They put themselves in battle order by spreading out on a table all the load plans, and the calendars. While only 18 months ago, the nuclear industry thought it was destined for a slow decline and was struggling to attract demotivated young people to its training, Emmanuel Macron’s sudden pro-atom turn in 2022 suddenly woke it up, and the energy crisis caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war threw it squarely on hot coals. The country wants nuclear, and it wants it fast: the first concrete must be poured in Penly in 2027. In industrial time, it’s almost yesterday…
After a soft spot of more than twenty years without new constructions, and while EDF had to bring in welders from the United States in December to help it repair its pipes suffering from a corrosion problem, for lack of find the necessary skills locally, the sector is challenged to restart the machine, “in excellence” and in record time.
Because it will have to, tomorrow, both ensure maintenance of the historic fleet, prepare the extension of the reactors (the famous large fairing), dismantle those which will have to be, build at least six new EPR2s (we are already talking about fourteen, behind the scenes ), complete the Cigéo waste burial project, increase its uranium enrichment capacities, honor orders from the army (for new nuclear submarines and an aircraft carrier), carry out its projects at export (in Great Britain and India), develop its research programs (fusion with Iter, the fourth generation of reactors)…
“The volume of activity will increase by around 25% in 10 years”, anticipates Olivier Bard, president of Gifen, the professional union of the nuclear industry. “Given the retirements, this means that we will have to recruit 60,000 people in core nuclear jobs. If you add purchasing functions, lawyers, HR, etc., the total reaches 100,000 people. “Mostly highly skilled professions, whose training cannot be improvised.
Reading the report confirms this: the needs are such that they require “imminent action”, with recruitment to begin as early as 2023. Some professions, because they will be the first to intervene in the future fleet, are already growing rapidly: blacksmithing , foundry, boilermaking, civil engineering trades, intellectual services which will represent “16,000 to 17,000 jobs”, to carry out the studies (safety, design, mechanical, etc.) associated with the projects.
Others will come later. “The most obvious example is that of the ventilation and air conditioning equipment, which is being installed at the Hinckley Point power station in Great Britain, and will not be installed on the new reactors until the end of the decade. . This poses the problem of maintaining skills in the meantime, and scaling up afterwards. »
The future planning law on energy and climate, expected no later than the fall, will be decisive in helping the sector get back on its feet: “To carry out these hirings, the cost of which is calculated in billions, manufacturers need orders, and visibility,” warns Olivier Bard. At a term that goes far beyond the horizon of the five-year term… For the political class, another novelty.