An amazingly informative and entertaining discussion by James Krellenstein. The defense of the NRC was enlightening as was praise for Southern Company and Bechtel for their abilities to complete Vogtle. After hearing of all the abandoned partial builds of nuclear plants because of cost, I'm amazed at the incompetence of our system of multiple small private utilities and the amount of money wasted because of their limited individual resources to deal with unplanned expenses. If we had a national utility responsible for nuclear builds, all that dispersed failed effort might have produced multiple successful builds, perhaps fewer than budgeted, but all completed. I'm sure Southern Company's large size helped it withstand the stress in completing Vogtle and I wish it great success in its work on a much needed MCFR with Terra Power and others.
TTo your point about "national utility" that is what TVA is. And TVA is a force more powerful than god or the federal government for that matter. TVA was building NPPs simultaneously with massive coal plants decades ago. Those massive hulks of uncompleted NPPs like Bellefonte came at the same time as they continued coal builds, and they overbuilt supply...to then complain for 3 decades about no load growth. It should have been TVA building new NPPs, not Southern or in SC. But their trust in the "Nuclear Renaissance" promises was like other utilities, "let's wait and see how it goes" for the first decade. Poor results on grand display in GA & SC, they spent billions replacing their coal plants with natural gas. Like many other IOU - Investor Owned Utilities. Note now, they are not diving in alone with the latest "promise" of SMRs, but rather wading in partnering with OPG & Synthos Green on a single SMR build in Ontario, given a hard-earned confidence booster from the successful Darlington refurbishments. Speaking of TVA's perfect conditions for NPPs builds (a note for James), they unlike Vogtle or Summers have river navigation to all their plants and float large factory manufactured components in from suppliers, but other large equipment & materials. Many of their existing coal plants originally barged coal in.
You're telling the story of how EdF built nuclear in France once. However recent history shows that being a large size operator doesn't protect from going awry about builds.
With the amount of money that is being thrown around right now they should be looking at every one of those abandoned plants and judging which ones would be worth finishing. It sounds like some of them were basically running already. Even if its a couple billion to get them running that would be worth it.
And yet gas plants are built all over the US in 18 months. Wind and solar are fast. Coal plants were as well years ago. They have no NRC involved. How is it you blame utilities for nuclear failures?
@@Nill757 I blame the fragmented US utility system that contains many utilities too small to bear the unexpected expenses of a first-of-kind nuclear unit build w/o risk of bankruptcy. State regulatory bodies and lenders were also too slow to provide financial adjustments to accommodate units whose up front costs dominate lifetime costs, rather than the lifetime stream of fuel costs and modification costs that dominate fossil fueled plants after they are built. Coal plants used to routinely double or triple in cost when retrofitted with precipitators and later scrubbers, but when costs increased up front, w/o relief, the nuclear projects got abandoned unless the utility was large enough to spread unexpected costs widely across its larger customer and stockholder base. Utilities and regulators also failed to value fuel diversity as an essential goal of operation, worthy of its higher costs. We are now overly dependent on gas, leaving us vulnerable to pipeline sabotage in exactly the same way Europe was with the Nordstream pipelines. Every one of those abandoned plants should have been completed, regardless of higher costs, as an expression of their value of both fuel diversification and lifesaving clean air, as Vogtle now does.
The NRC is motivated by only 2 things. 1. Safety, safety above all things. Not just the safety of the reactor but also their own safety, CYA safety. The NRC has taken on so much responsibility that if there is a problem the public will look to them for blame. So, yes, safety at all costs, literally because the safest reactor is the one that never gets built or is so expensive that no one tries again. 2. Fees. The NRC is funded by industry fees so a long, drawn-out review process means more fees. 90% of the NRC budget comes from industry fees so there is no incentive to ever expedite anything. In fact, the slower the process the better. There is a real incentive to find problems during construction and slap on fines and delays.
