Nuclear’s Role Gets Reconsidered in the Clean Energy Equation

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With global electricity demand on pace to double by 2030, the race is on for the world’s key energy players to find clean sources that will fuel their economies but also allow them to meet more aggressive carbon emissions targets. That race is inspiring a global rethink on nuclear power that is producing a variety of interesting results.

A growing sentiment that renewables can’t do it alone

Many nuclear energy supporters are raising awareness of their belief that while renewable energy sources like wind and solar can play an important role in the clean energy equation, Mother Nature’s unpredictability creates the need for backup energy sources. Today, that back up often comes from natural gas, which can detract from the carbon emissions advantages initially driven by wind and solar. Nuclear advocates point to Germany’s recent carbon emissions performance to illustrate their point. In 2016, despite a four per cent decrease in coal use and expansion of renewable energy sources, the country’s carbon emissions actually rose. The CO₂ emissions saved through the drop of coal use were offset by an increase in consumption of mineral oil and a 10 percent jump in the use of natural gas.

An opinion shift amongst environmentalists

The release of Robert Stone’s documentary, Pandora’s Promise, in 2013 was an important milestone in the nuclear power debate. The film positions nuclear energy as a key component in the fight to slow climate change. It was a stark contrast to Stone’s Oscar-nominated anti-nuclear documentary, Radioactive Bikini, that was released in 1987.

That same year, four of the world’s leading climate change scientists published an open letter encouraging anti-nuclear environmentalist groups to reconsider their views. The experts claimed that “Renewables like wind and solar and biomass will certainly play roles in a future energy economy, but those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires.” The letter went on to ask environmental organizations to demonstrate their real concern about risks from climate damage by calling for the development and deployment of advanced nuclear energy.

Tech Billionaires Set Their Sights on Nuclear’s Potential

While Bill Gates gets the most media attention for his support of nuclear energy, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Paul Allen, and PayPal’s Peter Thiel are also on board. These high-profile tech investors believe that nuclear power is a wise choice for both the planet and their investment portfolio. Gates has put his money where his mouth is with his incubator TerraPower, which is working on a number of clean energy solutions including an approach to nuclear power that addresses real and perceived concerns about nuclear power due to cost, safety and waste. Gates has signed a joint venture agreement between TerraPower and China to create Global Innovation Nuclear Energy Technology, a company that will build and commercialize the Travelling Wave Reactor. This fourth-generation reactor will use waste uranium to generate energy and could operate without refueling for up to 40 years. This is just one example of how China is betting big on nuclear. It has set a goal of boosting its nuclear power capacity by about 70 percent to 58 gigawatts by 2020. Canada’s SNC–Lavalin also announced a joint venture with the China National Nuclear Corporation and Shanghai Electric Company in 2016 to build Advanced Fuel CANDU Reactors in China and internationally.

The UK gets it first new nuclear plant in over 20 years

In the United Kingdom, all eyes are on the Somerset Coast’s Hinkley Point C. The new nuclear power station being built there will be home to two European Pressurized Reactors (EPRs), which have been designed to generate more electricity from less fuel, require less downtime for maintenance, and reduce the risk of major accidents. The project, which is currently one of Europe’s largest building sites, is expected to be completed in 2025.

The Middle East hedges against oil dependence

The world’s big oil nations are also investing in nuclear as they diversify their energy strategies to keep up with increased demand for electricity. When it comes online in 2020, the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant will provide a quarter of the UAE’s energy and save 12 million tons in carbon emissions each year. Saudi Arabia also has plans for 16 nuclear reactors over the next two decades that will supply 15 per cent of its power.

Canada stays the course

Nuclear energy isn’t a new path for Canada, where the $6 billion sector employs approximately 60,000 people. Canada has been a world leader in nuclear energy since the development of the first CANDU reactor in 1952. Canada is home to 19 of the world’s 446 operable nuclear reactors, which generate 16.6 per cent of the country’s electricity. The Bruce Power Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario is the largest operating nuclear power facility in the world, and has been delivering energy since 1977. Canada is also the world’s leading supplier of uranium and is home to the highest-grade uranium deposits in the world.

At The Ian Martin Group, we’re fortunate to have a team of nuclear energy sector staffing experts as we’ve been helping companies source nuclear talent for over 60 years. If you are a company looking for short- or long-term nuclear talent, connect with one of our Hiring Consultants today for a no-obligation discussion about your search strategy. If you are a job seeker interested in exploring new opportunities in the nuclear sector, explore our current listings.

