According to noted stock trader Ross Givens, many investors are pouring money into nuclear energy stocks that may never deliver. Innovative generation IV and V reactor designs remain unapproved by a slow-moving federal government. Yet investors remain hopeful that this bottleneck will soon be removed.
In the early years of America’s nuclear power industry, the Atomic Energy Commission was favorable to innovative technology and bullish on nuclear’s ability to power the future.
One minor incident, however, enabled the anti-nuclear crowd to have the AEC replaced by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whose mandate switched from using nuclear energy to protecting Americans from nuclear radiation. Their approach predated President Obama’s strategy for bankrupting the coal industry — regulations to make nuclear reactors so expensive that anyone trying to go nuclear would go bankrupt.
In May, President Trump issued an executive order calling for major reforms to the NRC, whose current structure and staffing, he said, are “misaligned with the Congress’ directive that the NRC shall not unduly restrict the benefits of nuclear power.” He wants an NRC that promotes expedited processing of license applications and adoption of innovative technology.
One tactic used by the NRC is the $300 per hour charge to applicants for reviewing applications. Coupled with a razor-like ability to “discover” separate “serious flaws” one at a time, the NRC process adds direct and indirect costs that discourage applicants.
The Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Georgia, the only two new U.S. reactors in the 21st century, were supposed to cost about $14 billion from design to operational status but ended up costing $36.8 billion — plus revenues lost to the delayed approvals. Permitting for Tennessee’s Watts Bar unit 2, which became operational in 2016, began in 1972.
The White House believes NRC staffers have disregarded the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of risk aversion overkill — including safety models that, without sound scientific basis, claim there is no safe threshold of radiation exposure. This forces nuclear plants to protect against radiation below naturally occurring levels.
While lauding the White House’s goal of jumpstarting a nuclear renaissance, nuclear power advocate Steven Curtis says that putting new wine into the old NRC wineskin is a recipe for failure. So is throwing federal dollars at nuclear startups rather than merely removing the regulatory barriers and letting the market decide winners and losers.
Today, says Curtis, 60 to 70 privately owned advanced design nuclear power startups have a combined capital investment exceeding $20 billion, yet the regulations under which they receive approval for both construction and operation are tied up in red tape.
NRC regulations require nuclear facilities, like mining operations, to set aside estimated costs for decommissioning the reactor and long-term storage of nuclear waste. No one has even been harmed from a U.S. nuclear accident, yet neither oil and gas, nor wind and solar facilities, nor any other U.S. industry, is so rigidly overregulated.
Shortening permitting times for nuclear reactors is a step in the right direction, Curtis says, but that alone will not bring the cost of nuclear energy to competitive levels. There is a solution, says Curtis, that can turn a $50 billion bill for storing nuclear waste into a trillion-dollar bonanza: Promote the recycling (not just reprocessing) of spent nuclear fuel in fast reactors and design and build reactors that can turn recycled fuel into abundant cheap electricity.
Every active U.S. nuclear reactor is a “light-water reactor,” in which only about 3% of the fissile material is used to generate electricity. French reactors are of similar design, but they send spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing that yields a 25% to 30% increase in energy output.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, France was sending spent nuclear fuel to the Seversk plant in Siberia. Since then, EDF, which operates France’s reactor fleet, has considered setting up a conversion facility in Western Europe, but, as of now, the spent fuel is in storage.
Today’s generation IV and V “fast” reactors, including molten salt reactors, can be designed to burn most of the remaining 95% (1% becomes plutonium) of what Curtis calls “slightly used nuclear fuel” (SUNF), if it is recycled (rather than merely reprocessed).
If the U.S. adopted true nuclear fuel recycling, says Curtis, the cost of nuclear-generated electricity could fall dramatically. First, from being able to use nearly all the uranium fuel to generate electricity; second, from significant reductions in the amount — and half-life — of the remaining “nuclear waste,” and maybe even ending the quest for deep underground burial.
The shocking fact is that, in the U.S., both reprocessing and recycling are legal.
