5 ms·

> no nuclear plant that has submitted an application since the formation of the NRC in 1975 has yet commenced operation. Wait, what? I knew that reactor constr

> no nuclear plant that has submitted an application since the formation of the NRC in 1975 has yet commenced operation. Wait, what? I knew that reactor construction stopped around then. I hear it alluded to often enough, e.g. "US grid could have been 100% low-CO2 power by now if we had just kept up the pace of deploying nuclear instead of stopping in the 80s." Still, I thought the story was a messy mix of regulations hitting at the same time as city growth was topping off and interest rates were skyrocketing. If the NRC just says "no" to everything, that's a big deal. Is there more to the story?

barney54 5y ago
No worries. That’s only 47 years. Not too long in terms of new energy technologies.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Below your quote, it says that NuScale has gotten approval. It’s not that nobody has gotten approved, it’s that nobody has commenced operation.
- donttrustatoms 5y ago
  NuScale will, after about 15 years of engagement, receive a design certification later in 2022. After that- they will still need to apply with a combined license application like Oklo did.
philipkglass 5y ago
The NRC said "yes" to 4 new AP1000 reactors in Georgia and South Carolina more than 10 years ago. They were all supposed to be completed years ago. The South Carolina project was abandoned after cost and schedule blowouts. The Georgia project continues to chug forward despite similar cost and schedule blowouts. Here's a brief synopsis of the Georgia project: On August 26, 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued an Early Site Permit and a Limited Work Authorization. Limited construction at the new reactor sites began, with Unit 3 then expected to be operational in 2016, followed by Unit 4 in 2017, pending final issuance of the Combined Construction and Operating License by the NRC. These dates have since slipped to 2022 and 2023 for Units 3 and 4, respectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant#Units_3_and_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Thanks for the context! Yeah, that syncs up better with my intuition: disasters plus bad economic timing killed the industry in the 80s and it hasn't gotten back on its feet because big projects are hard enough with momentum and the industry has to start over from zero. Here's hoping they can get back on their feet!
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Westinghouse Electric Company (the reactor manufacturer) took over construction management in 2015 after the first constructor botched schedules and costs. Westinghouse subcontracted to Fluor. In 2016, adding Bechtel. In 2017, Westinghouse declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy from construction losses, and the final owner Southern Company reselects Bechtel as the construction manager. Current operational date looks like 3Q 2022, and on track. tl;dr - Don't allow megaproject management experience to atrophy. The US military learned this (see: how the Navy builds carriers and nuclear subs). Have a prime and a secondary. Rotate. And, for god's sake keep the pipeline full. Skills atrophy and knowledge is forgotten.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  The South Carolina reactors were abandoned. Vogtle looks on track to spin up this year. Vogtle was held up a long time because the index reactor of the type in China was held up while the factories were taking a while to figure out how to make the parts. In so far as a water reactor could be practical (awful economics of the steam turbine and steam generators) the AP1000 looks pretty good.
- ellyagg 5y ago
  Right, but one interpreation of this fact is that they set the bar for compliance too high, so it's almost impossible to finish a reactor in a financially feasible way. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way for our society to overcome the apparent moral high ground that nuclear skpetics hold. Nuclear disastors are too good at capturing the imagination and all a skeptic has to say is "you can never be too safe." Meanwhile, we claim that our reliance on fossil fuels is a disastor, but if it's not enough of a disastor to compel us to make nuclear regulatorily viable, how much of a disaster can it really be?
petermcneeley 5y ago
Sophons at work.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Maybe the sophons should have paid more attention to Chinese literature?
lvs 5y ago
You're misreading the claim. It's not that they have not given any approvals, it's that those reactors did not go on to reach operating status. That means these are more likely to be business problems, not regulator problems.
- richk449 5y ago
  I don't think it makes sense to talk about the business of building nuclear reactors as something separate from regulator problems. The two are very tightly intertwined. Four AP1000s are operating in China right now, demonstrating that under different regulatory regimes, the plants can be built.
  - microtherion 5y ago
    The question then, is whether a Chinese regulatory regime (or any other sort of Chinese regime) is something the US should aspire to emulate.
    - richk449 5y ago
