By Robert Bradley Jr. — September 16, 2021
“Making nuclear safe is also why it is uneconomic. The US would not have had a nuclear industry if not for Price-Anderson and the rest of it from the federal government.” (Bradley, below)
“10 million deaths/year from the fossil fuel way of boiling water is criminally dangerous in the final degree.” (Canon Bryan, below)
Canon Bryan is CFO and a founding shareholder of Terrestrial Energy, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Mr. Bryan and Terrestrial develop advanced commercial power plants. [1]
This exchange with a sophisticated nuclear proponent is illustrative of the current debate regarding the future of nuclear power (my thoughts here). I would note the following having engaged Mr. Bryan:
- We talk past each other at times because I am focused on the U.S. and he internationally where most new-design nuclear plants are being built. Bryan does not address the massive problems at the Summer and Vogtle nuclear busts–his argument appears to be all about new technology.
- On subsidies, Bryan relies on international statistics where fossil-fuel subsidies pertain mainly to the transportation (oil) side and not electricity generation.
- Bryan’s holy grail is experimental first-of-a-kind technology: “Generation IV advanced nuclear power plants that use its proprietary Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR®) technology.” The company adds: “Terrestrial Energy is engaged with regulators and industrial partners to complete IMSR® engineering and to commission first IMSR® power plants in the late 2020s.”
Our exchange from several months ago follows:
Bradley: Nuclear is the most complicated, perilous way to boil water. Too many parts, too many residual issues. Gas-fired combined cycle: sooner, cheaper, flexible….
Canon Bryan: If you define “perilous” by the observable deaths per unit of energy throughout history, you are patently wrong. Natural gas = 4,000 deaths/TWh Nuclear = 90 deaths/TWh
Also, the goal of the energy system now is not simply to deliver energy, but to deliver energy without GHG emissions. NG is tremendously inferior to nuclear on its climate credentials, according to the IPCC. This too represents a form of peril. NG emissions = 480 grams CO2/kWh Nuclear emission = 12 grams CO2/kWh
Your argument about subsidies is truly laughable. According to IRENA, they conservatively (compared to other sources) estimate that fossil subsidies exceeded nuclear subsidies by a factor of 147 times in a given year, including externalities.
Here’s another source listing IMF estimates of fossil subsidies at far higher levels than even IRENA.
Bradley: “Perilous” means that it is so dangerous that a whole lot of safeguards and redundancy must be built-in for it to become safe. Making it safe, in other words, ruins the economics. And no private insurer would or will touch it as far as I know ….
Bryan: The article is about using existing capacity — so-called LTO (long-term operation) nuclear power plants — to make hydrogen. There are over 400 operating nuclear power plants in the world. They are all insured. Your point is irrelevant.
And no, perilous does not mean that. Perilous in the context of technology or infrastructure means how many deaths have been caused. Actuaries, who calculate risks for insurers, operate based on deterministic experience. The deterministic experience of NPPs shows one thing with zero ambiguity: NPPs have operated for 64 out of 65 years without causing harm to a single person or ecosystem. The exact opposite of perilous.
Bradley: That’s the Price Anderson Act in the U.S., and probably government this-or-that in other countries.
A new nuclear plant would not be able to get its own insurance, outside of special government favor. Will you admit that making nuclear safe significantly increases unit cost? That’s what I am getting at. The problem with nuclear is the next plant. Too expensive.
Bryan: A deceptively complex question.
1) New NPPs in the West are proving to be too CAPEX-intensive because they are First-Of-A-Kind or First-In-A-Generation. That is true of any new industrial development – not just nuclear. Making these the proxy for the entire industry amounts to fallacy of incomplete evidence. 49 of the 71 new plants commissioned since 2000 have been in China and Russia with an average CAPEX of sub-$3/Watt. That is competitive.
2) I do admit that making any industrial facility safe increases CAPEX. Unsafe facilities are cheap to build. To attempt to penalize nuclear safety rather than envy it is, frankly, perverse.
3) In my opinion, the safety regulations for civilian nuclear are far too strict. They could be rolled back by a factor of 1,000 and still be as safe as they are today, which is, namely, 1 incident in 65 years causing 32 deaths + up to 16,000 possible deaths, while avoiding 2.3 million deaths.
4) Advanced nuclear technologies are specifically designed to make use of passive safety, which dramatically reduces CAPEX. They are being developed today for 2020s deployment.