Anti-nuclear propaganda, the NRC’s archaic licensing system, and media-generated public fear are the chief obstacles to this revolutionary technology. Funding for today’s nuclear startups could turn into an avalanche of cash if investors could be certain that the reactors they were designing would not need NRC licensing and that their SUNF could be disposed of.
One method of true recycling of SUNF is done via pyroprocessing, in which spent fuel rods are chopped into small pieces, then crumbled into a powder that is dissolved into a molten salt bath. When an electric current is applied, the uranium and transuranic elements are deposited onto an electrode, then collected as a metallic ingot. This “fuel” can then be placed into a fast reactor.
The Argonne National Laboratory successfully operated such a reactor/recycle system for 30 years using the 20 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor called the Experimental Breeder Reactor. Scientists conducted two extreme accident failure simulations in April 1986 to test the system’s safety, and it passed with flying colors. In both cases, the reactor shut down with no damage and was quickly restarted for normal operations.
While the project was terminated in 1994 and decommissioned for political reasons, the Department of Energy is now planning to construct a similar test reactor using the same concepts to more accurately determine cost projections for today’s small modular (fast) reactor designs, which are also intrinsically safe.
To commercialize this process, scientists at the Argonne laboratory in 2012 proposed to spend $500 million on a 100-ton-per-year (tpy) facility that could feed a 1 GW fast reactor power plant. There is also a design concept for a full-scale commercial 2,000 tpy facility at a projected cost of $7 billion. Based on fees collected from the DOE for reprocessing SUNF, such a facility should earn a minimum 18% profit annually.
Curtis believes that fully embracing SUNF recycling and building reactors capable of using recycled nuclear fuel could enable leveraging most of the $50 billion currently in the Congressional Nuclear Waste Fund to jumpstart a private initiative to recycle the SUNF into up to a trillion dollars’ worth of recycled nuclear fuel.
Had the NRC, the media, and the fear mongers realized in 1986 that recycling was not only possible but profitable, the U.S. might today have multitudes of fast reactors burning SUNF and providing electricity to American people and industries for pennies a kilowatt-hour. That’s why Curtis believes the NRC — and federal subsidies that lock companies into bureaucratically determined reactor designs — need to go.
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If it weren’t for the ignoramuses in the media, we’d have nuclear cargo ships plying the seas. NS Savannah was built as a demonstrator, part cargo ship, part luxury passenger ship.
It had the misfortune of being built shortly before CONEX shipping containers took over. NS Savanna was built on the old break bulk model, with cargo having to be slung by cranes in and out of the holds in individual bundles and pallets. She was obsolete before being launched in 1959.
Shipping containers in various forms had existed since 1795, when coal boxes were built to be transferred from horse drawn wagons to canal boats on the Derby Canal in the UK. Different sizes and types of containers were used in different areas of the world, until a design built for the Korean War, then used in the Vietnam War led to the current standard containers.
The initial form of the standard intermodal shipping containers still in use was developed in 1956. The first ship to carry them was the SS Ideal X, a former tanker launched in 1944, converted for containers in 1956. Those containers had the same exterior dimensions as current ones, with the same corner castings and holes for twist locks to lift, stack, and secure them onto train cars and truck trailers.
Had NS Savannah been a pure container ship, without the fancy passenger accommodations, the shipping industry and governments might have been encouraged to push acceptance of nuclear cargo and other nuclear powered civilian ships.
Instead, the NIMBYs and the ignorant successfully got a poorly planned ship put out of service.
On the long run we will move to battery electric ships.
Why nuclear-powered commercial ships are a bad idea
https://thebulletin.org/2024/09/why-nuclear-powered-commercial-ships-are-a-bad-idea/
CATL predicts oceangoing electric cargo ships will enter service within three years
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/electric-transoceanic-vessels-within-three-years
The US Navy operates over 80 nuclear ships and subs.
The Voyagers are still working 48 years on thanks to their… radioisotope thermoelectric generators
There is a reason why top-of-the-line submarines run on nuclear reactors and not on batteries. The subs that still run on batteries actually run on diesel engines.
