FUSION AND DIGITAL ENDEAVOURS | SPECIAL REPORT


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The JET buildings Photo credit: EUROFusion


transport, buildings, etc. For him that is a parallel to complex nuclear sites and he says, “I think we will get to the point where we will have very detailed digital replicas of a whole plant.


“Linking this back to hazards, I firmly believe a fusion power plant will have to be operated remotely, in which case the digital model is important. You still have people doing the operation but it will be hands off and with lots of planning before you use the real tools.” That fits with some of the operating models for small modular reactors and already it is used to manage other assets in the power system, such as battery arrays, wind and solar farms, or complex mixes of several assets. Again, there is experience to be exchanged with other sectors. Buckingham says, “UKRI had a programme called Robots for a Safer World, targeting industries where it makes more sense to have the people remote. The areas were offshore, space, mining and nuclear.” The outcomes include digital services that allow people


to be upskilled so they are using digital tools, either to complete a task or to learn it so that they can be more productive, safer and faster when they move into the real environment. “There are some parallels between nuclear workers and miners. They are both going into hazardous environments where protective equipment is needed. If you can avoid sending people into hazardous places but you can still enable them to do the work then there are opportunities. To make the tools, to operate them, to plan how to use the tools work better – these are opportunities to disrupt the model,” says Buckingham. The digitally-enabled world will have to plan in much


more resilience to change. “All these digital tools will only get better and quite fast. You have to be a bit more adaptive and agile because the tools will change and offer new opportunities. You have to keep up – and plan an obsolescence strategy,” he says.


Surprisingly, one area where Buckingham thinks change will be less dramatic is in the effect of artificial intelligence. He says, “In regulated sectors we will use these tools as part of planning but then we will put them back in the control of people. All of our controls – law, regulations, insurance – are based on the behaviours of people. We have developed these checks and balances to get consistent performance and good behaviours.” He says the way to manage that is to use these new techniques to identify better ways of doing things. “Once this new knowledge is captured, it will then be used to improve existing processes and techniques”.


Social change As well as technical change, this digital and robotics-led model is also set to prompt societal changes – both broadly and within a nuclear industry that has in the past often been seen as a ‘closed shop’ for both staff and suppliers. Buckingham points out the opportunity to develop


specialist clusters. Another initiative, the Robotics and AI Collaboration (RAICo) includes NDA, Sellafield, the University of Manchester and UKAEA. It is based in the small town of Whitehaven in Cumbria close to Sellafield for proximity ease. Sellafield is the single largest employer in the area, but, as Buckingham says, “putting digital and AI jobs in Cumbria will create a cluster and give people increased reason to come and stay”. Equally, digital technologies allow for remote working, which provides an alternative for cluster members without having to leave the area. For specialists in future there may be more movement between the nuclear industry and other sectors, because of the similarity in digital-specific roles across industries. As Buckingham says, “Everyone thinks their industry is ‘special’ and it is nearly always not true. There are huge numbers of very creative humans all over the place and trying to tap into that creativity is very sensible”. ■


www.neimagazine.com | July 2023 | 21


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