Bradley: Here are my answers in response to yours (thank you):
1) Nuclear is an old technology now. New experimental designs to try to achieve competitiveness after a half century of failure is risky and raises fundamental questions. And sub-$3/watt (a guess, a hope) is still not competitive. Natural gas CC is far less risky, proven, cheaper, and quicker to build.
2) I was just explaining nuclear’s inherently high costs. I am not saying build anything ‘unsafe’.
3 and 4) Related to #2: who knows? Only private insurance in a free market sans government can tell the world if such plants are safe.
And at the same time, how about getting guaranteed performance contracts as to cost and in-service and the rest of it from a deep-pocket third party? Not just the builder that can go bankrupt. Maybe Bill Gates can do something with his project–but taxpayers are already $80 million in the hole with him.
Bradley: We simply need a market test rather than external opinions and data about costs and benefits. A nuclear facility must gets its own insurance, not receive government subsidies, and be undergirded by long-term contracts and not utility ratebase. Natural gas/LNG is substantially cheaper where available, right?
Bryan: “half century of failure” If 2.3 million deaths avoided and over 75 Gigatonnes CO2 avoided since 1971 is considered a failure, I am proud to be a failure.
“Sub-$3/Watt” CAPEX is data-based, unlike any claim you have made in this discussion. And it is competitive on a life-cycle basis. NG CAPEX may be lower, but ~80% of life cycle cost for NG is OPEX. For nuclear it’s the reverse.
“Natural Gas CC is far less risky” Wrong. According to OSTI, from 1969 to 2000, NG plants have had 125 fatal accidents. Nuclear had 1. That’s not “far less risky”.
“Natural gas CC is…proven” [Wrong] The first civilian nuclear plant was commissioned in 1956. The first NG CC was commissioned in 1961. Being a younger technology does not somehow make it more proven.
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.
Bradley: I would also compute the extra, unnecessary cost with the most expensive technology to generate electricity and ask: what would have been done with the hundreds of billions of dollars to make individuals and the world better.
Do you have an aggregate statistic of cost overruns for US nuclear alone, starting with Sumner and Vogtle working backwards? Economics matters, and wealth is health.
Bryan: Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence. Again.
Bradley: Real world costs are the best evidence. Not ‘might’ or ‘could’
Nuclear is radically noncompetitive, always needing government subsidies and awaiting a new, breakthrough technology. The most complicated, dangerous way of boiling water, after all.
Bryan: Why are you so addicted to proving publicly how ignorant you are? 32 deaths from one incident in 65 years is the opposite of dangerous. 10 million deaths/year from the fossil fuel way of boiling water is criminally dangerous in the final degree.
LCOE costs are competitive with NG in China and Russia. Not might or could. But actual LCOE. I have compiled the data myself. Fossil receives several orders of magnitude more subsidies than nuclear ever did.
As usual, you provide zero evidence for your completely false claims. And I have repeated myself over and over. I’m done here.
Bradley: Control your emotions, please.
Making nuclear safe is also why it is uneconomic. The US would not have had a nuclear industry if not for Price-Anderson and the rest of it from the federal government.
Government subsidies are required to even keep existing nuclear plants online. And tell us about Sumner and Vogtle–big hopes of the latest, greatest designs that went bust.
Your company claims to have the best Generation IV nuclear technology. So where have we heard this before? Why are you sure you have it this time?
Can you compete against gas-fired combined cycle? Can you compete without the US Department of Energy as funder? Without Price-Anderson insurance?
Do you have electricity buyers who want to commit up-front to your price (what) and your term (how many years)? And if your contractor goes bankrupt (like Westinghouse)?
Final Note
The latest news is a bailout for Exelon’s 2,500 MW Byron Nuclear Plant in Illinois to the tune of $600 mm, five-years in the name of “a 100 percent clean energy future.” Nuclear, itself wounded by wind and solar, is a pawn in the ‘clean energy’ game that leaves the market less free and more expensive for consumers and/or taxpayers.
———————————-
[1] Terrestrial Energy is a developer of Generation IV advanced nuclear power plants that use its proprietary Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR®) technology. IMSR® technology represents true innovation in cost reduction, versatility and functionality of nuclear power plants.
IMSR® power plants will provide zero-carbon, reliable, dispatchable, cost-competitive electric power and high grade industrial heat for use in many industrial applications, such as chemical synthesis and desalination, and in so doing extend the application of nuclear energy far beyond electric power markets.