Indeed, and their safety record is unmatched. But it isn’t cheap.
Case hits the strongest argument.
“The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), launched in 1960 and commissioned in 1961 by the U.S. Navy, revolutionizing naval power with its immense endurance and range, capable of steaming for years without refueling thanks to eight nuclear reactors. Nicknamed “Big E,” it served for over 50 years…”
The argument that military ships are a special case rests strangely on the idea that a government-funded solution would be more efficient than a commercially-funded one.
If TMI fires up again that might finally symbolize the end of the Cold War scary China Syndrome movie era for USA.
TMI “Three Mile Island” I did figure it out with looking it up, but Gee Whiz undefined acronyms undefined acronyms are a PITA (Pain In The Ass)
The Navy’s reactors are designed for rapid power changes. I was a nuclear operator on an SSN from 1979-1983. We often drove that boat like a sports car.
Civilian reactors are designed for stable power and efficiency. Very different use cases. Modern reactor designs don’t need the same staffing as a war ship.
Best laugh of the day!
And you really believe it.
The hallucinogenic fuelled delusion is strong with that one.
I recalled that they tried battery powered ferries somewhere.. that lasted about a week before being withdrawn from survive.
Although.. On a cargo ship, there would be plenty of room for diesel generator to continually recharge the batteries.
No, YourignorantmindRefloated, we won’t.
Total greenBollocks™
But my wife won’t take a long trip with her battery operated car. If she can’t drive to another state with it, then why would anyone want to haul cargo across the Pacific with the same technology?
Look to the last car transport vessel in flames due to battery fires.
One needs look no further to understand that it is a terrible idea.
Fires at sea are bad.
Unfortunately it will not be until the first ship burns and sinks with all hands that this will be publicly acknowledged.
Not convincing or well witten articles.
Do due diligence.
Battery energy storage is a failure for large ships, period. The evidence is overwhelming. The only viable electrically powered ships are nuclear or fuel cell (submarines). Batteries are far too poor in energy storage in.MJ/kg. Electrochemistry and the periodic table relegated batteries to laptops and cell phones long ago. Utility scale batteries operate for 4 hours at a cost of multiple $billions and are a major fire hazard (re: Moss Landing among others).
Nuclear ships are on the way back…Now estimated ti be cheaper than oil burners.
The NS Savannah was extremely expensive to operate because of the crew and maintenance costs associated with its nuclear propulsion plant. That is why it was retired prematurely, not because it couldn’t carry shipping containers. There are about 13,000 bulk cargo ships operating profitably today and are in great demand.
“No one has even been harmed from a U.S. nuclear accident” – look up SL-1…
“No one has even been harmed from a U.S. commercial nuclear accident”
There, fixed it for you.
That statement is falsified by this from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Generating_Station , which in turn references “Three Mile Island radiation leak investigated”, CNN, November 22, 2009:
“On November 21, 2009, a release of radioactivity occurred inside the containment building of TMI-1 while workers were cutting pipes . . . Approximately 20 employees were treated for mild radiation exposure . . .”
Note the operative phrase in that quote: “were treated for mild radiation exposure”.
While true, no undue cancers were caused by that mild radiation exposure. A person living in Denver Colorado receives more radiation than someone living near 3 Mile Island during the incident. Granite buildings and high elevation both contribute to exposure. If you eat a banana every day, you’ll get more radioactive potassium exposure internally.
Who has a radon detector in their basement?
How do you treat for “mild radiation exposure?” There are treatments for contamination, where you have some radioactive particles on your skin or internal to the body. Radiation is exposure to alpha, beta or gamma rays and once it has passed through your body, there are no treatments for mild exposures, the body heals any damage. There IS a treatment if you get an acute dose that affects bone marrow and that is not the case with a mild exposure.
I looked at the reference you linked to above. You reproduced it correctly. However, the CNN article cited as a source in Wikipedia only says, “workers were sent home because they could not continue until the area was cleaned,” there is no mention of medical treatment.
The Wikipedia article is not correct in this instance, imagine that.