Ian Martin Celebrates Land Acknowledgement Installation

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At Ian Martin, we exist to connect people in meaningful work. But as we’ve discovered, before you connect people in meaningful work, you must first connect with them meaningfully. Last Thursday, July 5th marked a new phase of Ian Martin’s engagement with and commitment to Indigenous communities in our local area and across North America.

In the presence of Shannon Monk Payne of Sakatay Global, employees in our office enjoyed a catered lunch from Toronto Indigenous restaurant NishDish, made tobacco ties, smudged, drummed, sang, and unveiled a beautiful land acknowledgement statement that now adorns the wall when you walk into our headquarters in Oakville, Ontario. The acknowledgement reads:

The headquarters of the Ian Martin Group is located on the traditional territory and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the New Credit. This sacred land is part of the Dish With One Spoon wampum covenant between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share, care for, and protect the lands and resources around the Great Lakes. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and Peoples, Europeans, and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship, and respect. We are grateful to work in the community on this territory and recognize our shared responsibility to honour the truth of the land and its treaties while strengthening our relationships with Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. 

For the past four months, a group of employees from Ian Martin embarked on a learning journey with Shannon Monk Payne to build our cultural confidence and awareness with Indigenous communities. Since much of our work is in the oil and gas sector, and since stewardship is a principal value of our organization, this initiative perfectly marries our triple bottom line of people, planet, profit. We have a duty to respect the original stewards of the land upon which we live and work; it is not only the first step towards reconciliation, but it is a step further along our  company mission to break down barriers to meaningful employment.

Land acknowledgements are becoming status quo in some organizations, but we are committed to going above and beyond the writing on the wall. Ian Martin has built a business culture steeped in open, honest, and meaningful engagement that seeks to change the way business is done. As such, we want to go beyond simply unveiling these words and having them rest on our walls. We want to live through these words with an enlivened commitment to engage meaningfully with Indigenous nations to foster mutually beneficial partnerships based on trust, accountability, and respect.

To realize this commitment, we have accompanied this land acknowledgement with a series of internal and external action plans to break down barriers Indigenous peoples face and join forces with our local Indigenous communities to realize more meaningful employment for more people. Ian Martin is also part of the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Engagement Committee, which works in partnership with Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation, as well as Canadian nuclear suppliers, to increase Indigenous representation and opportunity in Canadian business. We have committed to partnering with a local Indigenous organization as part of our newly developed Meaningful Work Foundation. We have established connections and will foster relationships with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, upon whose traditional lands our headquarters operates. We will be rolling out an Indigenous cultural training program to all our employees. We have established our own Indigenous engagement task force to hold ourselves accountable and to keep improving on our goals. Still, there is much work to be done.

May this mark the beginning of a new journey forward not only to open doors for more people in meaningful work, but to open more doors of understanding and meaning in our commitments to the communities with which we share this land.

Think Small: Could SMRs Be Nuclear Power’s Next Big Thing?

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SMRs, or small modular reactors, have been creating buzz in the nuclear industry for some time now.  That buzz got noticeably louder in 2017 when Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, set the ambitious goal of establishing an SMR on its Chalk River site by 2026.

What is an SMR?

SMR stands for small modular reactor. An SMR is significantly smaller than a conventional nuclear reactor, with output ranging up to 300 megawatts. As a comparison, Canada’s largest nuclear power plant, Ontario’s Bruce Power plant, produces 6,400 megawatts of energy at its peak. SMRs can be manufactured off-site and shipped to the reactor site fully constructed.

There are a variety of different types of SMRs under development. The main differentiator is the type of fuel or coolant they use. The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ recent Request for Expressions of Interest drew submissions from across the globe for a variety of proposed technologies, including:

  • Pressurized Water-cooled Reactors
  • High-temperature Gas-cooled Reactors
  • Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors
  • Gas-cooled Fast Reactors
  • Molten Salt Reactors
  • Fusion Reactors

One example of SMR technology is Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR). The company expects its first IMSR power plants to be operational at some point in the 2020s and capable of providing 190 MW of power and 400 MW of heat that is virtually free of carbon emissions. Terrestrial Energy’s reactor has successfully completed the first phase of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s pre-licensing vendor design review, marking the first time an advanced reactor has achieved this milestone.