      I don’t see that as a useful question at all. The fact that China has working AP1000 reactors is one piece of circumstantial evidence that regulatory regime has an effect on the ability to build nuclear reactors in a timely way. If you think that the regulatory regime plays a role, then there are three obvious questions to ask: (1) is our current regulatory regime Pareto optimal on a safety versus build time plot? I.e. are there changes that we could make which improve build time without negatively affecting safety? (2) should we consider moves along the Pareto front? I.e. should we trade some safety for some construction speed? Or vice versa? (3) are there things that we can learn from other regulatory approaches that would help us address question 1 or 2? Your proposed question fits under here, but it should be much broader than the way you posed it.
renewiltord 5y ago
Each of the words there happens to be significant. - plant: plants that had reactors first approved earlier have since had reactors approved that will commence operation soon (Vogtle is the classic) - commenced operation: designs exist that have been approved but haven't commenced operation One could argue that the NRC only approves commercially unviable designs or something like that, I suppose. Or that we have just as many plants as we need and we just need more reactors. Or that the general stance of the public has shifted away from nuke.
pfdietz 5y ago
What stopped the first nuclear buildout in the US was a combination of things. One is that the 7%/year growth in electricity demand suddenly moderated. This caught some utilities by surprise; if they had many NPPs in process they were in for pain (WPPSS went bankrupt). Another is the passage of PURPA in 1978, which started to open the grids to non-utility power. Cogeneration started to take off then. Any industrial activity that needed heat could now drive a combustion turbine and sell some power at low marginal cost, using the waste heat for their need. There were also some cogeneration-in-name-only non-utility plants that were mostly just to make power. All this made large, new, expensive nuclear plants difficult to justify. TMI was just the icing on the cake. The more recent "nuclear renaissance" died because natural gas become very cheap (and a combined cycle NG power plant costs $1/W to build; a factor of 10 cheaper than a nuclear plant) and because nuclear construction was more expensive than promised (bye, Westinghouse).
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  To be fair natural gas is only cheap because the cost to the environment isn't factored in. The cost of nuclear power is pennies when compared to the decimation global warming will bring to the human race.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Even so, natural gas in the US is so cheap that the CO2 charge that would be needed for new nuclear to compete would be very high, so high that very large CO2 emission reduction would occur elsewhere first. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4088 https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4088 Quote: “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.
topspin 5y ago
> If the NRC just says "no" to everything, that's a big deal. Is there more to the story? The NRC doesn't say "no" to everything; AP-600/1000 designs were approved, an SMR design has been approved. The NRC is entirely willing to approve competent design efforts. The most candid explanation of the attitude of the NRC was offered by former chairman Dale Klien and his "no bozos" baloney test; there is no room in nuclear power for hucksters and the NRC won't indulge them. This rejection is evidence that this mentality still prevails; failure to respond to NRC questions about reactor design in a timely manner is bozoery and this is the correct outcome. The Oklo proposal isn't some generational variant on PWRs. They are proposing a fast breeder. You can't go to the NRC with a fast breeder application on anything less than a multi-billion dollar R&D operation designed to positively thrill the NRC with actually epic levels of competence and preparation and expect to be approved, and that is exactly how it should be.
kevinstubbs 5y ago
I was confused by the wording of that as well! I guess it would have helped if they put "yet" at the end of the sentence.
Symmetry 5y ago
Reminds me of that FDA reviewer who refused to approve any drugs on the grounds that risk couldn't be completely eliminated.
- WithinReason 5y ago
  A common solution to the Trolley Problem.
- vpribish 5y ago
  got a link?
WithinReason 5y ago
See this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Nuclear_Power_Reactors_1955-2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... Edit: Apparently they approved NuScale's Small Modular Reactors: NuScale spent over $500 million and more than 2 million labor hours to compile the information needed for its design certification application.
keewee7 5y ago
Anti-nuclear lobbyists and demagogues have infiltrated the regulatory bodies in the US and Europe.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  The NRC has approved several designs over the years. It's always a good idea to doublecheck what people say, even if it confirms your bias.

