The absolute skyrocket of US nuclear prices due to rework while under pressure from double digit interest rates is cleanly visible in the history of costs. People say the NRC now is nothing like that, and to a degree they aren't wrong
The problem is that modern plant builders have nothing like the construction experience of 70's era utilities. Maybe utilities from the 70's could operate under the current NRC, but we don't have that kind of construction capability. Only a market responsive system can find the point where regulation will not be a potentially extreme burden - much less find the socially ideal point
I have to disagree with: "The problem is that modern plant builders have nothing like the construction experience of 70's era utilities. Maybe utilities from the 70's could operate under the current NRC, but we don't have that kind of construction capability. "
There were 65 plants that started construction in the US before 1971. 47 are still operating. These were different reactor types, different designs, different design teams, different utilities... The same story is repeated in Canada, France Germany, ...
The point is it was not that difficult to get a working reactor with a wide variety of inputs - that is until the regulatory climate changed in the early 1970's.
The construction skills required to physically build a nuclear plant are no different than the skills required to build any other large industrial facility, such as a refinery. It's pouring concrete, bending metal, and pulling wire. Those skills may have eroded in the US since the 1960's, mainly because regulation of all sorts (pollution, OSHA), our tort system, and NIMBYism has forced a lot of manufacturing overseas. But we still build large industrial facilities such as LNG terminals.
And what skills we have lost could be quickly imported and relearned, in the same way we imported Japanese car manufacturing technology to reinvigorate the US auto industry. But for the current nuclear establishment, or at least its managers, that would be a disaster. So they are working hard to prevent it. Their latest success was convincing the supposedly pro-nuclear Trump administration to effectively outlaw the APR-1400.
If there is any difference between the NRC of the 1970's and today's NRC, it is cosmetic. The incentives are the same and the Munger rule applies. Look what happened to NEIMA and the Advance Act. Rerun the Browns Ferry video. Anybody who claims that "the NRC now is nothing like" the NRC of the 1970's is either a fool or a liar.
Well done for raising the simplest most telling question about the cost of building nuclear electricity generation, a question which seems not to be asked anywhere else.
I don't understand why this problem can't be solved by better leadership at the NRC. I would have a small team reviewing each new design. If the bureaucracy comes in with a requirement for a gold-plated pipe bracket, I would say - sorry, that is irrelevant to this new design. If three of the five commissioners were to support this alternative, what would stop them?
I'm not defending the NRC. I just think trying to kill the whole swarm is tilting at windmills.
The absolute skyrocket of US nuclear prices due to rework while under pressure from double digit interest rates is cleanly visible in the history of costs. People say the NRC now is nothing like that, and to a degree they aren't wrong
The problem is that modern plant builders have nothing like the construction experience of 70's era utilities. Maybe utilities from the 70's could operate under the current NRC, but we don't have that kind of construction capability. Only a market responsive system can find the point where regulation will not be a potentially extreme burden - much less find the socially ideal point
I have to disagree with: "The problem is that modern plant builders have nothing like the construction experience of 70's era utilities. Maybe utilities from the 70's could operate under the current NRC, but we don't have that kind of construction capability. "
There were 65 plants that started construction in the US before 1971. 47 are still operating. These were different reactor types, different designs, different design teams, different utilities... The same story is repeated in Canada, France Germany, ...
The point is it was not that difficult to get a working reactor with a wide variety of inputs - that is until the regulatory climate changed in the early 1970's.
Smope,
The construction skills required to physically build a nuclear plant are no different than the skills required to build any other large industrial facility, such as a refinery. It's pouring concrete, bending metal, and pulling wire. Those skills may have eroded in the US since the 1960's, mainly because regulation of all sorts (pollution, OSHA), our tort system, and NIMBYism has forced a lot of manufacturing overseas. But we still build large industrial facilities such as LNG terminals.
And what skills we have lost could be quickly imported and relearned, in the same way we imported Japanese car manufacturing technology to reinvigorate the US auto industry. But for the current nuclear establishment, or at least its managers, that would be a disaster. So they are working hard to prevent it. Their latest success was convincing the supposedly pro-nuclear Trump administration to effectively outlaw the APR-1400.
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-most-dismal-news-possible
If there is any difference between the NRC of the 1970's and today's NRC, it is cosmetic. The incentives are the same and the Munger rule applies. Look what happened to NEIMA and the Advance Act. Rerun the Browns Ferry video. Anybody who claims that "the NRC now is nothing like" the NRC of the 1970's is either a fool or a liar.
Well done for raising the simplest most telling question about the cost of building nuclear electricity generation, a question which seems not to be asked anywhere else.
I don't understand why this problem can't be solved by better leadership at the NRC. I would have a small team reviewing each new design. If the bureaucracy comes in with a requirement for a gold-plated pipe bracket, I would say - sorry, that is irrelevant to this new design. If three of the five commissioners were to support this alternative, what would stop them?
I'm not defending the NRC. I just think trying to kill the whole swarm is tilting at windmills.
Jack, That’s a great headline picture!
Made me chuckle, the funniest things are true.
Eradication…. I agree, but it’s too entrenched. It would take literally a bomb to remove the NRC tentacles.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take decades to remove the layers of regulations.