“Small modular reactors have great potential as an emerging technology that could supply low-carbon energy for a range of users, including remote communities, mining operations and the oil and gas industry.”

Jim Carr, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources

Canada is not alone in its belief that SMRs could be a key strategy in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The United States, Russia, France, and China are also very interested in the technology.

What are the benefits of SMRs over traditional nuclear reactors?

Many of the advantages that SMRs could offer over large-scale nuclear reactors are related to the fact that they can be purchased and constructed in a modular fashion. This reduces up-front capital costs, makes for simpler plants, and can reduce labour requirements. It also makes it easier and more affordable to scale up a site with additional modules over time as energy demand increases.

The fact that SMRs have a smaller energy output also makes them a more suitable solution for locations with lower power requirements. This could be particularly promising for northern and remote communities and large mines where SMRs could replace dirty and expensive diesel generators.

SMR developers also suggest that the technology is safer than its larger counterparts, as the modular units house less radioactive material in their core, meaning less energy is potentially released in the event of an accident. SMRs can also be installed beneath the ground, making them less vulnerable to hazards such as extreme weather or sabotage.

Another advantage of SMRs is the fact that their capability extends beyond energy production. SMRs could also be used in applications for district heating, co-generation, energy storage, desalination, and hydrogen production.

Adoption of SMR technology could create an exciting next chapter for nuclear energy in Canada and across the globe. Even at moderate deployment levels, research suggests that the economic impact could be significant. One 2010 U.S. study estimated that a prototypical 100 MW SMR costing $500 million to manufacture and install would create nearly 7,000 jobs, including high-paying factory, construction, and operating jobs.

If you are job seeker interested in opportunities within the nuclear sector, review our current power and nuclear opportunities. If you are currently looking for technical talent with specific nuclear experience, connect with one of our experienced recruiting experts.

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What Can an Engineering Staffing Agency Really Do for Me?

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The hiring process is an opportunity for the best hiring managers to shine at what they do best. Whether you need a short-term employee to finish off an important project or want to enlist a permanent, full-time engineer, you’ll still face plenty of obstacles before you find the perfect fit for your organization. It’s difficult enough to find the right technical workers, but hiring them before other companies scoop them up can seem impossible. 

If you’re in need of a staffing boost, you should consult an engineering recruitment agency. These firms have connections and industry knowledge that help them interact with the best talent in your industry. As a result, they can be invaluable resources during your recruitment process. 

Still, many hiring managers refuse to work with these companies out of principle. They believe they should be able to recruit new professionals on their own. Unfortunately, this misguided conviction usually results in longer hiring processes and more expenditure. Read on to find out how an engineering staffing agency can help you avoid these pitfalls.

It Helps You Find More Versatile Engineers

Versatility is valuable in today’s engineering industry. A technical worker with a limited skillset can be a liability in a project-based environment. You need a professional with a breadth of knowledge who can adapt to new challenges with ease. Unfortunately, finding these candidates on your own isn’t an easy feat. 

The task gets easier when you work with an engineering staffing agency. These firms often have connections with professionals who have performed contract work with a variety of firms. As a result, they possess the broad knowledge you need to complete a variety of tasks. You can either hire these workers on full-time, or simply sign them to short-term contracts.

It Helps You Prioritize the Right Traits

Hiring managers may know the qualifications a certain role requires, but what about the temperament? For example, engineers can’t afford to be uncommunicative or withdrawn if they work with a team of other technical workers. You need to gauge whether a candidate will fit well within their required role, and that’s not something you can glean from a resume and a few interviews.

Engineering staffing agencies help hire hundreds of technical workers every year. Their professionals know how to read candidates’ characteristics, and they can predict whether they have the necessary soft skills for a role. This can help you find employees who are natural fits with your organization.

It Connects You with Top Talent

Sometimes, hiring managers miss opportunities to set themselves up for success. They want to find the best candidates for a given position, but then they only use job postings and advertisements to publicize their vacancy. Unfortunately, the best engineers are usually gainfully employed, so they don’t actively scour these resources.

You need to find a way to reach these passive candidates if you want your hiring efforts to succeed. An engineering staffing agency can help you. These firms network extensively with technical workers in a range of industries. As a result, they’re usually connected with some of the brightest talent in your field. The right recruiter can put you in touch with these professionals, which will help you hire more prestigious personnel.

