Why can't the NRC be like the FAA?

Figure 1. Wingload Test

The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) in one form or another has been around since the 1930's. During that period, air travel has gone from an extravagant novelty reserved for the 0.1% to a near-necessity for the masses. Real seat mile costs have decreased by over a factor of 20, while speeds have increased by a factor of 5. Aircraft designers keep aggressively pushing technological boundaries. That shiny tube you are sitting in is about 1.2 mm thick on average, about the thickness of toothpick. The skin has been chemically milled down even thinner in places to keep the stresses everywhere at a very substantial fraction of the failure stress. Engine designers have been even more aggressive, happily using exotic materials and complex cooling systems, to push combustion chamber temperatures to 1700C (3000F). Margins are so small that the engines must be continuously monitored in flight by the builder. Aeronautical engineers push the limits very hard and the FAA let's them do it.

The FAA has not strangled air travel. Why can't the NRC be like the FAA?

The most important differences between the FAA and the NRC are:

1) The FAA does not lie.

2) The FAA requires rigorous, full scale testing of prototypes. The testing is Pass/Fail. All concerned know the rules of the game, and those rules are not changed retroactively.

3) The FAA certifies a design and a manufacturing facility, not each aircraft.

4) The FAA is funded by user fees.

No Lies

The FAA does not claim or imply that it will prevent crashes. Quite the contrary. It says ``We are so certain that there will be more deadly disasters that it's worth installing two expensive orange boxes on every commercial aircraft. These boxes are designed to survive a crash that kills everybody on board. The only purpose of these boxes is to help us figure out what cause the horrific casualty so we can make intelligent fixes." Welcome aboard. Now shut up and sit there while we tell you once again what to do when this aircraft crashes.

Test, then License

The FAA requires extensive fullscale physical testing of each new design. The airframe and wing will be ground tested to destruction. At least one airframe will be dedicated to static strength tests; another to fatigue. The strength tests will go to at least 1.5 times the limit load; the fatigue tests to three times the number of design life cycles. The same thing is true of the engines. For example, in the blade detachment test, a fan blade is purposely blown off at full power, to confirm that the shroud will confine the debris. Then prototypes will be put through extensive flight testing, including all sorts of maneuvers and failures that should never occur in ordinary use.

Fixed, Firm Criteria

Importantly, the test protocols are spelled out in great detail. Going in, the builder knows what is required of him and he knows what constitutes success. There is no such thing as ALARA. The FAA does not change the rules of the game during the game. There is no Section 187.

Delegated Inspections.

Once a design has been successfully tested and Type Certified, and the manufacturer has received a Production Certificate for his facility, each unit produced to that design at that facility is automatically issued an Airworthiness Certificate. By reference to manuals, the Certificate will specify limits on the aircraft's employment: payload, runway length, maintenance requirements, etc. Commercial aircraft are subject to inspection requirements; but those inspections can be done by any mechanic who passes the FAA's testing and experience requirements. The last 737 you flew on was almost certainly never inspected by an FAA employee.

An FAA-like NRC

So if the NRC is to be like the FAA, fundamental changes will be required.

Stop Lying

The Negligible Probability Lie has to go. The probability of the next release is 1.00. It is only a matter of when. But that means the The Intolerable Harm Lie has to go. If releases truly are intolerable, then there should be no nuclear power. In fact, almost all releases will produce no detectable harm offsite. The new NRC must very publicly renounce both the Intolerable Harm Lie, and the Negligible Probability Lie.

Dump LNT

The NRC also has to stop lying about basic biology. In accepting LNT as the basis for its radiation regulation, the NRC denies that humans have the ability to repair radiation damage The LNT claim that a 10 Sv received in a few hours results in the same harm as 10 Sv received evenly over 50 years is a brazen lie. 10 Sv received in a short period will kill you. 10 Sv spread over 50 years will almost certainly result in no detectable harm. The new NRC must replace LNT with a harm model that recognizes our ability to repair radiation damage.

Prototype Testing

Fullscale, rigorous prototype testing must replace prescriptive design rules. The NRC's job is to specify the test protocols, including the pass/fail criteria. not tell an applicant what his design should look like. or how he should build it. Once the design passes the tests, and the manufacturing facility has received a Production License, the NRC's job for approving all plants built to that design is done. Site inspections can be delegated to local government.

No ALARA. No Section 187.

The rules of the game must be transparent and fixed. ALARA must go. ALARA is short for there are no rules. The rules must be the same for everybody. The protocols for the Loss of Coolant Test or the Station Black Out Test without Scram only have to be written once. And once written they cannot be changed without grandfathering all the designs that were tested under the old rules. No rational investor can agree to \href{https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/no-rational-investor-can-play-by} {Section 187.

Individual Plants are a Local Government Responsibility

The new NRC does not concern itself with individual plants. If a design and the maker's production's facilities have been certified, any plant built to that design at that facility is legal. This does not mean the plant can be located anywhere. Designs will have site dependent limits. For example, a design may be certified for a 0.4g Safe Shutdown Earthquake as a result of prototype shake tests. If the most powerful earthquake in the historic record for a site has a peak ground acceleration of more than 0.4g, then that design cannot be built at that site. If not, whether a plant gets built at that site is between the plant owner and the locals. The new NRC has no say in the matter, anymore than the FAA can tell Boeing how many 757's to build.

The NRC's only job on the production side is to ensure that the manufacturing facility continues to comply with the requirements of its Production License, which requirements cannot be changed.

NRC funded by Unit Power Fees

NRC expenses would be funded by a per kWh tax on the actual power produced by nuclear plants.¹ This provides the regulator with a tiny share of the benefits of nuclear power. More importantly, it eliminates the perverse incentive to extends the application process as long as possible to keep the applicant's funding coming.

I am not a fan of the FAA regulatory system. I doubt that it has had much impact on air travel safety. I'm not even sure which direction that impact has been. After all we have killed 46,000 people in commercial aircraft crashes since 1960. The builders know that, if their product is deemed unsafe, they will go the way of deHavilland. Did regulatory overhead induce Boeing to try to shoehorn the LEAP-1B engine onto the 737 airframe, and then tell their customers the 737MAX was just another 737, rather than pay the expense of getting a new aircraft certified? Did FAA regulatory overhead contribute to killing 347 people?

FAA bureaucratic inertia and paperwork results in silly situations such as private airplanes having powerful, up to date, GPS systems costing $1500, while commercial aircraft have older, less powerful systems costing $20,000. The FAA has had a negative effect on competition. Boeing could survive the 737MAX fiasco only because there now is so little competition. Lack of competition is not good for safety. I would prefer that aircraft be regulated the same way we regulate ships and high pressure steam.

But if despite these faults, society opts for an FAA-like nuclear regulatory system, we must repeal the Energy Reorganization Act, dump the radiation release obsessed NRC, and totally rewrite the Atomic Energy Act. The new AEA must make it clear that the new Agency's job is to facilitate nuclear power.

Given the history, this will require firm, quantitative guidelines from Congress mandating that nuclear power shall be no safer than alternative sources of electricity. If the new agency violates those guidelines, the law should allow any affected person recourse to the Courts. If the Courts rule in favor of the plantiffs, the law should mandate that the Agency employees responsible shall be fired and fined.²

1. Each tester would pay the cost of his testing at the protopark. These are the only applicant expenses.

2. Loser pays the other side's legal fees.