Radiation exposure can also include neutrons, produced by fissions of radioactive isotopes (usually uranium). These can damage chromosomes, permanently.
True. However, when a reactor is shutdown, as in the situation cited, neutron production is considered “minimal” and installed shielding takes care of it.
Well, in the most common case of sunburn from exposure to too much solar UV radiation (or from remaining too long under a tanning light) there are oils and cremes that are applied to the burned are of the skin to moisturize/soften it and as means of applying topical analgesic to lessen the pain of the injury.
My understanding is that the same treatments are used for EM radiation burns from radioactive sources. However, if the term “mild radiation exposure” involves physical contamination by radioactive material adhering to skin/clothing or being inhaled (as was likely the case for “workers cutting pipes“, as reported by CNN) then more extensive treatments are indicated. My 15-second search on the Web revealed this as the first hit for listing the treatment steps:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/radiation-sickness/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20377061 . This reference cites specific drugs that may be prescribed to minimize damage to the patient’s bone marrow.
As for your comment about “workers were sent home because they could not continue until the area was cleaned”, would that perhaps be AFTER they were treated by medical personnel? Inquiring minds want to know.
Maybe the CNN report is superficial in its content . . . imagine that.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Lewis Slotin, considering how irrelevant your comment is.
SL-1 was not an accident .
Was done on purpose in response to adultery .
Dig deeper .
Lived in Idaho Falls .Spoke with one of the responder to event who also was part of the clean up afterward.
And who knew the people who died.
And their relationship .
“Was done on purpose in response to adultery .”
Those were the rumors at the time.
But not validated. Many training, operational, and safety aspects were fundamentally lacking. Those were improved as a result of the accident.
http://environmental-defense-institute.org/publications/SL-1Accident.pdf
A more readable source, and it is relatively balanced.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/16/was-worlds-first-fatal-nuclear-explosion-sparked-by-a-love-triangle/
Man that I spoke with knew the men who died .
He spoke to me because I was a “Nuc” going to prototype at S5G and he worked there.
And this was about 10 years after the event ….
and he was not a BS er ….
I am not challenging his story.
But also, I am not acknowledging him as an autoreactive source.
There were tons of rumor circulating at the time. The investigation was neither transparent nor public at the time.
ChatGPT3 gives a short and readable discussion on this topic and concludes:
Why historians and engineers reject itThere is no credible evidence supporting intentional action:
Engineering explanations are sufficient:
A bit of trivia. One of the 3 was not killed by radiation exposure.
No reason for down votes. SL-1 was a real nuclear accident where people were killed. No it was not commercial reactor plant and was rather primitive experimental plant but people still died. Nothing but the unvarnished truth.
That said nuclear is safe and has an excellent safety record.
If it weren’t for fearmongering ignoramuses in the media and government, most of our large-scale power would be produced by clean, extraordinarily efficient nuclear fission, not natural gas, coal, and ridiculous wind and solar farms. And we would reprocess spent nuclear fuel (“waste”) to use it even more efficiently and extract every last molecule of potential power from it.
Journalists, most of whom are left-leaning activists who haven’t come out of the closet, and not very smart because of their biases, have promoted the leftist line on radiation hazard for over half a century. But 50 years before that, the fear of radiation was inflamed by the adoption of the erroneous Linear No-Threshold (LNT) dose response model of ionizing radiation, based on the flawed research of Hermann Joseph Muller at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1920s and 1930s in his pursuit of a Nobel Prize (awarded in 1946). The LNT model conveniently suits the agenda of anti-nuclear activists and environmentalists and remains the model upon which nuclear radiation safety standards are based even though research from MIT in 2012 showed definitively that it was wrong. The DNA repair system in living organisms cleans up damage from ionizing radiation that bombards us constantly. It can handle much higher levels of radiation than the LNT model concludes.
A-Bombs, Bears and Corrupted Science – Reassessing radiation safety
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2020/06/Calabrese-Paunio-2020.pdf
A new look at prolonged radiation exposure
https://news.mit.edu/2012/prolonged-radiation-exposure-0515
To be fair, that model was adopted long before any data was available, to contradict it, and was a result of the people tasked with setting up regulations asking “how low radiation can you make it?” and they gave a figure that was written into the regulations,.
