“The nuclear boom is over,” says Prof. Vladislave
Klener, a nuclear scientist in the Czech Republic. “Now we are facing
a gap and we didn’t educate our successors.” It is a similar
scenario faced by much of the world. The average age of the global nuclear
workforce is around 50 years. In 15 years, half of the workforce will
retire.
For the Czech Republic’s chief nuclear regulator,
Dr. Dana Drabova, the situation is setting off alarm bells. “In
five to ten years we will have a gap in employees who hold knowledge critical
to nuclear power plant operations and radiation safety,” Dr. Drabova
says. “If the knowledge is only in the heads of people it is difficult
to reconstruct. To keep the knowledge living you need an overlap of generations.”
How to assist countries like the Czech Republic survive
the “information gap” is a focus of IAEA efforts internationally.
Strategies range from recording the data and developing IT systems to
store it, to providing hands-on help to countries. At the Krsko nuclear
plant in Slovenia, the IAEA, jointly with the World Nuclear Organization
(WANO), worked with the plant’s management to systematically capture
undocumented information on safety and technical insights from retiring
workers.
It is this tacit knowledge of experts — who know
more than they might say or write down — that is often most difficult
to capture, says IAEA specialist Andrei Kossilov in the Department of
Nuclear Energy.
In the Czech Republic, nuclear plants and knowledge management
are twin pillars. “Every third light bulb in Czech is powered by
nuclear,” notes Dr. Drabova. “If you want to keep the lights
on ten years from now, then you need to keep the knowledge.”
The challenge, says Mr. Kossilov, is to create an environment
where tacit knowledge is routinely shared and disseminated, through multiple
means. “No information management system can replace the need for
face-to-face interactions,” he says.
Training and well-equipped research centres are vital
to bigger picture efforts to attract and retain the best and brightest
students and ensure an overlap. Last year the IAEA supported over 2,000
participants in training courses and some 1,500 fellows and scientists
through its technical cooperation programme.
Czech PhD student Daniel Seifert uses a cyclotron procured
by the IAEA to learn his tools of the trade. He is on the way to becoming
a radio-pharamcist, which is a branch of nuclear medicine used to understand
human disease and develop effective treatments. He dreams of research
and discovery. “Everyone wants to be a millionaire,” Daniel
says with a smile. “But the chance to work in nuclear medicine offers
a real chance to help people. That’s why I do what I do.”
Daniel is part of the changing nuclear guard. The IAEA
is working with countries to ensure that students like him have the knowledge
they need to keep the benefits of nuclear science alive.
— Kirstie Hansen, IAEA Staff
Reporter
See photo essay, “The
Changing of the Guard”
