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UK govt launches pro nuclear campaign, pushes for women in the nuclear industry

UK government unveils £200m nuclear sector deal, The Engineer, By Stuart Nathan Business secretary Greg Clark launches deal including commitment to new technology development and increased role for women in the nuclear industry  ……. Details of the deal include up to £44m funding to develop advanced modular reactors, a commitment to reduce the cost of nuclear new build by 30 per cent by 2030, and to cut the cost of decommissioning old sites by 20 per cen% in the same period. There will be a new review into ways of accelerating the cleanup of old sites. Clark also signalled an increased commitment to fusion energy research, with the establishment of a national fusion technology centre at Culham in Oxfordshire, the site of the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion experiment and the home of Tokomak Technologies, which is developing fusion reactors based on the spherical tokomak principle. This fusion centre will be supported by £86m funding from the government.

Clark was particularly keen to announce the focus on female engineers in the sector. Currently, the UK nuclear industry has a 22 per cent female workforce, and 15 per cent of its engineers are women. The NSD will deliver 100,000 new jobs in the sector by 2021, and it aims to increase female representation to 40  per cent by 2030.

“The UK is the home of civil nuclear technology and with this investment in innovation and our commitment to increasing diversity in an already highly-skilled workforce, I want to ensure we remain the world leader,” Clark said.

The NSD was announced at Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia, the site of a decommissioned nuclear reactor (the only one in the UK not on the coast) and a mooted site for the first small modular reactor project. “This site reflects both the past of our nuclear industry and an exciting future as the potential site for the new generation of small reactors, placing Wales at the centre of a UK arc of the nuclear industry,” said Alan Cairns, secretary of state for Wales.

The advanced modular reactor project will see eight designs go forward to detailed commercial and technical visibility studies. This phase 1, £4m has been allocated, and three or four of the designs will then go forward to a second phase for further development, with a possible £40m of further funding subject to a value for money approval from the Treasury. Up to £5m will be made available to regulators to support this, and up to £7m will fund capability and capacity to assess and licence small and novel reactor designs…..https://www.theengineer.co.uk/nuclear-industry-sector-deal/

June 29, 2018 - Posted by | spinbuster, UK

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