If the machinations of Big Oil are not the reason that nuclear power failed to live up to its promise, perhaps it is the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contractors.
Apparently the Dutch have told RWE and Uniper they must shut down their Dutch coal plants by 2030. When RWE/Uniper asked for compensation, the Dutch courts denied the claim. Wonder what legal theory was applied?
High temperature, pulverized coal, supercritical steam power plants operate at high (48%) efficient conversion of combustion heat to electric power, compared to common 34% efficient plants. They generate 0.48/0.34 = 1.41 as much energy for the same coal fuel. These ultra-supercritical plants generate 0.41/1.41 = 29% less CO2 per GW-hour and require half the cooling water. The first such US reduced-emissions, ultra-supercritical coal-fired plant went into operation in 2012, after 4 years of legal delays by opponents including Sierra Club and Audubon Society, More at https://www.powermag.com/first-u-s-ultrasupercritical-power-plant-in-operation/
Don’t most of the EPC contractors that have dabbled in nuclear plant construction do similar work for the fossil fuel industry? Do they do any better for those other customers?
Right but in nuclear there is almost no competition and basically no way to hold the EPC to account. We allow them to make everyone believe that nuclear is “special” (aka $$$).
The notion that there is "no safe dose" of radiation is the root cause of the widespread belief that nuclear is "special".
I remain convinced that the long term effort to create and impose the incorrect model of radiation protection often labeled as LNT is why we spend so much money on keeping doses As Low As Reasonably Achievable.
Because so many people are convinced that all doses of radiation are dangerous – there is "no safe dose– some nuclear energy opponents and competitors insist that "reasonable" means "as much as you can possibly afford." Their pressure is why regulators treat radiation doses from nuclear power plants in such special - expensive or lucrative - ways.
Rod, I deal with ALARA in contexts other than the reactor space. I don’t see the “as much as you can possibly afford” gloss on the reasonable concept. The word reasonable is much more of a qualitative legal legal term than a quantitative, engineering reference. Are there specific examples of how it’s applied in the reactor space--in patently unreasonable ways?
One of the clearest examples of unreasonable application of ALARA is in the dose limits established for permanent high level waste repositories.
15 mrem (0.15 mSv)/yr to the most exposed person during the first 10,000 years after the repository is closed. It increases to 100 mrem/yr for the period between 10,000 and 1,000,000 years.
As a reminder, the average American receives about 300 mrem/yr from natural radiation sources with a total average dose rate of about 600 mrem/yr (with a huge amount of variation) if medical treatment doses are included.
IOW, responsible agencies somehow believe it is "reasonable" to keep doses to no more than 1/20th as high as NATURAL background radiation when the source is high level nuclear waste.
This rule makes it a bit easier to understand why the US spent 20 years and >$10 B doing geological and chemical research in an aborted attempt to license Yucca Mountain as a high level waste disposal site.
With more reasonable rules, that endeavor should have been almost trivial.
These aren't the same thing in my experience working with these standards. The public dose limit is what it is. It's numeric--quantitative. It applies to all licensed facilities - 100 mrem at the fence. Uranium. Low-level waste. Reactors. The ALARA rule is geared towards worker safety practices. Workers can get up to 5000 mrem / year. That's still safe (context for how conservative 100 mrem is). The ALARA standard requires licensees to use reasonable practices to avoid unnecessarily exposing workers to dose. Reasonableness is qualitative. I am not that familiar with the rationale that killed Yucca Mountain (I think it was political) but I also note that WIPP made it through a safety analysis, so it's not impossible...
Public dose limits are numeric, but they were set under the same philosophy and influenced by the same incorrect dose response model as ALARA.
By accepting the "no threshold" model asserted by Muller based on his 1927 vintage high dose rate experiments on drosophila (fruit flies) we have implanted the notion that there is "no safe dose" of radiation. In practice, regulators have applied a translation asserting that all radiation doses from nuclear power plants are dangerous. (If they're not "safe" they must be dangerous, right?)
Once again, the standard set for permanent disposal is 15 mrem/yr. Not 100 mrem/yr.