They have the potential to make important contributions to industrial competitiveness, energy security, and economic growth. Their deployment will support rapid global decarbonization of the primary energy system by displacing fossil fuel combustion across a broad spectrum.
Using an innovative design, and proven and demonstrated molten salt reactor technology, Terrestrial Energy is engaged with regulators and industrial partners to complete IMSR® engineering and to commission first IMSR® power plants in the late 2020s.
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Meanwhile China, ignoring the nuclear-phobic Neanderthals, this week starts the world’s first working thorium salt nuclear reactor:
https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/china-unveil-worlds-first-waterless-molten-salt-re/
Root Causes of the Massive Cost Overruns at VC Summer and at Vogtle 3 & 4
It is not possible to fully understand the causes of the serious cost control issues the US nuclear construction industry is facing today without examining the history of similar issues from four decades ago.
In an earlier comment concerning this WUWT article — Nuclear Power: Dangerous Hope to Soften CO2 Pricing (By Robert Bradley Jr. — September 16, 2021) — I described the history of the nuclear cost overruns of the 1970’s and early 1980’s, and the hard lessons that were learned about how to build a nuclear power plant on cost and on schedule:
A History of Nuclear Construction’s Cost & Schedule Overruns in the 1970’s and 80’s
Fifteen years ago, in the mid 2000’s when the initial cost estimates for pursuing a 21st century nuclear renaissance were being done, the cost estimate for two advanced technology 1100 Megawatt AP1000’s to be sited at an existing nuclear plant site was roughly 6 billion dollars for the pair.
However, this estimate was thought by many to be too low.
With twenty-five years having passed without construction of a clean-sheet reactor design having been initiated in this country, the US nuclear industrial base was in a deeply withered state. It was recognized that the cost estimates for initiating new projects had to include the added costs of rebuilding the nuclear industrial base and of passing through the nuclear construction learning curve for a second time.
More realistic estimates for two AP1000’s were developed in 2009 and later in 2012 — 9 billion dollars and 12 billion dollars respectively.
It cannot be emphasized enough that the estimate of 12 billion dollars when onsite construction began at VC Summer and at Vogtle 3 & 4 in 2012 included the expected costs of full compliance with NRC regulations and of passing through the nuclear learning curve for a second time.
Those estimates also assumed that all the difficult lessons learned from the nuclear projects of the 1970’s and 1980’s would be diligently applied to the latest projects as they were being initiated and while they were in progress.
Why did these two recent projects fail so miserably to stay on cost and schedule, going from the 2012 estimate of 12 billion dollars to a 2017 estimate of 25 billion, with the consequence that VC Summer was cancelled and the original contractor team at Vogtle 3 & 4 was replaced? (In the year 2021, total cost at completion for Vogtle 3 & 4 is now estimated at 28 billion dollars.)
Here is a list problems experienced at VC Summer and at Vogtle 3 & 4 which were completely avoidable if sound management practices had been followed.
(1) The original prime contractors chosen by the power utilities in 2011 to manage their construction projects did not have substantial previous experience in other kinds of large nuclear projects of the same or similar magnitude and complexity as VC Summer and Vogtle 3 & 4.
(2) The power utilities who were funding these projects did not have nearly enough of their own in-house technical and project management expertise, the kind of expertise needed to make themselves knowledgeable customers for the nuclear construction services they were buying.
(3) The feasibility cost and schedule estimates done prior to the initiation of construction ignored the lack of a strong American nuclear industrial base. The follow on hard-target baseline cost and schedule estimates were overly optimistic and did not include large portions of the project’s true scope of work.
(4) The prime contractors did not maintain a proper cost & schedule control system for the overall project as a whole. Many activities listed on their project schedules were 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.
(5) Systems and components with safety implications lacked sufficient design maturity at the start of on-site construction activities. Insufficient time and cost was allocated for NRC review and approval of component design changes which had nuclear safety implications.
(6) The power utilities did not do an effective job of overseeing the work of the original prime and original sub-contractors; and they did not act quickly to deal with emerging issues and problems while there was still time to deal cost effectively with those problems.
(7) The prime contractors who were originally managing the construction effort did not do an effective job of overseeing the work of the sub-contractors. They did not act quickly to deal with emerging issues and problems while there was still time to deal with those issues and problems. Smaller problems were allowed to fester until they grew into larger, much more costly and difficult to solve problems.
