"I've got colleagues running around Florida trying to find people to take their knowledge before they die," says Peter Waggitt, a uranium production consultant to the IAEA. "Most of the senior experts in uranium mining are pushing 50 and some of the best are over 70." _SwissInfo

The average university technician is aged over 40 and almost a third are over 50 years old, according to their trade union, Amicus Unite. It also warns that the training schemes that drew that generation of technicians into the sector have largely withered.



A report for the Higher Education Funding Council for England by consultancy Evidence Ltd found a 22 per cent drop in the number of technicians in engineering between the 1996 and 2001 research assessment exercises, almost a 23 per cent decline in biological sciences technicians and 16 and 17 per cent decreases in technicians for physical sciences and pre-clinical technicians.



"People are not coming into the sector as there is no development for them, and we are losing people because of the demographic time bomb," said Matt Levi, manager of the Leadership Foundation's Heated project, which was set up to research the problem. _TimesHE

French utility EDF says around 50 percent of employees in its nuclear branch will retire by 2015 and that its workers are on average 43-44 years old.



In the United States, the peak age of workers in the nuclear sector is 48-52 while Britain estimates that up to two-thirds of its top-tier nuclear managers will retire by 2025. Worldwide, the nuclear industry employs around 250,000 people. Many first-generation nuclear staff have just retired or will do so in the next few years, taking with them skills and knowledge of complex, costly projects -- just as the nuclear renaissance gets underway.



Sometimes referred to as a "silver tsunami", the departure of the first generation of nuclear workers is a big concern for the IAEA, which promotes civilian nuclear technology alongside its role as atomic watchdog. Many countries and private firms have new units planned or under construction, the agency said in a September report for a conference of its 151 member states. "(They) are facing shortages of experienced personnel and loss of knowledge as they look to replace retiring staff for their existing fleet while at the same time staffing new projects."



Finnish nuclear regulator Stuk says the lack of skilled workers is at least partly to blame for the delays at Olkiluoto. So many experienced nuclear manufacturers have left the business that project managers have been forced to look for subcontractors who then need nuclear training, the regulator said in a presentation in August. Building the next generation of power plants will be demanding, "because much of the earlier experience and resources have been lost from the nuclear industry." _SwissInfo

It is not too surprising when third world countries such as South Africa dismally fail to meet their electric power demands . Even though South Africa is the wealthiest and most advanced nation in SubSaharan Africa, it must still struggle with an average population IQ of only 72. More and more high IQ market dominant minorities in business, technology, and the professions are being driven from South Africa by sky-rocketing crime rates and other forms of rapid descent into third worldism.It may come as a surprise to find that some of the same problems of human capital shortages are beginning to crop up in the advanced world.Such problems are appearing in technology sectors all over the developed world. Europeans, S. Koreans, Japanese, Russians, and residents of the Anglosphere are failing to have children to replace themselves. Of the few children they have, not enough are going into technical professions that will be badly needed in the near future. One of the technology sectors which needs to grow the fastest, is the nuclear power sector. And that -- along with the power and energy industry in general -- is where some of the worst losses of human capital are occurring.As European populations fall from Europe to North America to Oceania, few members of many replacement populations possess the native talent to be trained in highly technical occupations which are crucial for an advancing future. Mexican immigrants to the US have an average IQ no higher than 90, shifting the occupational bell curve significantly to the left -- with many technical and scientific professions out of reach for most of the newcomers. Immigrants to Europe from North Africa and the Middle East have average IQs of around 85, a full standard deviation below native European populations. Fewer than 5% of these will be qualified for highly technical areas of study. The manpower shortages will only get worse.Leaders and policy makers in the US, the EU, and elsewhere need to learn that low-IQ immigrants will quickly become a drag on their economies, and provide very few in the way of qualified high tech professionals. Affirmative action can attempt to force these unqualified immigrants into the technical professions, but a lowering of standards will be the result. There lies the Idiocracy and collapse.It is not for advanced nations to tell third world nations how large their populations can grow. But it is the job of advanced nations to take care of their own societies, and to make sure that they maintain the technological skills and standards which keep their citizens safe, warm, and healthy.The only shortage humans are facing that is of any significance is the shortage of human ingenuity. If we allow human ingenuity to die out due to postmodern groupthink and political correctness, then certainly everything else that we need will come in short supply. It is up to those who are still awake to make sure that that does not happen.

Labels: peak manpower