Yes, unlike any other regulator. All others are required to balance safety with industry production that serves the public, FDA, FAA. Imagine no drugs or new planes for 30 years, as w US nuclear, because “safety”. If in nuclear there were dozens and hundreds and thousands killed ea year as w oil/coal/gas accidents or RX drug abuse, the NRC might have a point, but US commercial nuclear power fatalities from radiation is zero. Zero. NRC is a disgrace.
@@Nill757 The safest drug is the one that no one ever takes. The FDA suffers from the same CYA safety problem that the NRC does except most people want new and improved drugs and most people have been taught to fear nuclear, so no one complains about the NRC.
@@chapter4travels eh, people can’t understand the NRC dysfunction, because there are few to no industry professionals explaining it to them. All the money now is in in the nuclear “safety” industry, $billions for years, building nothing. They all have a vested interest in spreading fear about nuclear power. That’s a unique situation.
@@Nill757 If you're in the nuclear industry you don't dare criticize the NRC for fear of retribution and if they come after you, there is nowhere to go, they are immune from oversight. All they have to do is say "RADIATION SAFETY" and no one will challenge it, they are Gods.
Kudos to James for defending the NRC from unfair attacks. But much of the criticism of the NRC is really against the unnecessary safety culture. The NRC is just the whipping boy. To solve the climate crisis we need a radically different approach to nuclear, not just streamlining the regulatory process. It has been suggested that LWRs are inherently safe and could be built safely with the same level of regulation as a coal power plant. I would like to hear James's option on that.
Defending NRC? How do you get there? Despite the title, the NRCs role is barely discussed. I doubt K says ‘NRC’ twice. I agree there is an unnecessary safety culture, and it comes from the NRC and the nuclear safety industry attached to it. K could have explored this but says nothing.
@@Nill757 James K gave at least two specific examples of the NRC being unjustly blamed for delays, the air impact requirements and the pipe bracket fix. He explicitly called out Rod Adams as an NRC critic. But James ignored the possibility that the safety culture mindset of Westinghouse and the entire nuclear industry is what makes nuclear too expensive even with the most favorable regulation. The best example of a safety culture critic is Bret Kugelmass. He has some very controversial ideas, but they at least have the potential to fix climate change.
@@mhirasuna just finishing the 2nd half of this latest podcast; you’re correct, he did address NRC involvement. James K also made the claim that the NRC as the “most transparent” agency in the US. I strongly disagree. The rejection of the Oklo application with no evidence explanation whatsoever is only the most recent example. Then see all the subterfuge Director Jaczko pulled with canceling Yucca mountain, harassing employees, etc, and the infamous surprise Aircraft Impact requirement , *after* concluding all existing US reactors are ok without it.
Great episode. I think James is absolutely correct on the main issue to be tackled for nuclear builds in the U.S.. I heard that they could have started the project with Bechtel but deemed that they were "too expensive". Is that correct?
I stumbled on your podcast doing some research for a talk . I live near to Sizewell in the UK where EDF plans to build a new European Pressurised Reactor of the same design as the one at Hinkley (also in the UK). A Generic Design Assessment process took place prior to the design being signed off. It was an extremely flawed process, and there was a great deal of pressure on the regulator to sign off the design by a particular date in order to have an investment plan in place and start building. Important elements of the design were not finalised , such as the control and instrumentation, and these were shunted off into something called 'Assessment findings' to be completed as the design was being built. An example of how the process was flawed can be seen in a debacle over an Acoustic Fish Deterrent. EDF included it in the design and touted it as an example of how the nuclear plant would be environmentally responsible. When they came to build the Acoustic Fish Deterrent, they found it impossible to install and operate as planned, so wanted to scrap it. EDF have now been allowed to do so in return for environmental mitigation elsewhere.
These discussions are so important and necessary. After 40 years of managing heavy construction projects, an incomplete design of construction specifications/drawings is a 100% guarantee of failure either in budget or schedule. Frankly, the people managing Georgia should have known better than to start breaking ground.