(8) For the overall project as a whole, the original prime contractors did not impose effective systems for contractor and sub-contractor design interface control; for configuration management of design documentation and associated systems and components; and for proper and up-to-date maintenance of inter-contractor cost and schedule information.
(8) The sub-contractors who performed the detailed construction and fabrication work did not do an effective job of in-house quality assurance, in-house quality control, and in-house configuration management & design control. They did not act quickly to deal with emerging issues and problems inside their own shops while there was still time to deal with those issues and problems in a cost effective way. Smaller problems inside the sub-contractors operations were allowed to fester until they grew into larger, much more difficult to solve problems.
(9) The sub-contractors were not giving honest and accurate information to the prime contractors concerning the true status of their activities. The prime contractors were not giving honest and accurate information to the customer utilities concerning the true status of their projects as a whole.
(10) The prime contractors ignored early and obvious signs that the sub-contractors were not performing to expectations. The primes did not move swiftly — or even move at all in some cases — to deal with sub-contractor quality control issues and with sub-contractor cost & schedule performance problems.
(11) The customer utilities who were funding these nuclear projects also ignored early and obvious signs that serious problems were emerging, and did not hold their prime contractors to account for their poor performance.
(12) Although federal and state oversight agencies were aware of these issues at both VC Summer and Vogtle 3 & 4, those agencies were ineffective in pressing the power utilities and the prime contractors to deal with these emerging issues and problems in a timely, proactive, and decisive way.
For those of us who have been in nuclear construction and operations since the mid-1970’s, the period of 2012-2017 was a near exact repetition of what we saw in the period of 1975-1983.
The power utilities who were buying these nuclear plants had the responsibility and the public trust obligation to manage their nuclear projects using a highly disciplined, well-coordinated approach. They failed to deliver on that responsibility.
The fact of the matter is that going with new-build nuclear power is strictly a public policy decision. We would not be considering new-build nuclear in the US were it not for the presence of a government-mandated low carbon energy policy.
The nuclear construction industry in the United States is now hampered by three important issues:
— A power marketplace warped by wind and solar: Our legacy nuclear plants are designed and operated for continuous baseload operation 24/7/365. Giving subsidized wind and solar preferred access to the power grid eliminates the economic benefits of baseload generation resources with the effect that these resources appear to have higher operating costs in comparison with wind and solar.
— Stiff competition from natural gas: In the absence of government intervention, the power marketplace would shift decisively towards gas-fired generation. It offers the best combination of load following capability as backup for wind and solar, the lowest capital cost, the least overall cost to the energy consumer, and the greatest profit potential for investors.
— Keeping nuclear’s capital construction costs under control: This issue applies just as much to the oncoming small modular reactors (SMRs) as it does to the large 1100 Megawatt reactors. From a cost control perspective, the oncoming SMR technology and the processes used to manufacture and site that SMR technology must be managed together as One Thing.
Many nuclear advocates take the easy way out and blame nuclear’s cost issues on excessive government regulation and on the anti-nuclear activists. But the fact of the matter is that the American public demands strong regulatory oversight over the nuclear industry. The NRC and its regulatory oversight functions are not going away. Not now, not ever.
And with good reason. Doing things nuclear demands a highly professional approach in every facet of design, manufacture, installation, and operation. Corporate managers have demonstrated time and time again that without the presence of a strong regulatory body to look over their shoulders, they will not fulfill their obligation to the public to do a professional job in managing their nuclear projects.
The cancellation of the VC Summer AP1000 nuclear project, and the delayed completion of the Vogtle 3 & 4 AP1000 project demonstrate that getting nuclear power’s capital costs under control is the paramount task facing the nuclear construction industry in the United States.
Servicing the plant’s capital cost recovery is a large fraction of a nuclear power plant’s total lifetime cost. In making public policy decisions concerning which energy technologies should be adopted for a low carbon energy future, nuclear power cannot be sold as a credible alternative to wind and solar unless its costs can be accurately and reliably predicted and unless nuclear construction projects can be delivered on cost and on schedule.
If you think nuclear power plants are too expensive – then buy them from Russia and China. Unless you’re a racist.
Talk of them being unsafe is 99% racism, 1% technical reality. Some of them have very good track records and the Russians are the only ones whose metallurgy skills allowed them to succeed with sodium cooled fast breeder reactors e.g. Beloyarsk uneventfully supplying the grid, all western fast breeders closed down due to coolant containment failures.