NuGen's new chief exemplifies global nuclear learning
Tom Samson has taken over as CEO of NuGen, the consortium working to build new reactors at Moorside in Cumbria. His return to Britain after new build work in the United Arab Emirates is an example of the two-way process of global nuclear learning.
NuGen is a joint venture of Toshiba and Engie (formerly known as GDF Suez) and has rights to land alongside the Sellafield fuel cycle site. The site, called Moorside, is planned to feature three Westinghouse AP1000 units, which would make it the UK's largest capacity nuclear power plant.
Speaking today at the New Nuclear Build 2015 conference organised in London by the Nuclear Industry Association, Samson said land agreements had been finalised and the company was entering a three-year phase of site characterisation and preparation to decide on 'tier one' engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts.
Samson told World Nuclear News: "We are focused in designing our EPC structure to build on delivery certainty, which obviously involves supply chain choices as well as solutions that allow us to not only be competitive in terms of cost but have certainty in brining on the new generation of nuclear plants by the mid-2020s." He added: "There is a need for clarity and purpose in relation to the government support to the program, once the fog has lifted from Hinkley Point."
At the same time, said Samson, NuGen must grow dramatically to be ready to hold site licensee status, to manage the construction of a nuclear power plant, and then to operate it successfully.
"We expect to create opportunities for up to 6000 workers during the construction phase," he said. In the long term, NuGen as an operator "expects to have a permanent staff in west Cumbria in the range of one thousand people" - a tenfold increase on current staffing levels.
He will build on the engineering and operational expertise of the partners' respective subsidiaries - Westinghouse, Tractebel - as well as experience gained during three-and-a-half years as chief operating officer of Enec, which underwent even more dramatic growth in creating a competent owner-operator for the UAE's first nuclear power plant.
Considering the global interconnected nature of the nuclear industry, said Samson, "I think the UAE embodies that in the sense that it was a new entrant to this industry five years ago. It sought out relationships and support. We look at what they are doing in Abu Dhabi now as a new build big brother."
Western countries continue to work on the 'renaissance' wave of replacement reactor build at home, sometimes with slow progress. Meanwhile the programs of nuclear newcomer countries such as the UAE as well as Turkey and Poland have given companies based in established nuclear countries the chance to gain new build experience ahead of working in their home market.
"I think it's essential for us all to work collaboratively to ensure the success of the industry globally because it benefits everybody at the end of the day," Samson said. "The nuclear industry over the last 30 years has built on that collaboration in sharing lessons and experience and as new-build entrants we also have an obligation to tap into that."
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News
