The Nuclear Power Thread

gmax137

Also, the state public utility commission usually (typically?) has to approve new plant construction as being 'necessary' by some specific criteria. I don't know if that's the case in Texas, or if that approval was in fact in place there.

Astronuc

Major engineering contract for Bellefonte
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-...t-0510107.html
05 October 2010

Astronuc

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi...,4652014.story
The cost of $880 million on a $7.5 billion loan (for a plant currently estimated to cost $9.6 billion) was too great of a burden for the company to take on. The company, and the nuclear industry, feel that the OMB over-estimates the risk.

mheslep

That is yet more nuclear development stopped by government imposed costs.

Astronuc

As opposed to bank or investor imposed costs?! Note that banks and investment funds are not chomping at the bit on 'high risk' nuclear power plants, and I'm sure they'd want a hefty premium up front, and high interest rates.

mheslep

Eh? As I understood the article, OMB was setting higher than reasonable, ie forcing higher interest rates than even private capital would have charged. That, and OMB was forcing additional guarantees. So, all above and beyond what would happen without federal involvement, say in China where total plant costs are much lower even though they are exposed to essentially the same world wide cost of capital.

joelupchurch

But the risks are created by the government. We have had two nuclear reactors that the government refused to issue operating licenses. The companies spent billions of dollars and the government wouldn't let them operate the plants. That doesn't even include all the costs imposed by the insane NRC licensing procedures. The Chinese are building reactors using our designs in less time that it takes the NRC to issue a license to start construction in the United States.

Remember we are talking about reactor designs that the NRC has already approved. There is a whole other process for getting a new design approved.

It really bugs me that opponents of nuclear power say that is too risky when they are the ones that create the risk.

mheslep

Yes! Exactly.

Hmm, two different types of risk here. Financial and accident/proliferation safety.

joelupchurch

Yes, but we are talking about designs that NRC has already approved. The important job for the NRC is to make sure the contractors and subcontractors are building the reactor to the design they approved. They can't do that job until construction starts, so the extra delay provides no extra safety.

I don't mean sitting at a desk in Washington checking paperwork. I mean actual eyeballs at the construction site. The Ap1000 is a modular design, where most of the reactor is built in factories, which should make it easier to control the quality. I wouldn't be surprised, when we start building AP1000 reactors, if we end up buying components from the Chinese.

Astronuc

Um the Chinese government is involved in the building of those reactors in China, and they are flush with cash. In the US, we have public utilities or mechant power producers who have to go to the capital markets. The reason for the government loan guarantees is that the utilities could not get financing from the financial markets.

It could very well be that the government is over-estimating the risk of default on the $7.5 billion loan.


The Chinese government can also accept less stingent safety standards since they are will to accept the loss of life that would be unacceptable in the US (unless one lives in New Orleans ). And the Chinese people cannot sue the government or companies they way its done in the US.

Large forgings have so far been ordered from Japan until shops can be established in the US.

Which two nuclear reactors? Usually the government has a very good reason not to issue a license. There are two sites under construction - South Texas and Vogtle. The rest are either slowly moving along or have been suspended or deferred for various reasons.

mheslep

Yes of course, but the point is the government there apparently does not act to drive up the cost, relatively speaking. What does this have to do keeping plant cost down?

That's curious. Do you have a source for that? I would think the case more likely is that the utility could get financing, but just not at a rate acceptable to them.

I agree, and I support a higher safety standard. However I'm far from convinced that standards and regulatory environments imposed by the US bureaucracy are all supportable on the basis of safety, versus bureaucratic inertia.

Again because of the legal system imposed by the US government in the last ~century or so.

Astronuc

Low financing costs, low overhead down the supply chain, and they subsidize their industries. Also, the average person in China (per capita GDP ~ $3,744 (World Bank)) has a lower standard of living than the average person in the US (per capita GDP ~ $46,436 (World Bank)).

Just what I hear in the industry, but I'll try to get more information from the appropriate sources.

And there is a good reason for that. Corporations used to make unsafe (harmful) products or provide unsafe (harmful) working conditions. Over time, the role of government has evolved to protect the consumer and worker, which is consistent with " . . . establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, . . . , promote the general Welfare, . . . ." BTW - the "people" elected the governments that determined those policies.

mheslep

I think he means historically - Byron for at least one of them. License refused in 1984 after 9 years of construction. License eventually granted; the delay no doubt cost a fortune.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_N...rating_Station

mheslep

??? I don't follow how that all connects to being "flush with cash"? Anyway ...
Corporations? All kinds of business entities, including mom&pop shops have made unsafe products, and they still do, though not as much. I think you'd find it hard to prove the US version of government regulation is responsible for all of that improvement.

Again, I think you'd find it hard to prove that it actually does those things.
So are many things. Like, for instance, having access to inexpensive, clean energy, which allows those with out means a chance to prosper.
Yes, unfortunately that does not mean "people" desired everything those governments have done, or certainly not as much as the trial lawyers desired it.

joelupchurch

The infamous case was Shoreham. It was complete, but it couldn't get an operating license because Governor Mario Cuomo wouldn't sign off on a Emergency Evacuation Plan. Governor Dukakis used similar tactics to keep Seabrook from opening for years. The delays drove the major shareholder of the plant into bankruptcy.

It doesn't look like the apple falls far from the tree. Governor Elect Andrew Cuomo has been trying to get Indian Point shut down by getting their environmental permits revoked.

joelupchurch

Here is an update on large forging capabilities. China has leapfrogged Japan and the US isn't even in the running.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/in...er_plants.html

From a public safety perspective, I'm not sure it matters what value the Chinese Government places on human life. All it takes is a desire not to have multibillion dollar investments turned into puddles of radioactive slag. If anything, it might help, since I suspect any subcontractor that is caught cutting corners on reactor construction will end up with a bullet in the back of the head. They may not care if they are shipping toys painted with lead paint to American children, but they care very about protecting their investments.

russ_watters

I don't think it would be hard at all. One need only look at a small handful of incidents from our not-too-distant past to realize that such things as boiler explosions and fires that engulf a large part of a city have gone from somewhat common to exceedingly rare.

Now, of course, it is possible for regulation to go too far, but it is very difficult to identify what "too far" is.

For nuclear, though, you can mostly ignore the safety regulation itself and focus on the application of it. The examples given of politicians arbitrarily holding up plant construction are examples of people being able to game the process for political purposes and to the detrement of the plant. So what I'm most interested in seeing is a regulatory process put in place that eliminates such abuse, shortens timelines for approvals, etc.