SPED – January 2012 - SPED in the UK & Ireland

UK SPED News

So far UK based contractors have been resistant to the benefits of SPED Membership.  We get a trickle of individuals taking the online course and speaking well of it, but nothing approaching a break through.

We are about to make a big push leading on 2 messages.  The first is the great reference to the course advantages by a North American contractor with strong British connections.

The second being the splitting, now taking place, of the Piper Boot Camp online course into 5 modules.  This allows sceptical UK participants to “suck it and see” for one third of the initial outlay.  This is a new and very attractive message.

UK Process News

I am struck by process research which bit by bit will make important processes more attractive.  One concerns the removal of toxins from tar sands.  The second improvements in de-salination halving the price of this increasingly vital resource.  And third improved methods of producing biodiesel from rape and soybean.  We will surely reach a tipping point of demand for piping engineers and designers in 2012, when both the skill and numbers of piping will be crucial.  Most current announcements of new contractor awards are from overseas sites, which probably means only the front-end engineering will be done in the UK.

Along these lines both competing designs for the next fleet of nuclear power station (let us hope it is indeed a fleet) have been given interim acceptance.  Regulators still have issues with both, but nothing severe enough not to keep showing the amber light.  I will wager that both the French and American sourced designs will get an order, thus delaying the date when benefits of scale begin to flow.  However the current UK operating fleet is French owned, so perhaps I will be wrong.