Nuclear Power: Dangerous Hope to Soften CO2 Pricing

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s this thing out there called climate change. It happens when NG CC plants spew out 480 grams/CO2/kWh – as compared to 12g for nuclear – heating up the environment too quickly and causing massive global risks. If they can build an emission-free NG plant for the same cost as a nuclear plant, then we can talk about NG.”

Right there is the problem, Note the word “spew” CO2 is not a problem.

A major issue is an inability to actually decide on a design for a nuclear plant, without the anti-nuke lobby demanding yet another change. The vastly extended build times account for much of the cost.

Hydrocarbon vs nuclear, a C02 crutch, and [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate change prophecy. Anything about ozone, acid rain, perhaps? Wind turbines and photovoltaic panels spread the Green blight and collect the greenbacks. Fight!

Oh, well. All’s fair in lust and abortion.

I wish to comment on the statement, by Bradley “…1 incident in 65 years causing 32 deaths + up to 16,000 additional deaths…”, is a reference to the Chernobyl disaster in Russia. There have been around 30 to 40 actual deaths reasonably attributable to the partial melt-down of the core, which occurred during a stupid test of: what happens if you reduce coolant, can you power the reactor with less fuel? The comment about possible 16,000 additional deaths is based on the linear-no threshold projection of small amounts of radiation passing over large population groups. However, radiation effects in living organisms have a threshold, below which they don’t do anything. Hundreds of cosmic rays are passing through your body every second. I note that now one (1) death is attributed to the Fukashima disaster, but that it is debatable. The Nuclear Energy industry has a safety track record better than any other energy generating scheme.

Nuclear power is certainly expensive, at least the way we have gone about it. However, it does have the redeeming quality of being very reliable. France has relied heavily on nuclear power for a long time, so it can be done.

How many deaths from natural gas? OMG turn off the gas before you clean the oven!

A History of Nuclear Construction’s Cost & Schedule Overruns in the 1970’s and 80’s

The long-term future of nuclear power in the United States depends upon successfully fielding the Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). Here in the US, the SMRs now represent the only hope we have for getting the end-to-end process of designing, constructing, and commissioning a nuclear power plant under complete and effective management control.

Thirty-five years ago, a raft of studies and reports were published which analyzed the cost growth problems and the severe quality assurance issues the nuclear construction industry was then experiencing. Those studies from the 1980’s had a number of common threads: 

— Lack of Nuclear Project Management Skills: In the 1970’s, the NRC had assumed that one power utility was much like another in its ability to manage a large nuclear construction project. In the mid 1970’s, the NRC ran its regulatory oversight activities assuming this was so. However, actual experience proved this assumption to be wrong. Some utilities were much better than others at managing their nuclear projects.

— Mismatch of Written Plans versus Field Implementation: As the 1970’s went forward, it became apparent the NRC had given construction licenses to power utilities which were not capable of doing an effective job of managing their nuclear projects. The written plans, the basis for granting an NRC construction license, were OK. The NRC would not have approved those plans had they not been OK. The problem was that many of the power utilities didn’t follow their written plans. They did a poor job of implementing their plans, they didn’t keep their in-field procedures and work practices up to date under a changing regulatory environment, and in some cases, they just ignored key parts of their written plans altogether.

— Complex, First of a Kind Projects: Any large project that is complicated, involves new and/or high technology, has several phases, involves a diversity of technical specialties, involves a number of organizational interfaces, and has significant cost and schedule pressures — any project which has these characteristics is a prime candidate for experiencing significant quality assurance issues, cost control issues, and schedule growth problems.

— Strength of the Industrial Base: Nuclear power requires competent expertise in every facet of design, construction, testing, and operations. This kind of competent expertise existed in the 1970’s and early 1980’s but was not being effectively utilized in many of the power reactor construction projects, the ones that experienced the most serious cost and schedule growth issues.

— A Changing Technical Environment: In the mid 1970’s and early 1980’s, the large reactor projects, the 1100 megawatt plants, were being built for the first time. They were being built without a prototype, and they were substantially different from previous designs. Those big plants had many new and significantly revised systems inside them, systems which had to be designed, constructed, tested, and subsequently operated.

— Lack of Design Maturity at the Start of Construction: Systems and components with safety implications often lacked sufficient design maturity at the start of construction. Changes in system and component designs often had cascading consequences for related systems. Project schedules did not carry sufficient time and cost to cover the work needed to address each and every system affected by a change in a performance requirement or in a component design.