It Speeds up Your Hiring Process

A slow hiring process benefits no one: delays create excessive expenditures for hiring managers, and they frustrate potential candidates. Engineering staffing agencies understand this problem. They work hard to help their clients minimize hiring time. As a result, engineering companies can save a substantial amount of money if they work with a recruiter.

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What You Need to Know about Current Engineering Demographics

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If you’re responsible for hiring engineers, you need to keep up with demographics in the industry. When you’re aware of the demographics, you can recruit the engineers you need more easily. Here’s what you need to know about some of the current engineering demographics in Canada.

Engineers Are Retiring en Masse

As you may have heard, Canada’s population is greying. There are now more seniors than children in the country, and that’s a problem for hiring managers in many sectors. As the population gets older, the average age of people in the engineering field increases. As time goes on, more and more engineers will retire. You’ll need to scramble to replace your highly talented engineers as they retire.

In Canada, engineers are typically between 30 and 55 years old, though this varies based on the field and the province. Civil engineers, for example, have a higher average age in Canada. In British Columbia, these engineers are an average of 50 years old, while in Manitoba, they’re an average of 48 years old. In Ontario, civil engineers are a comparatively youthful 42 years old.

Engineering managers are essential for your operations, but they have a high average age, too. In Ontario, engineering managers are an average of 49 years old, while they’re 48 years old in British Columbia. The youngest engineering managers are found in Newfoundland and Labrador, but they’re still 45 years old. The average age of engineering managers is expected to increase in all provinces over the next ten years. By 2025, they’ll be an average of 49 to 50 years old, depending on the province.

Demand for Engineers Will Outstrip Supply

Many engineers will be retiring in the coming years, but there aren’t enough younger engineers to replace them. In the next decade, Canada will be short 100,000 engineers. Canadian universities are trying to keep up. In 2015, there were 81,287 engineering students enrolled in undergraduate programs. That’s an increase of 32 percent from 2010.

Still, there won’t be enough engineers to go around. Companies will need to work even harder to recruit top engineers. To attract top talent, you may need to promise higher salaries or more diversified benefits. Or, you may need to offer a culture of career advancement to entice new engineers to choose your company over your competitors.

Some Skills Will Be Hard to Find

By the time the members of your engineering team retire, they’ll have accumulated many skills. These skills were learned through years of on-the-job experience. When these professionals retire, you may have trouble finding engineers with those same skillsets. While young engineers are qualified to start work after receiving their university degrees, it’s impossible for them to have all the experience retirees have. Of course, they’ll gain the experience and skills over the course of their careers, but that doesn’t help hiring managers now.

To find the specialized skills you need, you may have to widen your search for engineering candidates. This could include turning to candidates from other provinces or even other countries. If you’re used to recruiting locally, having to widen your search can be a big change. The methods you currently use to find engineers, like asking for referrals or going to local networking events, may not work as well.

To gain access to a wider network of candidates, consider turning to an engineering recruiting agency. Recruiters work tirelessly to find talented engineers, and they can find professionals you can’t. For example, they could have a network of engineers from across Canada, while you’re more limited to your local area. With this larger network, it’s easier for recruiters to locate engineers with hard-to-find skills.

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Overwhelmed by Recruiting Engineers? Follow These 5 Tips

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Do you wish you had a guide to hiring engineers? In this competitive market, recruiting engineers can be challenging. The best engineers are fielding offers from multiple companies, and companies need to compete to hire top talent.

How can you attract talented engineers to your team while taking the stress out of the recruitment process? Here are five tips for recruiting engineers.

1. Encourage Employee Referrals

If you don’t already have one, start an employee referral program. Your current employees probably know other people in the engineering field. They can refer talented candidates to your company. Employee referrals give you access to better candidates. This is because your employees are familiar with the company and know what types of people would succeed on the team.

To encourage your employees to refer candidates, offer incentives. Incentives don’t have to be financial, though they can be. Publicly recognizing employee referrals or offering positive feedback can also motivate employees to make good referrals.

2. Advertise Your Company Culture

Engineers are in high demand in the labour market, so they can afford to be picky. They consider factors other than salary and benefits, like company culture. Company culture refers to the environment in the workplace, which includes the company’s values and practices.

To attract engineers to your company, advertise its culture. When you write job postings, include a few specific points about the culture you’ve created in your workplace. Your current employees can also help. Employees will tell people they know about the culture, and their comments may attract candidates who find the culture appealing.

