Reliance on nuclear power should shield France from Europe’s gas crisis. However, its ageing fleet of reactors is suffering. And skills shortage is also placing France’s new nuclear strategy in jeopardy. France state-owned energy company EDF has announced plans for a massive recruitment drive to bolster the country’s ageing nuclear reactors and build new power plants. It is seeking to hire thousands of specialist welders, pipefitters and boiler makers to its nuclear fleet. The problem is that such staff is in very short supply.
EDF is building the new Hinkley Point C in the U.K. and is also behind the fledgling Sizewell C project in the UK. The company is battling to keep the lights and heat on this winter across France and build resilience in response to Europe’s energy crisis. France should to be well placed to navigate the loss of Russian gas which the continent depended on before the war in Ukraine.
Nuclear power accounts for around three-quarters of France’s electricity. It has fifty-six reactors across eighteen sites. However, half of that capacity has been offline this year because of a combination of technical problems and maintenance. Unscheduled outages due to corrosion have proven to be the main challenge after cracks were found in some pipes used to cool reactor cores. These problems have added Europe’s power price surge.
National Grid operates the U.K. power network. It warned on Monday that France would have to import energy this week as it pondered whether to impose its own first line of defense to keep the lights on in Britain. Britain usually relies on imports of energy from France during the winter months. Their neighbor’s own energy crunch is aggravating concerns over U.K. margins.
EDF has a reputation for delays and cost overruns in building nuclear power plants. Recently they had to fly about one hundred nuclear workers from the U.S. and Canada to help support their repair efforts in France.
EDF problems are expected to wipe about thirty-four million dollars from their core earnings. The French state is preparing to increase its ownership stake in EDF from the current eighty four percent to one hundred percent to help ease concerns for its financial stability. This nationalization comes at a time when EDF is on the hook to build at least six new advanced reactors over the next twenty-five years across France.
It is estimated that the country’s nuclear industry needs to recruit between ten thousand and fifteen thousand workers over the next seven years. It needs to find three thousand workers a year over that time.
Clement Bouilloux is the manager for France at energy consultancy EnAppSys. He said, “These are pretty ambitious targets. We have not had a construction drive like that in the nuclear industry since the 1970s.”
Nuclear industry experts told Reuters that training for nuclear specialist welders alone is three years longer than for similar jobs. They are required to operate in an area of reactors where radiation is high. This means that they can only spend a limited amount of time inside such areas.
One welder told an interviewer that “To be a very good welder, you have to be born to be one. These people work with molten metal at 1,500 degrees Celsius, and sometimes have to stand upside down. You start with 500 would-be welders, and five years later you may have only five who are up to scratch.”