Texas nuclear power plants seek new workforce - Monitor
PALACIOS — At first glance, the large, framed photo hanging on a wall at the state’s largest nuclear power plant seems to tell a simple story. The photo, snapped last summer, is a source of pride at the South Texas Project nuclear plant, about 90 miles southwest of Houston on 12,200 acres along the Colorado River. But for the plant’s officials, it encapsulates anxiety about who will work at the plant in the years ahead. Each worker in the photo helped build the plant and has kept it running, and the workers make up just a portion of those who will soon retire, taking along years of expertise. “It’s the thing that keeps me up at night,” said Dennis Koehl, chief executive and chief nuclear officer at the STP Nuclear Operating Company. But as graying baby boomers prepare to hang up their Hazmat suits, officials are racing to find new talent, pouring millions of dollars into education programs in hopes of training new workers in an industry that produces about 12 percent of the... The situation is not much different at the state’s other nuclear power plant, Comanche Peak in North Texas, or at the 100 other reactors across the country. Source: www.themonitor.com
