The participants of the session “Advanced Training for Generation IV NPP Personnel: Driver for Sustainable Development” at the XIII International Forum ATOMEXPO-2024 in Sochi discussed ways of solving the problems of training of qualified personnel for new nuclear power facilities.

The event brought together the IAEA representatives, top managers of Rosatom State Corporation, Rosenergoatom Concern, Rosatom Technical Academy, leading Russian universities, representatives of authorities and new businesses, and experts from partner countries.

The participants agreed that the development of Generation IV nuclear technologies would require a long-term commitment based on the establishment of a sustainable nuclear infrastructure. This implies proactive training of personnel.

Мрабит.jpg “People are the key to everything. You may have the best regulation, the best legislation and integrated systems management, but unless you have sufficiently trained and efficient personnel, it is impossible to operate the nuclear infrastructure,” said Khammar Mrabit, a former head of the Moroccan Agency for Nuclear and Radiological Safety and Security and the moderator of the session.

Mikhail Chudakov, Head of the IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy, estimated that by 2050, the global nuclear power industry would need four times as many people as it does today – 8 million specialists with in-depth knowledge, professionalism and awareness of safety culture. For this reason, the IAEA, together with educational organisations, runs international schools for countries developing nuclear technologies, and scholarship programmes have been set up for master’s studies in nuclear disciplines.

Чудаков.jpg Alexander Lokshin, ROSATOM’s First Deputy Director General for the Development of New Nuclear Power Products, noted that fourth-generation technologies are one of the untrodden paths that need to be mastered by competent specialists capable of gaining experience directly in the process of developing and perfecting new technologies.

“By 2030, ROSATOM will need about 350,000 employees, including skilled workers. This task requires non-standard solutions, given the shortage of human resources that is felt in all industries in Russia today. Such specialists should be trained starting from kindergarten. And the State Corporation has such programmes,” Alexander Lokshin pointed out.

Локшин.jpg One of the solutions for staffing new NPP construction projects, including the projects of new nuclear power, was the creation of a specialised reserve consisting of employees of operating NPPs in the largest power generating company in Russia, Rosenergoatom Concern. To date, there are about 1,500 people in the reserve.

“The specialised reserve was formed from those specialists who expressed a desire to work at power units being built in Russia and abroad. We are preparing them for this,” explained Dzhumberi Tkebuchava, First Deputy Director General of Rosenergoatom JSC. “The Beloyarsk NPP has also created a specialised reserve of operating personnel, where employees of the future BREST-300 power unit are gaining experience of working at fast reactors. At the second stage, specialists will undergo training at Rosatom Technical Academy directly focusing on BREST-300 technology and then on-the-job training at the power unit under construction during its commissioning. Personnel for BN-1200 and BR-1200 will be trained in the same way”.

Ткебучава.jpg In addition, the technology for training the personnel of an NPP without a reference plant was developed within the framework of the specialised training centre of the world’s first floating small nuclear power plant “Akademik Lomonosov”. The next SNPP will be the Yakutsk NPP with the RITM-200 reactor. According to Dzhumberi Tkebuchava, the issue of establishing a training centre within Rosatom Technical Academy, which would be able to train personnel for small NPPs being built abroad, is currently being considered.

Polina Kovaleva, Project Head, Director for New Nuclear Power at Rosatom Technical Academy, spoke about the formation of the Academy’s project “Generation 4: Next Kurchatovs” aimed at proactive multi-level training of personnel for the new technological platform.

“One of the tasks of the project is to popularise new technologies among young people, to work with students, to develop new programmes, to create training centres on the basis of the best universities together with the specialists of the Proryv Project, covering dozens of training areas. Such a task cannot be solved single-handedly, it can only be tackled in the form of network cooperation,” Polina Kovaleva stressed.

Approaches and methods of training engineers of the future were also shared during the session by Topan Setiadipura, Head of the Research Centre for Nuclear Reactor Technology of Indonesia, and Liu Zhenhua, Assistant Head of the China Institute of Atomic Energy.

Китай “One of the stages of personnel training for the nuclear industry of the Republic of Indonesia was participation in the training programmes of Russia and the IAEA. We have been interacting with Rosatom since 2017, and from this experience we have learned the importance of the systematic approach, and building the training with an individual strategic plan for each specialist. New technologies open up new opportunities for us, and we will continue our cooperation so that our young people can receive a good education,” Topan Setiadipura emphasised.

The discussion on the ability of the existing personnel training system to meet the needs arising from the task of nuclear generation development and introduction of new technologies was discussed by Andrei Volkov, Director of the Institute of Public Strategy at the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, Scientific Supervisor of the Priority 2030 Programme, and heads of leading Russian universities: Vladimir Shevchenko (NRNU MEPhI), Leonid Sukhikh (Tomsk Polytechnic University), Sergey Dmitriev (Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University n.a. R.E. Alekseev), Denis Burov (Maritime State University named after Admiral G.I. Nevelskoy), Sergey Salikhov (University of Science and Technology MISiS).

The speakers at the event also included Gennady Sklyar, Member of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, and Tatyana Leonova, Head of the Obninsk City Administration.

“The purpose of our event today is not so much to find specific answers to the industry’s personnel challenges, but to establish that we are on the same path together, and that Rosatom can be confident about the future. We will train the necessary number of qualified personnel to meet all Russian and international construction needs. As a great man once said: “People make all the difference”. We hope that we will be able to solve all the tasks that lie ahead of us,” Yuri Seleznev, Rector of Rosatom Technical Academy, summed up the meeting.

Селезнев.jpg Reference:

Generation IV reactors have the potential to transform the nuclear power industry, primarily due to a new level of safety, an expansion of the range of fuels and a significant reduction in the amount of radioactive waste produced. Russia is one of the leaders in the development of Generation IV technologies. By 2035, new nuclear projects will require tens of thousands of specialists working at an entirely new technological level. Therefore, special attention must be paid today to improving the qualification and competence of personnel.

At the Beloyarsk NPP, preliminary design work began on the construction of a Generation IV unit, BN-1200M. At the same time, for the first time in the world, a nuclear power plant with a BREST-OD-300 Generation IV reactor and an on-site closed nuclear fuel cycle is being built at the same site in the Tomsk Region.

ATOMEXPO International Forum is the world’s most important nuclear industry event, the largest exhibition and business platform for discussing the current state of the nuclear industry and setting trends for its development. The Forum brings together the heads of key companies in the global nuclear industry, government agencies, international and public organisations and leading experts. The format of the Forum includes an exhibition and a congress with a comprehensive business programme, the main event of which is a plenary session. Panel discussions and roundtables address key issues facing the nuclear industry. The session on proactive training for Generation IV was held at the site of ROSATOM’s training and experimental base at Sirius University, where the technologies are being developed and the training of students and specialists of the nuclear industry is being implemented to meet the challenges of unmanned production and fuel reprocessing.

Russia actively develops scientific cooperation with all interested countries. Despite external constraints, major international projects continue to be implemented. Rosatom and its divisions take an active part in this work.