The structure of DNA was not established until 1953, and even then the exact error correcting mechanisms took even longer.
There probably wasn’t real data to refute LNT until the 1980s or later. And no reason to rewrite the regulations until it became clear that they were being weaponised to prevent nuclear power from wiping ‘renewables’ off the map.
However it is finally becoming clear that we really need nuclear power. so we will see what the bureaucrats do next.
Muller’s own experiments showed that there was a threshold below which there was no “gene mutation” as he described it (actually cellular damage as his peers suggested). When his experiments bombarding fruit flies with massive doses of x-rays didn’t seem to affect the flies, he increased the doses even further. These were Incredible Hulk levels of radiation. His peers pointed out flaws in his research and others came to the conclusion from their own experiments that there was a lower threshold of ionizing radiation hazard and challenged his conclusions, but Muller remained adamant. He was excessively egocentric by the accounts of those who knew him well. At the time, the low threshold model was the dominant theory, but Muller was determined that he was right and eventually prevailed. It was an astonishing victory of ego over careful science.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was
the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct
to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period
was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities
insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative
degree of comparison only.”
— A Tale of Two Cities.
The point you make, victory of ego over careful science seen some 80 years ago is what we have been fighting for the past 5 decades.
The problem with recycling fuel, is that it is in fact slightly more expensive than raw processed uranium. And is not intrinsically environment friendly as such.
Once the good stuff is extracted, there is still a lot of nasty left over.
All this stuff is sortable, but the political will to do it has been absent.
it is in fact slightly more expensive than raw processed uranium
With methods that haven’t been improved for decades. With increased interest and renewed research that may change.
Not sure your math is correct. The initial processing provides a 3% usage. Recycling brings that up to 25% or so.
So, the cost factors are important.
Secondary benefits are important.
Having much less hasmat to deal with is also an important cost factor.
Nuclear fuel is not reprocessed in the US for a very free-market reason – it is very expensive. Since the “megatons to megawatts” agreement 30 years ago, it has been much cheaper to buy diluted down warhead uranium from Russia. But in the current geopolitical environment, and from a long term perspective, we should be both reprocessing fuel and reviving breeder reactors.
With respect to the NRC, the article is completely correct. The anti-nuclear greens captured the agency after Three Mile Island in 1979 and never let go. But the real regulatory damage is done by the citizen-lawsuit provisions in various environmental laws which enable activist groups to file endlessly and bring construction to a halt again and again. If Congress doesn’t give nuclear energy protection from that, it will never succeed.
It would also help to change the cancer risk model to something more consistent with a 21st century understanding of molecular biology and carcinogenesis. The linear no-threshold theory was developed in 1928, 25 years before the structure of DNA was known. It seemed plausible at the time, but ignores our ability to repair DNA which evolved to protect us from the reactive oxygen species of our warm-blooded metabolism. Hence the shelves full of 21st century snake oils known as “anti-oxidants”.
The NRC was captured before the 1979 accident. There were at least two prominent anti-nukes (and I base this on what they have said since leaving) on the Commission when it was first formed. Obama famously appointed two anti-nukes (the first one was a bald misogynist pig) to chair the Commission in order to constipate the nuclear fuel cycle by cancelling any and all efforts to deal with the so-called “nuclear waste problem.”
Nuclear fuel reprocessing in the US was banned due to the increased weapons grade plutonium created. While cost may also be a factor, the nuclear scare was dominating at the time.
Generally, the cost of nuclear fuel, including reprocessing, is small compared to the overall plant operation costs. Ultra-supercritical reactors reduce the uranium requirement by another factor of 2.
With cheap ocean extraction (the Chinese have demonstrated under $55/kg, half present market costs) and using breeder reactors, there is energy for more than a millennium for 10 billion first world humans!
The regulatory nonsense is the major cost driver. Delay and destroy is their motto.
