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I worked in commercial nuclear power for a while, including a stint at three mile island. The regulatory compliance burden alone, from the NRC and DOE, is cripp
by dundercoder 4y ago
I worked in commercial nuclear power for a while, including a stint at three mile island. The regulatory compliance burden alone, from the NRC and DOE, is crippling financially.
- ortusdux 4y agoExactly. Regulation has led to larger plants, and longer construction times. https://i.redd.it/djub5auudfj91.png https://i.redd.it/djub5auudfj91.png I really hope pre-approved, pre-built modular reactors lower costs, delays, and regulatory overhead. https://www.nuscalepower.com/ https://www.nuscalepower.com/ I'm also hopefully that molten salt reactors, once viable, are different enough to not be hampered by the full breath of traditional reactor regulations.
- epistasis 4y agoThat seems to conflict with the low operating expenses of nuclear reactors. Once they are built, what is the crippling aspect?
- desindol 4y agolow operating expenses over the whole lifetime of the plant including deconstruction or just the fun part?
- epistasis 4y agoTypically decommissioning costs are collected throughout the lifetime of operation, and to my knowledge these costs do not significantly raise the operating expenses. But I'm not familiar in detail with many examples, so if I'm wrong on the general trend, I would like to know!
- desindol 4y agoTypically the energy corps gets rid of their assets before decommissioning puts them in a "bad bank corp" and lets us pay for it.