So, what do we think the maturity of the design is now? Complete? We're happy with the way Vogtle 3 & 4 were completed? Can we say that we can now just confidently build NOAKs of the AP1000? And at a more representative NOAK price? Should we just immediately start building the next 6, with those site licenses that exist? And then, at the same time start finding the next 20-40 sites? We have 10s of thousands of NPPs to build world wide, and hundreds in the USA... And if you're watching the temps, we need to start them this evening. Which means, we really, really shouldn't worry about FOAK prices. The cost of the 1st off of 1000 really doesn't matter. And delaying building out NPPs is going to cost us a lot, lot, lot more with the fallout of the ever increasing shittyness that climate change will gift us.
Utilities never believed the promises of the "Nuclear Renaissance", and they are not going to buy the academic FOIK/NOAK studies either. Instead, they are going to watch the progress of AP1000s that our State Department has been selling overseas and see how they go. If they do go ok, that means there's another 5-7 years of watching, before US utilities are going to put in any orders for a new build. If they follow trajectory of Vogtle/Summers, then they won't. The need to see projected delivered on time and budget (or close to), not reports & studies.
Great discussion! Sounds like we need (for better or worse) to create a more focused approach with government guidance beyond just inspections. Pick a design, finish the design, create a plan with easy to adjust work force tasks, fund with existing rates and some debts, then follow through with high quality. Nuclear is too expensive and too consequential for anything other than high control start to finish.
Great series with a needed perspective. How do we get Policymakers, the DOE and the utility industry to watch and understand what actually happened and how do we get the next nuclear plant started in the US?
*EPC - Extra Pain and Costs* and if they go by EPCM its Extra Pain Costs and Maleficence. I put lengthy explanations of my time in the major construction environment, but it was in mining. If you want to know what mine site construction is like just take the transcript of this and change every reference to "nuclear" and replace it with "mining." FYI - Since they mentioned Bechtel. My last major mining project was a Bechtel site.
In agreement with many - most? - of your auditors that we want the details. In fact, we need them. Also, that this should all be in book form, a monograph at least. Nothing wrong with the genial self-acknowledged loquacity in conversation. In written form it could all be easily condensed. We’re all waiting for episodes 4 through N! It really is valuable to have this reset on the blame-the-NRC convention. (I still think LNT & ALARA and commissioner appointments are big problems, however.) A little surprised at a bit of “throwing under the bus” of both DeVaney and Breakthrough. Devaney may have been premature in his cost prediction in the pipe-brace case, but in my opinion, he brings a lot to the table, much of it unique. He is also the rare advocate who calls the “choir” to task from time to time concerning their own simplistic memes. In Breakthrough’s case, they immediately acknowledged the quick action of the NRC in dealing with the pipe-brace case.
Perry unit 2 in Ohio is another one that was basically finished but never turned on. They use it as the simulator now... But there's a whole extra unused cooling tower and turbine deck 🤦
TBH James we will never see a report out of the industry or from advocates who are so in awe of a NPP, they can't see the entire energy sector around them. Advocates from within (that have actual working experience at a NPP) refuse to look beyond the perimeter fence. While the most vocal advocates have no interest in doing an honest assessment, that will burst the mythos that is nuclear builds of the 60s, 70s & 80s. So, what are we left with... No new large reactor builds or utility orders for France, UK, the US or Canada. None even reinstating their original COLs that have been on ice for 15+ years. Academic-based FOIK/NOAK studies, that utility executives are not blind to the facts with the last decade plus of nuclear builds. FFS, not even TVA is willing to take on a "pint-sized" SMR alone, letting OPG & Synthos Green share in the (hopeful) project successes, based on no previous deployments yet. We're looking at an additional 7 years of "watch and see" with this string of large reactors, that the US State Department is selling to Europe, not the "successes" of Westinghouse through Vogtle & Summers having the Eastern Europeans banging on Westinghouse's doors. This is a monumental risk advocacy, and the nuclear build industry is taking, praying every second these reactors can get built on time & budget, or at least start down that path. Again, this is 7 more years spent waiting for the industry to deliver a project and regain some trust from utility CEOs! They need project deliveries, not another academic report generated, before they will sign on the dotted line. How much more brow-beating will it take to get the industry & advocates to wake up and stop with all their strawman arguments?