With Chernobyl and Fukushima data, the radiation risk is obviously far lower than was ‘guessed’ previously. The idea that additional radiation must be zero is ludicrous. Humans are bathed in radiation 24/7 and it varies with time. Flight crews receive far more, for example. Radiation is a part of our natural environment. It is part of our evolutionary process. There are many who are more than willing to tinker with our DNA, but afraid of radiation. mRNA, we now know, is far more dangerous than low level radiation.
None of the above is news, but it was ignored for “narrative” reasons. Idiotically, nuclear was convolved with fossil fuels for an obvious reason – ignorant corrupt Luddite politicians.
Got a radon dtetector, anyone?
I have a beta-gamma detector at home.
If you leave it on for a while it ticks randomly.
Back to baltic, and it ticks a a bit more regularly thanks to the Uranium in the ground and more radon esp in winter months inside concrete flats.
The big laugh was taking it on a plane….
Ah there are FL 30 you get your money’s worth, and then the air hostesses begin to ask interesting questions.. ha.
A couple of notes and clarifications:
I’m not sure what “incident” the author refers to. The formation of the NRC was a restructuring of the Federal Government bureaucracy similar to what resulted in the EPA under the Nixon administration. This restructuring happened under the Ford administration.
That was something that was imposed by Congress in the late 1980’s, I think under the George Bush I administration, if I remember correctly. It’s a ridiculous burden, and I can’t think of another industry that has anything similar to it. The author is right to gripe about this. Could you imagine the howls from “environmentalists” if wind and solar companies had to pay such fees to have their installations approved by regulators? Instead, they are fast tracked and subsidized.
Rate per hour with no restrictions of how many hours per review and how many review cycles is an open ended cash drain.
“Before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, France was sending spent nuclear fuel to the Seversk plant in Siberia. Since then, EDF, which operates France’s reactor fleet, has considered setting up a conversion facility in Western Europe, but, as of now, the spent fuel is in storage.”
Interesting. All I knew was that France had and has a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at Orano La Hague where used fuel is dissolved in acid, the uranium and fissile nuclides are collected and fabricated into what is called Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOF) for continued used in French reactors. The left over radioactive material is turned into glass, placed in shielded containers and stored “in a room at Le Hague” as I was once told. They have been doing this since 1976. The US was planning on a similar process but it was killed by President Carter in 1977 because of his “concerns” about proliferation of fissile material, a rather dimwitted action in my opinion. French nuclear authorities may have sent some depleted fuel to a Russian facility as well, but I believe they continue with their own well-established fuel reprocessing system.
And Carter claimed to be a nuclear engineer.
Not many people know that Jimmy Carter graduated from the US Naval Academy.
Not many people know who Jimmy Carter is?
“Jimmy Carter wasn’t a formal nuclear engineer but had extensive training and experience in the early nuclear submarine program under Admiral Hyman Rickover, working with reactor technology, nuclear physics at Union College (as a graduate student), and even dismantling a damaged Canadian reactor in 1952, making him highly knowledgeable, earning him the nickname “Nuc One” and making him the first president with such a deep nuclear background.”
He was. Designated by Admiral Rickover to be Chief Engineer of the original USS SEAWOLF sodium cooled reactor, he quit to run his peanut farm, literally. The original SEAWOLF sodium reactor was removed after a couple years of experience because of system leaks due to unanticipated corrosion caused by the hot sodium, which limited power output, and concerns with dealing with hot sodium (flammable in air) and manyfold times that in water. The reactor was replaced by a water cooled reactor of the NAUTILUS design which operated successfully for a full ship life.
I will accept that clarification. Thank you.
Yup the Denis story matches my memory. Nuclear power in USA and most of the world was un-justified with fears of nuclear weapons, not unfounded but definitely unfortunate. I also agree with the assessment “dimwitted”.
Molten salt cooled reactors have an achilles heel. Molten salt is highly corrosive to nearly every metal as experience with such machines has shown. I do not know whether suitably corrosion- resistant metals have yet been developed but it is a necessary development to allow such reactors in commercial service.