Neither one is reasonable, especially when the postulated events use a series of layered, conservative assumptions about release pathways.
Far better. Eemshaven is just one example. The question is why? If you are implying they are sabotaging their nuclear jobs at the behest of their fossil fuel customers, you've gone off the deep end.
For one thing, the nuke utilities like Southern Company are also fossil fuel utilities. Southern secretly wants overruns at Vogtle to prop us their fossil plants. Right.
Why do you think it's crazy to note that contractors can make more money with strategies that result in them performing poorly on nuclear projects while also performing much better on fossil fuel projects?
It MIGHT not be a result of a desire to hamper competitive power sources. It could just be a recognition that taking longer and billing more costs in the form of change orders is rewarded in the kinds of cost + contracts that have been common in the monopoly or government-owned utility business. Though fossil fuel projects in the utility industry might have the same upward cost pressure, there are many parts of the fossil fuel industry where meeting or beating schedules and keeping costs within budget results in bonus payments and other financial rewards.
There is also the human nature part of the story. Nuclear professionals are often quite proud and believe their ways are better than the ways of the fossil fuel people. They have reward systems that reinforce "safety culture" with rare mentions of "cost culture."
Coming from an energy project finance background, I think the root problem is one of scale. The EPC problem is just a symptom of the scale problem. No doubt about it in my mind.
Why Nuclear Power has been a Flop offers lots of examples. But here's a recent one. Tritium, a very weak electron emitter is essenitally harmless. It's used in rifle sights, watches, runway signs, The CANDU heavy water moderated reactor emits lots of tritium. So the Canadian regualtors set their tritrium limits at a level that CANDU can afford. Terrestial Energy, also a Canadian outfit, argued that they should be subject to the same limits. But Terrestial's MSR puts out about 50 times less tritium.
The Canadian regualtors invoked ALARA and set Terrestial's limits much lower than teh Candu limit.
Side note: RWE is a German company.
Thanks. Will fix.
Another sidenote.
Apparently the Dutch have told RWE and Uniper they must shut down their Dutch coal plants by 2030. When RWE/Uniper asked for compensation, the Dutch courts denied the claim. Wonder what legal theory was applied?
High temperature, pulverized coal, supercritical steam power plants operate at high (48%) efficient conversion of combustion heat to electric power, compared to common 34% efficient plants. They generate 0.48/0.34 = 1.41 as much energy for the same coal fuel. These ultra-supercritical plants generate 0.41/1.41 = 29% less CO2 per GW-hour and require half the cooling water. The first such US reduced-emissions, ultra-supercritical coal-fired plant went into operation in 2012, after 4 years of legal delays by opponents including Sierra Club and Audubon Society, More at https://www.powermag.com/first-u-s-ultrasupercritical-power-plant-in-operation/
Don’t most of the EPC contractors that have dabbled in nuclear plant construction do similar work for the fossil fuel industry? Do they do any better for those other customers?
Right but in nuclear there is almost no competition and basically no way to hold the EPC to account. We allow them to make everyone believe that nuclear is “special” (aka $$$).
The notion that there is "no safe dose" of radiation is the root cause of the widespread belief that nuclear is "special".
I remain convinced that the long term effort to create and impose the incorrect model of radiation protection often labeled as LNT is why we spend so much money on keeping doses As Low As Reasonably Achievable.
Because so many people are convinced that all doses of radiation are dangerous – there is "no safe dose– some nuclear energy opponents and competitors insist that "reasonable" means "as much as you can possibly afford." Their pressure is why regulators treat radiation doses from nuclear power plants in such special - expensive or lucrative - ways.
Yep- completely agree. “Special”=Paperwork=$$$$
ALARA delenda est!
Rod, I deal with ALARA in contexts other than the reactor space. I don’t see the “as much as you can possibly afford” gloss on the reasonable concept. The word reasonable is much more of a qualitative legal legal term than a quantitative, engineering reference. Are there specific examples of how it’s applied in the reactor space--in patently unreasonable ways?