— A Changing Regulatory Environment: In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, there was a continual increase in the regulatory requirements being placed on power reactors. The Three Mile Island accident, the Brown’s Ferry fire, the Calvert Cliffs environmental decision, all of those events required the power utilities to change the way they were dealing with their projects in the middle of the game. Some power utilities were successful in making the necessary changes, others were not. Those projects with strong management teams were generally successful in the face of a changing regulatory environment, those with weak management teams generally failed.  

— Project Management Effectiveness: Those nuclear projects which had a strong management team and strong management control systems at all levels of the project organization generally succeeded in delivering their projects on cost and on schedule. Those that didn’t were generally incapable of dealing with the changing technical and regulatory environment and became paralyzed in the face of the many QA issues, work productivity issues, and cost control issues they were experiencing.  

— Issues with Matrix Management Systems: Every nuclear project which experienced significant cost and schedule growth problems in the 1970’s and early 1980’s was using a matrix management system at the start of construction. Every nuclear project which the NRC had to shut down because of quality assurance issues was using a matrix management system. Every nuclear construction project in the 1970’s and early 1980’s which started out with a matrix management system eventually dropped that system for a different form of project management.

— Overconfidence Based on Past Project Success: Many of the power utilities which had a record of past success in building non-nuclear projects, and which were constructing nuclear plants for the first time, did not recognize that nuclear is different. These included utilities which did not take their regulatory commitments seriously and which did not do an adequate job of assessing whether or not the management systems and the project methods they had been using successfully in past years were up to the task of managing a nuclear project.      

— Reliance on Contractor Expertise: The projects which succeeded had substantial nuclear expertise inside the power utility’s own shop. Those utilities which were successful in building nuclear plants were knowledgeable customers for the nuclear construction services they were buying. They paid close and constant attention to the work that was being done on the construction site, in the subcontractor fabrication shops, and in the contractor’s technical support organization. Emerging issues and problems were quickly and proactively identified, and quick action was taken to resolve those problems.  

— Management Control Systems: The nuclear projects which failed did not have effective management control systems for contractor and subcontractor design interface control; for configuration control and management of design documentation and associated systems and components; and for proper and up-to-date maintenance of contractor and inter-contractor cost and schedule progress information. Inadequate management control systems prevented an accurate assessment of where the projects actually stood, and in many cases were themselves an important factor in producing substandard technical work.   

— Cost & Schedule Control Systems: For those projects which lacked a properly robust cost & schedule control system, many activities listed on their project schedules were seriously mis-estimated for time, cost, scope, and complexity. Other project activities covering significant portions of the total work scope were missing altogether, making it impossible to accurately assess where the project’s cost and schedule performance currently stood, and where it was headed in the future.

— Issues with Quality Assurance: For those nuclear projects which lacked the necessary management commitment to meeting the NRC’s quality assurance expectations, the added cost of meeting new and existing regulatory requirements was multiplied several times over as QA deficiencies were discovered and as significant rework of safety-critical systems and components became necessary. Unnecessary rework caused by not doing the job right the first time around resulted in the same component or system being bought twice, sometimes even three times, before it was QA acceptable.

— Construction Productivity & Progress: For those nuclear projects which lacked a strong management team; and which lacked effective project control systems and a strong management commitment to a ‘do-it-right the first time’ QA philosophy, the combined impacts of these deficiencies had severe impacts on worker productivity at the plant site, on supplier quality and productivity at offsite vendor facilities, and on the overall forward progress of the entire project taken as a whole.

— Project Financing and Completion Schedule: As a result of these emerging QA and site productivity problems, many of the power utilities were forced to extend their construction schedules and to revise their cost estimates upward. Finding the additional money and the necessary project resources to complete these projects proved extremely difficult in the face of competition from other corporate spending priorities and from other revenue consuming activities.

— A Change in Strategy by the Anti-nuclear Activists: In the mid 1970’s, the anti-nuclear activists were focusing their arguments on basic issues of nuclear safety. They got nowhere with those arguments. Then in the late 1970’s, they changed their strategic focus and began challenging the nuclear projects on the basis of quality assurance issues, i.e., that many nuclear construction projects were not living up to the quality assurance commitments they had made to the public in their NRC license applications.

