‘Particularly if you’re doing laparoscopic work,’ he says, ‘you might need to dim the light a bit to give the surgeon a better view of the images, so in that way it works very well.’ He also speaks about how lucky he feels to have windows in some of the theatres.
When people in the industry talk about cutting-edge construction technologies, these are usually buzzwords about things that are not widely in use, generally misunderstood and unlikely ever to deliver the advertised benefits – because they’re not appropriate solutions and our industry is too far from ready.It’s good that people talk about construction tech – that creates an environment broadly open to tech – but that’s not the same as being able to actually use it..
In our team, we only ever apply technology when it is appropriate to the problem at hand.We have never, for example, had to use a Machine Learning solution, because we’ve never had a problem that it’s been the right technology for..Nor do we think that the future of robotics in construction is in building robots to do jobs that we, or they, shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
Technology is not fairy dust that you sprinkle onto a problem to sort it out.You need to assess the entire process and engage actively with technology to see where – or whether – it will add value.
You also have to be open to the very real possibility that its use may fundamentally alter that process for the better.As an industry, we have to get better at creating and sharing data, information and learning.
At the moment, we just don’t do that well enough.The modular size of small nuclear is critical.
Due to the need for power resilience, sites would need to have some arrangement of N+1 power units – if each unit is too large then the investment costs would be simply too high.The modularity of SMRs and suitability to support DC loads will be important.. Licencing and regulation of nuclear power.
Small modular reactors are looking to address some of the licensing and regulation issues with repeatable modular design.. Based upon conversations and work with the small nuclear development ecosystem, there was a stated view that an industrialised modular nuclear offering is 20 years in the future.This view is in stark contrast to some who believe we will see offerings in three to five years.