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A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former chair of the NRC (not Jaczko). The reactor people sa

A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former chair of the NRC (not Jaczko). The reactor people said their main problem was that the NRC required near-complete blueprints before they would even look at a design. Getting to that point took several hundred million dollars. Then the NRC would give a flat yes or no. If no then you were out of business. That's a pretty difficult environment for investors. The reactor people said just breaking the process into phases would be a huge help. The NRC person was unsympathetic, said it wasn't the NRC's job to help develop nuclear technology, and was uninterested in climate change.

dv_dt 4y ago
Requiring blueprints would seem critical to actually being able to have a product to review for safety. Not only blueprints, but detailed material specs as well.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Nobody was asking for complete approval without blueprints. They just wanted an early indication along the lines of "sure, you're on the right track" or "don't waste your time, no way in hell we're approving anything like that." Or maybe "that sorta works but we would require X and Y," and then they could incorporate that into the design.
mateo1 4y ago
- JTBooth 4y ago
  It would be nice if, say, ten million dollars into the process of preparing blueprints, the agency could look over the prints and the plans for the remaining prints and say "yes it looks like you're on the right track, make sure the reactor wall you decide on isn't too heavy for those struts." In a much more precise way that probably costs a million bucks, of course. Regulatory intervention could happen at any point in the process. You could imagine an even worse world where the first inspection is after the plant is built, and changes are typically requested to the high level design.
  - mateo1 4y ago
    NRC is not a free consultancy group for postgrads who think they can build a nuclear reactor on their own.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      NRC's services don't necessarily need to be free. But they should be reasonable, both in fees, and in the process. They are a service run by government.
      - wrycoder 4y ago
        And it shows.
      - LegitShady 4y ago
        > They are a service They are not a service. They are a regulator. It's almost the opposite of a service.
        nine_k 4y ago
        Any governmental agency is formally in service of the public good. Are they doing a reasonable job of that?
        LegitShady 4y ago
        > in service of the public good. being in service of the public good is not offering a service. Their job is to regulate industry, not offer it a service. If you want a service you hire someone to fulfill it. The US government created the 'service' but not for industry, but for the regulation of industry. The 'service' isn't offered to industry for the good of industry. It's the opposite of a normal understanding of service. If you are regulated have no choice whether to take the service or not, and your say in their 'services' is extremely limited. Calling it a service is an activity in intentionally misleading what an organization like the NCR does. They are not a service. They are a regulator. You are intentionally conflating two disparate definitions of service ('they offer a service' vs 'they are in the service of') and really for no gain except to come up with your own mandate for an NCR that already has one, and doesn't care about your opinion because they receive their mandate from government and not from you and your intentionally misleading arguments.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  The issue is that the NRC requires this process even for subsequent versions of the same design. That's just nonsense, if it's a copy of an approved design this process is unnecessary.
  - webmaven 4y ago
    Which of course encourages subsequent designs to be substantially changed.
Spooky23 4y ago
It’s a political problem — congress is more interested in clean coal or fermenting grass. Federal civil servants are trained early that their opinions are irrelevant.
cycomanic 4y ago
So if I want to build a house I have to come to the building authority with blueprints and ask if that building design is OK. I can't just ask step by step: is it OK if I use these walls, these windows... And build up my house like that. Why would that be different for a nuclear regulatory body? Moreover, they are designing new reactor technology much more complex and less understood than a house. I imagine for safety assessments one would need to look at the whole design, just look at the example on cable trunks given in the article. I wonder what the startups would say if the agency would approve their first steps, but then disapprove the full blueprints, because even though the steps made sense the whole does not meet requirements. Or do they want guarantees?
- int0x2e 4y ago
  I think all they want is to use modern, iterative development principles. It's fine to have the final 'yes' take the full lump sum and a 'no' being a real possibility. What they want is to be able to get multiple opportunities to fail and get a 'no' earlier in the process, when the stakes are smaller. While your building analogy is nice, I'll propose a different one - pharmaceutical companies face a similar, lengthy, expensive regulatory process, but a new treatment doesn't just go from a single prototype to human trials - there are many steps, costing more and more as you get closer to certification, and each can block the entire thing. We need a similar path for new nuclear designs if we want to be able to live on this planet for long.

dv_dt 4y ago

Requiring blueprints would seem critical to actually being able to have a product to review for safety. Not only blueprints, but detailed material specs as well.