One of the clearest examples of unreasonable application of ALARA is in the dose limits established for permanent high level waste repositories.
15 mrem (0.15 mSv)/yr to the most exposed person during the first 10,000 years after the repository is closed. It increases to 100 mrem/yr for the period between 10,000 and 1,000,000 years.
https://www.epa.gov/radiation/public-health-and-environmental-radiation-protection-standards-yucca-mountain-nevada-40
As a reminder, the average American receives about 300 mrem/yr from natural radiation sources with a total average dose rate of about 600 mrem/yr (with a huge amount of variation) if medical treatment doses are included.
IOW, responsible agencies somehow believe it is "reasonable" to keep doses to no more than 1/20th as high as NATURAL background radiation when the source is high level nuclear waste.
This rule makes it a bit easier to understand why the US spent 20 years and >$10 B doing geological and chemical research in an aborted attempt to license Yucca Mountain as a high level waste disposal site.
With more reasonable rules, that endeavor should have been almost trivial.
These aren't the same thing in my experience working with these standards. The public dose limit is what it is. It's numeric--quantitative. It applies to all licensed facilities - 100 mrem at the fence. Uranium. Low-level waste. Reactors. The ALARA rule is geared towards worker safety practices. Workers can get up to 5000 mrem / year. That's still safe (context for how conservative 100 mrem is). The ALARA standard requires licensees to use reasonable practices to avoid unnecessarily exposing workers to dose. Reasonableness is qualitative. I am not that familiar with the rationale that killed Yucca Mountain (I think it was political) but I also note that WIPP made it through a safety analysis, so it's not impossible...
"Not impossible" is not the same as reasonable.
Public dose limits are numeric, but they were set under the same philosophy and influenced by the same incorrect dose response model as ALARA.
By accepting the "no threshold" model asserted by Muller based on his 1927 vintage high dose rate experiments on drosophila (fruit flies) we have implanted the notion that there is "no safe dose" of radiation. In practice, regulators have applied a translation asserting that all radiation doses from nuclear power plants are dangerous. (If they're not "safe" they must be dangerous, right?)
Once again, the standard set for permanent disposal is 15 mrem/yr. Not 100 mrem/yr.
Neither one is reasonable, especially when the postulated events use a series of layered, conservative assumptions about release pathways.
Far better. Eemshaven is just one example. The question is why? If you are implying they are sabotaging their nuclear jobs at the behest of their fossil fuel customers, you've gone off the deep end.
For one thing, the nuke utilities like Southern Company are also fossil fuel utilities. Southern secretly wants overruns at Vogtle to prop us their fossil plants. Right.
Why do you think it's crazy to note that contractors can make more money with strategies that result in them performing poorly on nuclear projects while also performing much better on fossil fuel projects?
It MIGHT not be a result of a desire to hamper competitive power sources. It could just be a recognition that taking longer and billing more costs in the form of change orders is rewarded in the kinds of cost + contracts that have been common in the monopoly or government-owned utility business. Though fossil fuel projects in the utility industry might have the same upward cost pressure, there are many parts of the fossil fuel industry where meeting or beating schedules and keeping costs within budget results in bonus payments and other financial rewards.
There is also the human nature part of the story. Nuclear professionals are often quite proud and believe their ways are better than the ways of the fossil fuel people. They have reward systems that reinforce "safety culture" with rare mentions of "cost culture."
Coming from an energy project finance background, I think the root problem is one of scale. The EPC problem is just a symptom of the scale problem. No doubt about it in my mind.
Bret,
Why Nuclear Power has been a Flop offers lots of examples. But here's a recent one. Tritium, a very weak electron emitter is essenitally harmless. It's used in rifle sights, watches, runway signs, The CANDU heavy water moderated reactor emits lots of tritium. So the Canadian regualtors set their tritrium limits at a level that CANDU can afford. Terrestial Energy, also a Canadian outfit, argued that they should be subject to the same limits. But Terrestial's MSR puts out about 50 times less tritium.
The Canadian regualtors invoked ALARA and set Terrestial's limits much lower than teh Candu limit.