I have lost all faith in any nuclear designs of the West (Westinghouse/Areva). * AP1000 had its Vogtle, Summers and Sanmen, discussed in this excellent 3 part series. * EPR had Olkiluoto 3 (2005), Flamanville 3 (2007), Taishan 1 (2009) and 2 (2010) Hinkley Point C (March 2017). In all cases, it has been a complete clusterfuck, totally cost uncompetitive against anything. EPR is the most damning one. Hinkley Point C (that started in 2017) is now (less than half-way into the build) 50% over budget. That is despite being build after others have been nearly finished. That means designs should be workman-ready and supply chains established. Also designed and build by France and with its strong industrial and nuclear tradition. Note that even Chinese couldn't build AP1000/EPR in expected time and budget. The thesis in video is unfinished designs, poor QA/QC and it will be better next time. It's not better for Hinkley Point C. I have severe doubts AP1000 will fare any better. Maybe it's time to throw in a towel and just use ABWR, APR-1400 or Hualong One. At lest they have shown that it's possible to build them in time and budget, whereas EPR/AP1000 is 0 out of 12.
correct me if i'm wrong but isn't the potential liability of publicly traded corporations now practically untenable. delays, supply chain failures, qc, or even post construction mismanagement seem insurmountable for scaled up nuclear build out. too expensive, too complex, too difficult to fake qc or even process control which was systemic in gold rush days of the cold war.
What about NRC refusal to look at LNT Radiation Regulation? Why the PASS? If you criticize Jack Delvany on how to make Nuclear Cheap, this is Jack's best logical argument for why the NRC needs Major Reform if not elimination 3000 Gov employees for what? $$$$$
I'm pretty sure the LNT regs are from the EPA but the NRC is the one who has weaponized them for "Safety". Decouple is a large PWR-only group and they like the over-regulation of the NRC. It keeps out the competition.
I believe you're right. "Different organizations take different approaches to the LNT model" From Wikipedia. So the NRC is acting independently on the LNT regs/standards. These regs allow the NRC to do almost anything, it's one of their most anti-nuclear tools, and they will never give it up. Even if they are forced to by Congress, they will continue to use them anyway and scream "Safety", who will challenge them?
@@briancam_2000 The NRC slammed them mercilessly (for example, pointing out where the petitioners were misrepresenting the data). They didn't refuse to re-examine, they did and denied the petition.
Fixed price contracts on projects on this kind of complexity and risk is almost always going to fail. Look at the UK based NEC contract system for a far more intelligent and successful approach. (PS the lawyers will likely hate it.) And once an industry breaks the chain of senior people mentoring juniors into ANY industry - it's very hard to reforge it.
Every society that has successfully totally decarbonized in under a decade has done so through NUCLEAR ENERGY: France, Sweden, South Korea, and Ontario Canada. S. Korea cut the cost of building nuclear plants 30% in real terms from 1971 to 2008. The NRC in the U.S. crushes new nuclear business where the ONR in the U.K., the PAA in Poland actively support new nuclear companies like Last Energy (USA). The second of the Vogtle plant’s two reactors was 30% cheaper to build than the first because workers and project managers learned from their mistakes building the first reactor. NRC standards set radiation level guidelines TEN THOUSAND times lower than science justifies, which is a primary source of nuclear’s expense. Extreme unjustified standards translate to much more money borrowed for a much longer period of time, that is 70% of your ultimate cost. The NRC must be abolished, it cannot be adequately reformed, not in the U.S. Return to building the 1965 to 1975 designs in 36 months, as was done at that time, and get cheap nuclear energy. And build 10s of thousands of Last Energy type reactors and put them EVERYWHERE.
