Addressing the Skills Shortage
Franz Pedersen-Dambo is the Global Director of Radiological Protection Services at NUVIA Group and has extensive experience in radiation protection across utilities and reactor types.
A cherished child has many names, depending on the country. For example, in the UK, the title is Health Physics Monitor( HPM), while in the USA it is Radiation Protection Technician( RPT). It is also common to use the terms HP or RP surveyors, monitors, and technicians interchangeably.
For many years, it has been uncertain whether new nuclear power will replace reactors entering decommissioning across various markets. Uncertainty in the nuclear industry and hype around less stable energy sources have also discouraged many from entering the nuclear sector. This, combined with the current demographics of radiation protection professionals, has resulted in competency shortages that pose significant risks to the industry.
Anticipating these upcoming shortages in the USA, the nuclear power plant industry came together around 2017 to develop a national standard for Radiation Protection Technicians. This standard was to support consistent training, which would help make the movement of RPTs from outage to outage between the various power plant operator groups in the USA more straightforward. Despite this, a troubling 42 %
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