— Job Site Whistleblowers: In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, whistleblowers on the job whose valid concerns were not being addressed by the project’s managers would go outside the projects to the anti-nuclear activists. Those activists included knowlegeable technical people who could evaluate the validity of the whistleblower’s concerns. Then, in the last phases of construction, when the power utilities were going for an NRC operating license, the activists would challenge the quality of the plant’s construction in the NRC’s license hearings.

— Lack of Regulatory Oversight Effectiveness: In the 1970’S and early 1980’s, the NRC was slow to react to emerging problems in the nuclear construction industry. In that period, the NRC was focusing its oversight efforts on the very last phases of the construction process when the plants were going for their operating licenses. Relatively little time and effort was being devoted to the earlier phases of these projects, when emerging QA problems and deficiencies were most easily identified and fixed. Quality assurance deficiencies which had been present for years were left unaddressed until the very last phases of the project, and so were much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to resolve.

— Lack of Early NRC Presence at Construction Sites: Because relatively little onsite time and effort was being devoted by the NRC to the earlier phases of these nuclear construction projects, the project managers became complacent through lack of hearing from the NRC. No news from the NRC was thought to be good news. Then, in the last stages of construction when the plants were going for their operating licenses, and when the anti-nuclear activists were contesting the quality of the plant’s construction in the NRC’s license hearings, the plant’s oweners were left to ask the question, why didn’t the NRC raise the issue of substandard QA practices earlier in the project, when these issues were most easily addressed?

— Lack of NRC Boldness & Risk Taking: Proactive NRC intervention in an ongoing nuclear construction project often requires that the NRC staff question the capability of the project’s managers. This is not easily done. If the staff is wrong in their evaluation, their reputations are severely damaged. On the other hand, if the NRC staff is right, then problems and issues which might have occurred don’t occur. 

— Working Relationships with Regulators: The successful nuclear projects from the 1970’s and 1980’s, the ones that stayed on cost and on schedule, did not view the NRC as an adversary. The successful projects viewed the NRC as a partner and a technical resource in determining how best to keep their project on track in the face of an increasingly more complex and demanding project environment. On the other hand, for those projects which had significant deficiencies in their QA programs, for those that did not take their QA commitments seriously, the anti-nuclear activists introduced those deficiencies into the NRC licensing process and were often successful in delaying and sometimes killing a poorly managed project.

REMARKS:

The changing regulatory and technical environment of the 1970’s and early 1980’s did in fact increase nuclear power’s costs over and above what was expected to be the norm in the early 1970’s cost estimates. Nuclear construction projects with strong management teams and effective project management systems paid for those changes only once. Projects which were poorly managed paid for those changes multiple times over.

If mandated changes to work practices and to nuclear technology are included as necessary activities in the baseline cost estimates, those nuclear projects which had a strong management team and strong management control systems at all levels of the project organization generally succeeded in delivering their projects on cost and on schedule. Those projects that didn’t have strong management teams were generally incapable of dealing with the changing technical and regulatory environment and became paralyzed in the face of the many QA issues, work productivity issues, and cost control issues they were experiencing.  

By the end of the 1980’s, most of nuclear’s project management issues had been resolved and the nuclear construction industry was well-positioned to move forward, if new orders had been forthcoming. But it was not to be. Stiff competition from natural gas beginning in the early 1990’s put an end to any prospects for new nuclear construction for another twenty years. 

In any case, the burdens of maintaining strong regulatory oversight over the nuclear power industry are not going away. Not now, not ever. But what is just as true today as it was in the 1970’s and 1980’s is this: the project management discipline needed to deliver nuclear-grade quality assurance is the same project management discipline needed to deliver all of the other key parts of any large-scale high technology construction project.  

Moreover, in comparison with the 1970’s, the regulatory environment for nuclear power in the United States has stabilized. Here in the 2020’s, the burden of complying with the NRC’s regulations is a known commodity. And so the managers of any new-build nuclear power plant know from the very beginning what is expected of them in the area of nuclear regulatory compliance. They have no excuses for not taking the full cost of these burdens into account when developing their project’s cost and schedule estimates.

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Disclosure: I’ve spent thirty-five years in nuclear construction and operations. The bulk of my occupational radiation exposure has come from beta-gamma sources. Hence my internet handle is Beta Blocker.