,although I very seldom sing the praises of the Europeans they *do* get close to half their electricity from nuke plants and it seems to work well for them.
Oil....natural gas.....nuclear....coal....hydroelectric...we must use it *all*!
So easy, even the French can do it!
Figure 2: EU 27 Electricity production by source, 2012
click graph for source
The Pepsi Syndrome, Saturday Night Live, 1979 (When SNL was still good)
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml
Where have you gone Jimmy Carter??...
I haven’t looked in detail but the current mix of generation is somewhere less
than 60% natural gas. Coal is the largest generator fuel of the non natural gas units.
Each fuel source has its disadvantages.
For natural gas, it’s that you can’t store it at the plant site; making electricty supply immediately vulnerable to pipeline failure.
In Texas at least, many Nat Gas power plants have multiple pipeline sources. I’ve done pipeline manifold and metering station work a few.
The EPA and DOE prevented us from building any nuke plants since the 70’s. NO excuses for this. The technology is proven and would go far to alleviate the need for oil and gas so it can be used elsewhere.
Even with currently cheep natural gas, nuclear electricity still costs less.
Apparently you are not aware that there are four new nuclear plants under construction in the United States right now.
Go here to see a construction update for two plants in South Carolina.
and Go here for information on the two new plants in Georgia.
There are few plants being built, and many shutting down. Japan's fun has convinced many countries that a nuke plant is to risky.
How’s the permitting going?
MidAmerican was going to build one in Iowa. After Japan the EPA canceled the permits.
They are already permitted. Back in the 90's the NRC changed their licensing procedures. Before then, a utility would need a construction license first. Then after construction was done, they had to apply for an operating license. That second step was where the anti-nukes tossed in the monkey wrenches causing long delays and demanding all sorts major modifications. They could tie things up in courts and in regulatory hearings for years, literally attempting to bankrupt the utilities.
Now the NRC issues a combined construction/operating license. As long as the plant is built to the approved design, it does not require a second license to begin operations. The design of these four plants is the Westinghouse AP-1000, and it has been fully approved by the NRC.
MidAmerican was going to build one in Iowa. After Japan the EPA canceled the permits.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.