barney54 5y ago

No worries. That’s only 47 years. Not too long in terms of new energy technologies.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

Below your quote, it says that NuScale has gotten approval. It’s not that nobody has gotten approved, it’s that nobody has commenced operation.

donttrustatoms 5y ago
NuScale will, after about 15 years of engagement, receive a design certification later in 2022. After that- they will still need to apply with a combined license application like Oklo did.

philipkglass 5y ago

The NRC said "yes" to 4 new AP1000 reactors in Georgia and South Carolina more than 10 years ago. They were all supposed to be completed years ago. The South Carolina project was abandoned after cost and schedule blowouts. The Georgia project continues to chug forward despite similar cost and schedule blowouts. Here's a brief synopsis of the Georgia project: On August 26, 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued an Early Site Permit and a Limited Work Authorization. Limited construction at the new reactor sites began, with Unit 3 then expected to be operational in 2016, followed by Unit 4 in 2017, pending final issuance of the Combined Construction and Operating License by the NRC. These dates have since slipped to 2022 and 2023 for Units 3 and 4, respectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant#Units_3_and_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...

jjoonathan 5y ago
Thanks for the context! Yeah, that syncs up better with my intuition: disasters plus bad economic timing killed the industry in the 80s and it hasn't gotten back on its feet because big projects are hard enough with momentum and the industry has to start over from zero. Here's hoping they can get back on their feet!
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Westinghouse Electric Company (the reactor manufacturer) took over construction management in 2015 after the first constructor botched schedules and costs. Westinghouse subcontracted to Fluor. In 2016, adding Bechtel. In 2017, Westinghouse declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy from construction losses, and the final owner Southern Company reselects Bechtel as the construction manager. Current operational date looks like 3Q 2022, and on track. tl;dr - Don't allow megaproject management experience to atrophy. The US military learned this (see: how the Navy builds carriers and nuclear subs). Have a prime and a secondary. Rotate. And, for god's sake keep the pipeline full. Skills atrophy and knowledge is forgotten.
PaulHoule 5y ago
The South Carolina reactors were abandoned. Vogtle looks on track to spin up this year. Vogtle was held up a long time because the index reactor of the type in China was held up while the factories were taking a while to figure out how to make the parts. In so far as a water reactor could be practical (awful economics of the steam turbine and steam generators) the AP1000 looks pretty good.
ellyagg 5y ago
Right, but one interpreation of this fact is that they set the bar for compliance too high, so it's almost impossible to finish a reactor in a financially feasible way. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way for our society to overcome the apparent moral high ground that nuclear skpetics hold. Nuclear disastors are too good at capturing the imagination and all a skeptic has to say is "you can never be too safe." Meanwhile, we claim that our reliance on fossil fuels is a disastor, but if it's not enough of a disastor to compel us to make nuclear regulatorily viable, how much of a disaster can it really be?

petermcneeley 5y ago

Sophons at work.

jessaustin 5y ago
Maybe the sophons should have paid more attention to Chinese literature?

lvs 5y ago

You're misreading the claim. It's not that they have not given any approvals, it's that those reactors did not go on to reach operating status. That means these are more likely to be business problems, not regulator problems.

richk449 5y ago
I don't think it makes sense to talk about the business of building nuclear reactors as something separate from regulator problems. The two are very tightly intertwined. Four AP1000s are operating in China right now, demonstrating that under different regulatory regimes, the plants can be built.
- microtherion 5y ago
  The question then, is whether a Chinese regulatory regime (or any other sort of Chinese regime) is something the US should aspire to emulate.
  - richk449 5y ago
    I don’t see that as a useful question at all. The fact that China has working AP1000 reactors is one piece of circumstantial evidence that regulatory regime has an effect on the ability to build nuclear reactors in a timely way. If you think that the regulatory regime plays a role, then there are three obvious questions to ask: (1) is our current regulatory regime Pareto optimal on a safety versus build time plot? I.e. are there changes that we could make which improve build time without negatively affecting safety? (2) should we consider moves along the Pareto front? I.e. should we trade some safety for some construction speed? Or vice versa? (3) are there things that we can learn from other regulatory approaches that would help us address question 1 or 2? Your proposed question fits under here, but it should be much broader than the way you posed it.