3. Write Clear Job Postings

To attract top talent, companies need to write clear job postings. If your job postings don’t clearly communicate what the job is and what the expectations are, you’ll have trouble attracting good candidates. Poor candidates may misunderstand the posting and send an application. Good candidates may not want to waste time applying for a job they may not be interested in.

Postings should list all the essential functions the engineer will need to perform. Clearly list skills candidates should have, and specify whether each skill is mandatory or just preferred. Give details about the company culture. Don’t forget to mention whether the job is part time or full time, and whether or not the position is permanent.

4. Have a Long-Term Recruiting Strategy

Do you only think about hiring when you have an immediate need for new engineers? This approach can make it harder to find the top talent you need. Your hiring timelines won’t always match up with the timelines of top candidates. In engineering fields, candidates may want to finish up their current projects before they move to a new job. They can’t always give two weeks’ notice and move on, like candidates in other fields can.

Instead, try to play the long game. If you’re always on the hunt for new talent, you can build a network of candidates you’d like to hire. Those people may not be immediately available, but if you stay in contact, they may be available when you have a hiring need.

5. Work with a Recruiter

Recruiting engineers can be challenging, and you might decide you don’t have time to do it yourself. Or, you might just not want to deal with the hassle of recruitment. In these situations, consider partnering with a recruiter to get the engineering staff you need. Using a recruiter can save you both time and stress.

Recruiters who specialize in engineering fields can make hiring easy. They network constantly to find good engineers, so you don’t have to. They also maintain databases of engineering workers, so they can quickly find talented people to join your team.

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The Complete Guide to Staffing in the Engineering Industry

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Hiring engineers is notoriously difficult. You need to find professionals with the right qualifications and skills for your projects. If you choose someone whose skills are too niche or underdeveloped, you’ll need to spend much more money to train or replace them. That’s why it’s so important for you to hire well. 

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What Are the Benefits of Partnering with Engineering Recruiters?

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It takes a lot of work to recruit the right engineers. In general, technical projects require highly qualified workers who specialize in the right fields. Yet hiring managers can’t hire based on qualifications alone. Plenty of other factors will influence whether a new engineer will fit in at a company. 

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5 Things I Wish I Knew about Engineering Recruitment Agencies

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Hiring engineers is a lot like a boxing match—in both cases, your time is limited, you’re under a lot of pressure to come out on top, and if you’re not careful, you may end up getting knocked out. It’s easy to see why anyone would need a guide to navigate these circumstances.

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How to Take the Stress out of Recruiting Engineers

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Behind every great engineer is a talented hiring manager. These recruitment experts understand what their companies need and find the professionals who can deliver. Both the company and the individual flourish as a result.

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4 Things You Likely Don’t Know about Engineering Recruitment Agencies

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Finding the right engineer is no walk in the park. You need to locate candidates that match your needs. Often, these professionals must possess very specific technical abilities, which leaves you with very little room for compromise. You might be able to find a skilled worker from a related field, but it’s unlikely that the worker will be able to offer the level of quality you require.

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Hiring Engineers Shouldn’t Be as Difficult as Engineering

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When people want to say that a task shouldn’t be as difficult as it is, they often exclaim, “it’s not rocket science!” Perhaps it would be more fitting if they said, “it’s not engineering.” This profession requires employees to attain distinctive skills and a complex working knowledge so they can develop new products for a variety of applications and industries. As a result, it can be difficult to find engineers who are qualified to fill these roles.

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5 Interesting Careers in Engineering

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The world we know wouldn’t exist if not for engineers. These technical professionals design the technologies that we use every day. From the roadways that guide people to work to the tools they use when they get there and the programs they use in their leisure time, almost every modern innovation is the result of an engineer’s work.

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3 Things You Didn’t Know about Engineering Recruitment Agencies

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A prolonged hiring process doesn’t benefit anyone. Candidates have to walk on eggshells waiting for your call, and many will take other jobs if they don’t hear from you quickly. Your company will also lose money and may even suffer from reduced productivity until you’re fully staffed again, which can put substantial pressure on hiring managers. This is why many turn to recruitment agencies to speed up the process.

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What Can I Gain from Partnering with Engineering Recruiters?

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Vision can only take you so far. The saying goes that the best laid plans of mice and men can often go awry, and that’s especially true when you find the wrong people to carry out those plans. It only takes one wrong move to ruin everything. Your team can have the knowledge and enthusiasm to excel at a project, but if it isn’t staffed properly, it will turn in work late and over budget.

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