DennisP 4y ago
Nobody was asking for complete approval without blueprints. They just wanted an early indication along the lines of "sure, you're on the right track" or "don't waste your time, no way in hell we're approving anything like that." Or maybe "that sorta works but we would require X and Y," and then they could incorporate that into the design.

mateo1 4y ago

JTBooth 4y ago
It would be nice if, say, ten million dollars into the process of preparing blueprints, the agency could look over the prints and the plans for the remaining prints and say "yes it looks like you're on the right track, make sure the reactor wall you decide on isn't too heavy for those struts." In a much more precise way that probably costs a million bucks, of course. Regulatory intervention could happen at any point in the process. You could imagine an even worse world where the first inspection is after the plant is built, and changes are typically requested to the high level design.
- mateo1 4y ago
  NRC is not a free consultancy group for postgrads who think they can build a nuclear reactor on their own.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    NRC's services don't necessarily need to be free. But they should be reasonable, both in fees, and in the process. They are a service run by government.
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      And it shows.
    - LegitShady 4y ago
      > They are a service They are not a service. They are a regulator. It's almost the opposite of a service.
      - nine_k 4y ago
        Any governmental agency is formally in service of the public good. Are they doing a reasonable job of that?
        LegitShady 4y ago
        > in service of the public good. being in service of the public good is not offering a service. Their job is to regulate industry, not offer it a service. If you want a service you hire someone to fulfill it. The US government created the 'service' but not for industry, but for the regulation of industry. The 'service' isn't offered to industry for the good of industry. It's the opposite of a normal understanding of service. If you are regulated have no choice whether to take the service or not, and your say in their 'services' is extremely limited. Calling it a service is an activity in intentionally misleading what an organization like the NCR does. They are not a service. They are a regulator. You are intentionally conflating two disparate definitions of service ('they offer a service' vs 'they are in the service of') and really for no gain except to come up with your own mandate for an NCR that already has one, and doesn't care about your opinion because they receive their mandate from government and not from you and your intentionally misleading arguments.
Manuel_D 4y ago
The issue is that the NRC requires this process even for subsequent versions of the same design. That's just nonsense, if it's a copy of an approved design this process is unnecessary.
- webmaven 4y ago
  Which of course encourages subsequent designs to be substantially changed.

Spooky23 4y ago

It’s a political problem — congress is more interested in clean coal or fermenting grass. Federal civil servants are trained early that their opinions are irrelevant.

cycomanic 4y ago

So if I want to build a house I have to come to the building authority with blueprints and ask if that building design is OK. I can't just ask step by step: is it OK if I use these walls, these windows... And build up my house like that. Why would that be different for a nuclear regulatory body? Moreover, they are designing new reactor technology much more complex and less understood than a house. I imagine for safety assessments one would need to look at the whole design, just look at the example on cable trunks given in the article. I wonder what the startups would say if the agency would approve their first steps, but then disapprove the full blueprints, because even though the steps made sense the whole does not meet requirements. Or do they want guarantees?

int0x2e 4y ago
I think all they want is to use modern, iterative development principles. It's fine to have the final 'yes' take the full lump sum and a 'no' being a real possibility. What they want is to be able to get multiple opportunities to fail and get a 'no' earlier in the process, when the stakes are smaller. While your building analogy is nice, I'll propose a different one - pharmaceutical companies face a similar, lengthy, expensive regulatory process, but a new treatment doesn't just go from a single prototype to human trials - there are many steps, costing more and more as you get closer to certification, and each can block the entire thing. We need a similar path for new nuclear designs if we want to be able to live on this planet for long.