Materials development is critical, but is not a show-stopper. It requires effort and determination. And, there are alternate approaches. Good engineering is essential, of course. For now, the Gen 3+ reactors are safe; the ‘spent’ fuel can be recycled, and saved for future breeder reactors. The thermal efficiency difference is not even a factor of 2.
The BIG gain is in breeding – 60-80 times is possible. The French should resurrect Phenix. It worked well, but was killed by more Luddites.
Phenix didn’t work well at all. It needed refueling every two months which required the reactor to be shutdown leading to a capacity factor of about 65%. Later in life it began experiencing reactivity excursions (think uncontrollability.) I do not know the reasons for the excursions but after a few years of study it was restarted at a lower power limit further limiting its electricity production.
Time capsule from 1987:
“Yucca Mountain in Nevada is the controversial, congressionally-designated site for a U.S. deep geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, chosen for its dry climate, volcanic tuff geology, and isolation, but the project stalled in 2010 due to intense political opposition from Nevada and tribal concerns, leaving only a test tunnel and unresolved national nuclear waste storage issues. While studies suggested suitability, safety, environmental, and national security concerns persist, with the site currently in political limbo, its future uncertain despite ongoing debate and some calls for its restart.”
My forty years in nuclear includes nuclear quality assurance, facility operations, project planning & scheduling, cost estimating and cost control, in-field construction activities inside rad zones, regulatory compliance analysis, and systems analysis for nuclear-related software projects.
Sure, the NRC’s focus on LNT and ALARA have had their impacts on the costs and schedules of nuclear. So have a series of environmental decisions in the courts, especially those in the 1970’s. But not to the extent claimed by NRC critics.
Here is the reality of the current situation. Nuclear is industrial with a capital ‘I’. The primary driver of the cost of nuclear is that a highly professional job must be done in all phases of nuclear construction and operations.
Why? Because a nuclear power plant which has not been constructed to its design specifications is inherently dangerous. A nuclear power plant which is not being operated within its approved operating parameters is inherently dangerous.
Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the anti-nuclear activists started out basing their arguments on issues of basic nuclear safety. They didn’t get very far with those arguments in the courts. The activists then switched tactics and began challenging nuclear projects on the basis of quality assurance issues; i.e., that some number of nuclear projects were not following the QA programs they had committed to in their NRC license applications.
For purposes of licensing a nuclear power plant, failures in quality assurance of systems and components, and failures in managing the quality assurance program, both will have exactly the same effect — the project then becomes vulnerable to being successfully contested on the basis of QA-related issues, as opposed to being contested on basic nuclear and radiation safety issues.
What we saw in the 1970’s and early 1980’s was that nuclear projects which had serious management problems in every phase of their project execution were not following their written QA plans. Whistleblowers on the job whose valid concerns were being ignored went outside the projects to the anti-nuclear activists. The activists would then use these very real QA problems to contest the issuance of a license in the NRC’s own hearings and also in the courts.
The basic costs of a nuclear power plant are the basic costs of a nuclear power plant. The only means of significantly reducing basic capital costs is to order enough of them at one time so that economies of scale in component fabrication and production can then kick in. Reducing the capital cost of a 1200 mw AP1000 or a 300 mw BWRX-300 from $18,000/kw to $8000/kw will require an initial order of ten or possibly even fifteen of each design. IMHO, only the federal and state governments have the financial resources needed to place an initial set of orders of that size.
Going with nuclear power is strictly a public policy decision. We buy nuclear for purposes of gaining energy security and reliability. For which we are obliged to pay a premium over what gas-fired generation costs.
The two question here in the year 2025 that we face are these: (1) How big of a premium should we be willing to pay for the benefits of nuclear power? (2) Should we accept the harsh reality that if the federal and state governments are the only sources of financing for enough reactors to allow the needed economies of scale to kick in, then are we by default adopting a socialist-style energy policy?
Yes, of course.
