More than three-dozen students from two Washington State University campuses gathered Tuesday at the INEF building in Richland to learn about potential career opportunities within the expanding field of nuclear energy development and construction. During an hour-long presentation, students heard from 10 visiting representatives from Aecon Group, a North American infrastructure company working on major power and utility projects across the U.S. and Canada.
As one of the major contractors signed on to help build the upcoming Cascade Advanced Energy Facility north of Richland, their presentation focused heavily on the company’s growing nuclear energy projects portfolio, which also includes Canada’s Darlington New Nuclear Project — set to be the first small modular reactor (SMR) facility in the Western Hemisphere.
Greg Thede, Aecon’s vice president for nuclear strategy, business development and services, outlined some of the company’s 50-year history in nuclear project development, spanning everything from maintenance and modernization efforts on existing power plants to new plant construction built around emerging technologies like SMRs.
“Our people are going to be the most knowledgeable in the world on a specific technology that’s never been built before, so it’s a super exciting time,” Thede said.
Scott Ryan, Aecon senior vice president of Canada nuclear operations, hinted at some of the engineering innovations his company is investing in, such as automation robotics, to bring these new technologies online.
“We’re building robots to build a first-of-a-kind reactor,” Ryan said. “There are some really significant engineering challenges.”
In discussing their workforce of roughly 11,000 employees, Aecon representatives underscored the need for talent across a wide range of business support services and construction-related professions.
“In the nuclear segment alone, at our peak we had about 4,000 skilled workers,” Thede said. “Everything that we do, we need people.”
Following the presentation and a question-and-answer session, Aecon representatives mingled and chatted with the students.
Olivia Kanoff, a WSU Tri-Cities mechanical engineering major and current INEF intern, said she met with a company representative to ask about the difference in costs and materials for building SMR projects versus large-scale nuclear reactors. With rising electricity demands from new data center construction, she said, investing in nuclear energy appears to be a step in the right direction.
“If they’re going to be made, then they might as well have a way of getting carbon-free energy,” Kanoff said. “And I think that it is important to transition from fossil fuels.”
Thirty-nine students attended the presentation, including 30 from WSU Tri-Cities and nine from WSU Pullman. Aecon leaders also participated in a demonstration of the Energy Learning Center’s SMR control room simulator, operated in partnership with Energy Northwest and Columbia Basin College.