renewiltord 5y ago

Each of the words there happens to be significant. - plant: plants that had reactors first approved earlier have since had reactors approved that will commence operation soon (Vogtle is the classic) - commenced operation: designs exist that have been approved but haven't commenced operation One could argue that the NRC only approves commercially unviable designs or something like that, I suppose. Or that we have just as many plants as we need and we just need more reactors. Or that the general stance of the public has shifted away from nuke.

pfdietz 5y ago

What stopped the first nuclear buildout in the US was a combination of things. One is that the 7%/year growth in electricity demand suddenly moderated. This caught some utilities by surprise; if they had many NPPs in process they were in for pain (WPPSS went bankrupt). Another is the passage of PURPA in 1978, which started to open the grids to non-utility power. Cogeneration started to take off then. Any industrial activity that needed heat could now drive a combustion turbine and sell some power at low marginal cost, using the waste heat for their need. There were also some cogeneration-in-name-only non-utility plants that were mostly just to make power. All this made large, new, expensive nuclear plants difficult to justify. TMI was just the icing on the cake. The more recent "nuclear renaissance" died because natural gas become very cheap (and a combined cycle NG power plant costs $1/W to build; a factor of 10 cheaper than a nuclear plant) and because nuclear construction was more expensive than promised (bye, Westinghouse).

stjohnswarts 5y ago
To be fair natural gas is only cheap because the cost to the environment isn't factored in. The cost of nuclear power is pennies when compared to the decimation global warming will bring to the human race.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Even so, natural gas in the US is so cheap that the CO2 charge that would be needed for new nuclear to compete would be very high, so high that very large CO2 emission reduction would occur elsewhere first. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4088 https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4088 Quote: “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.

topspin 5y ago

> If the NRC just says "no" to everything, that's a big deal. Is there more to the story? The NRC doesn't say "no" to everything; AP-600/1000 designs were approved, an SMR design has been approved. The NRC is entirely willing to approve competent design efforts. The most candid explanation of the attitude of the NRC was offered by former chairman Dale Klien and his "no bozos" baloney test; there is no room in nuclear power for hucksters and the NRC won't indulge them. This rejection is evidence that this mentality still prevails; failure to respond to NRC questions about reactor design in a timely manner is bozoery and this is the correct outcome. The Oklo proposal isn't some generational variant on PWRs. They are proposing a fast breeder. You can't go to the NRC with a fast breeder application on anything less than a multi-billion dollar R&D operation designed to positively thrill the NRC with actually epic levels of competence and preparation and expect to be approved, and that is exactly how it should be.

kevinstubbs 5y ago

I was confused by the wording of that as well! I guess it would have helped if they put "yet" at the end of the sentence.

Symmetry 5y ago

Reminds me of that FDA reviewer who refused to approve any drugs on the grounds that risk couldn't be completely eliminated.

WithinReason 5y ago
A common solution to the Trolley Problem.
vpribish 5y ago
got a link?

WithinReason 5y ago

See this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:US_Nuclear_Power_Reactors_1955-2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... Edit: Apparently they approved NuScale's Small Modular Reactors: NuScale spent over $500 million and more than 2 million labor hours to compile the information needed for its design certification application.

keewee7 5y ago

Anti-nuclear lobbyists and demagogues have infiltrated the regulatory bodies in the US and Europe.

cinntaile 5y ago
The NRC has approved several designs over the years. It's always a good idea to doublecheck what people say, even if it confirms your bias.