From the final paragraph of the above article:
“Had the NRC, the media, and the fear mongers realized in 1986 that recycling was not only possible but profitable, the U.S. might today have multitudes of fast reactors burning SUNF and providing electricity to American people and industries for pennies a kilowatt-hour.”
Well, IMHO, the “might” in that statement in on the order of a 1-in-a-million chance, especially with the caveat of the recycling being profitable.
According to https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48364 (published January 2025, my bold emphasis added):
“About 91,000 metric tons of SNF is stored at nuclear plant sites around the United States, awaiting consolidated storage and permanent underground disposal. . . .
“Reprocessing is currently carried out in France, Russia, and a few other countries; however, there are no commercial reprocessing operations in the United States. Reprocessed uranium and plutonium currently can be recycled only once into new fuel for current reactor designs, as additional recycling would require advanced reactors, specifically fast neutron reactors.
“Commercial reprocessing activities in the United States ended during the 1970s and early 1980s because of rising costs and policy concerns about the potential worldwide growth of stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium.
“The degree to which total waste volumes and long-lived toxicity would be reduced by any future reprocessing and recycling remains uncertain—along with the costs—and largely dependent on future technology development.”
Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor lists the nine major technical issues associated with fast neutron reactors. These are in addition to the major geopolitical/potential terrorist issue of fast neutron reactors enabling large scale production of weapons-grade plutonium.
Ahhh . . . as is common with wishful thinking: pinning expectations on the “promise of future technology development“. Yeah, right!
Agreed. I was paying attention at that time and “reprocessing fuel” was not a new idea. People talked about “French breeder reactors” whenever the topic came up. The bigger reasons nuclear power went into hiding were Cold War (nuclear winter) or disaster (TMI, Chernoble) related – any idea that touched nuclear became glowing, green and dangerous in popular culture – see music, movies, comic books from that era.
Yeah, right! . . . Deus ex machina
Yes, exactly . . . and the humor is . . .
Wiki again.
A more-reasoned reply would have included rebuttals to the nine major technical issues associated with fast neutron reactors that Wikipedia listed.
But in this case, such was not really expected.
I can’t see merchant ships being nuclear powered on a wide basis.
The cost and security aspects dominate.
You would need a dual reactor/turbines/propellers installation for reliability. You can not have a merchant ship at sea without power especially a nuclear one. You could have one nuke and one diesel but that is a bit like wind and gas, why not just have the traditional one?
Security of a nuclear powered ship is paramount. It is a juicy for terrorists. Merchant ships, by international law, are not allowed to carry firearms of any description. So how do we prevent Somalian pirates from doing a Captain Phillips (film)? Fly armed guards to the ship and lift them off just before entry into harbor?
Just too expensive I think.
Modular reactors using TRISO fuel are swap-able and extremely resistant to terrorist exploitation. Several modules could be loaded onto a cargo ship for redundancy. Nano Nuclear Energy, Radiant Nuclear, X-Energy and other companies are working on small reactor designs that would work well.
Very nice Duggan. Once again government standing in the way of affordable, safe, clean and plentiful power. Only government can cause this kind of damage. Without the power of government anti nuclear activists are powerless. Nuclear power is the way forward remove the mindless road bumps to a clean, safe and affordable future.
I read that:
one of Ukraine’s reactors uses spent fuel (Ukraine has nuclear power plants left from Soviet era, including the dead Chernobyl facility).there are subtleties for proliferation due extra content of spent fuel, I presume not a problem in responsible countries like USA.Governments are reluctant to let private entities have fuel.There are nuclear facilities in Canada and US that might well be good candidate to test re-use, as they are near research facilities in Ontario and the ‘nuclear reservation’ in central southern Washington state. (Where the first power plant from the WHOOPS financing fiasco is operational, the buildings of an unfinished plant are in place west of Olympia WA (a cooling tower is being used to dry long objects).)
(Canada is testing a ‘micro reactor’ at its Chalk River research centre north of Ottawa, once proven production ones will be shipped to remote communities to replace diesel generation, apparently will fit into shipping containers.
Canada has several operational reactors at Toronto on Lake Ontario – the Bruce and Douglas Point facilities.)