Wanted: green engineers
Regardless of the outcome of the Copenhagen conference in December 2009, one of the most pressing anticlimate-change needs will be the ability to get things done in 2010 and beyond. The commitments already made by some large economies require an extremely large capacity to get new energy systems in place quickly. That includes making sure that there are the people around to design and build them.
The infrastructure needed to make a large dent in the worlds emissions is daunting. What is unusual is not the scale of investment, but that much of it has to be spent on new capabilities. With the use of coal worldwide expected to double by 2030, for example, carbon capture and storage technologies will be crucial. The amount of pipelining, geological surveying and chemical engineering needed for this is not unprecedented compared with what already exists in the oil, gas and mining industries. But it is vastly larger than todays CCS capacity, and the people needed cannot just be borrowed from the current fossil-fuel industry.
The nuclear industry is also bedevilled by labour-force issues, at all skill levels. For the past few decades very few Western countries have been producing nuclear engineers; if the nuclear industry is to expand again, over the next decade it will need thousands of engineers who are at present nowhere to be found. And if the supply of expert engineers is tight for builders and operators, it will be tight for regulators, tooregulators who will be sorely needed if a new generation of nuclear-power plants is to enjoy, and deserve, public confidence.
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2016-02-26
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