Nuclear plants are job magnets. Whether in construction, temporary roles for planned outages or ongoing operational positions, there are many opportunities available for workers. US nuclear power plants employ an average of 9000 workers during construction. For exampleuring the construction of Vogtle 3 & 4 (the most recent reactors in the US) more than 9000 construction workers were on site at peak.
Moreover, there are more than 5x more permanent on site jobs in nuclear compared to solar or wind.
Jobs in nuclear are traditionally higher paying than other energy industries. In the United States workers in nuclear receive on average a 50% higher salary than workers in other power source jobs.
In addition to these benefits, the nuclear industry is one of the safest industries to work in, offers extensive benefits and is highly unionised.
Most jobs in nuclear power are not directly related to nuclear. For instance, around 77% of coal jobs are directly transferrable to nuclear plants. This is because nuclear power plants operate similarly to coal power plants, albeit without the emissions. Many of the workers and skills being developed for the AUKUS nuclear submarine program are also potentially transferrable to civil nuclear power.
Nuclear is approximately 3x more reliable than solar & wind and 2x more reliable than fossil fuels. Unlike other energy sources, nuclear power plants aren't weather dependent.
Nuclear can work together with solar and wind to secure the grid with the potential to provide baseload power or flexible power to meet the grid's needs.
Nuclear power plants can produce much more than electricity for the grid. Nuclear can help support industries through powering clean desalination, producing clean hydrogen, powering data centres and providing process heat for heavy industry.
Micro reactors are also being developed to provide off the grid power for industry. Currently, there are multiple micro reactors under development.