They were able to be built safely, to budget, in a timely manner fifty years ago. The problem is the stupification of the population. Incompetence, low skills, are a problem. You only have to look at leadership, the fifties and sixties threw up Eisenhower and Kennedy, the twenty twenties have thrown up Biden and Trump. World War 2 and the GI Bill did a lot to lift US national capacity as a technical superpower. Unfortunately those gains have slipped away.
This series should be mandatory for anyone in the Project Management profession (or aspiring to work in that capacity).
An amazingly informative and entertaining discussion by James Krellenstein. The defense of the NRC was enlightening as was praise for Southern Company and Bechtel for their abilities to complete Vogtle.
After hearing of all the abandoned partial builds of nuclear plants because of cost, I'm amazed at the incompetence of our system of multiple small private utilities and the amount of money wasted because of their limited individual resources to deal with unplanned expenses. If we had a national utility responsible for nuclear builds, all that dispersed failed effort might have produced multiple successful builds, perhaps fewer than budgeted, but all completed. I'm sure Southern Company's large size helped it withstand the stress in completing Vogtle and I wish it great success in its work on a much needed MCFR with Terra Power and others.
TTo your point about "national utility" that is what TVA is. And TVA is a force more powerful than god or the federal government for that matter.
TVA was building NPPs simultaneously with massive coal plants decades ago. Those massive hulks of uncompleted NPPs like Bellefonte came at the same time as they continued coal builds, and they overbuilt supply...to then complain for 3 decades about no load growth.
It should have been TVA building new NPPs, not Southern or in SC.
But their trust in the "Nuclear Renaissance" promises was like other utilities, "let's wait and see how it goes" for the first decade.
Poor results on grand display in GA & SC, they spent billions replacing their coal plants with natural gas. Like many other IOU - Investor Owned Utilities.
Note now, they are not diving in alone with the latest "promise" of SMRs, but rather wading in partnering with OPG & Synthos Green on a single SMR build in Ontario, given a hard-earned confidence booster from the successful Darlington refurbishments.
Speaking of TVA's perfect conditions for NPPs builds (a note for James), they unlike Vogtle or Summers have river navigation to all their plants and float large factory manufactured components in from suppliers, but other large equipment & materials.
Many of their existing coal plants originally barged coal in.
You're telling the story of how EdF built nuclear in France once. However recent history shows that being a large size operator doesn't protect from going awry about builds.
With the amount of money that is being thrown around right now they should be looking at every one of those abandoned plants and judging which ones would be worth finishing. It sounds like some of them were basically running already. Even if its a couple billion to get them running that would be worth it.
And yet gas plants are built all over the US in 18 months. Wind and solar are fast. Coal plants were as well years ago. They have no NRC involved. How is it you blame utilities for nuclear failures?
@@Nill757 I blame the fragmented US utility system that contains many utilities too small to bear the unexpected expenses of a first-of-kind nuclear unit build w/o risk of bankruptcy. State regulatory bodies and lenders were also too slow to provide financial adjustments to accommodate units whose up front costs dominate lifetime costs, rather than the lifetime stream of fuel costs and modification costs that dominate fossil fueled plants after they are built. Coal plants used to routinely double or triple in cost when retrofitted with precipitators and later scrubbers, but when costs increased up front, w/o relief, the nuclear projects got abandoned unless the utility was large enough to spread unexpected costs widely across its larger customer and stockholder base. Utilities and regulators also failed to value fuel diversity as an essential goal of operation, worthy of its higher costs. We are now overly dependent on gas, leaving us vulnerable to pipeline sabotage in exactly the same way Europe was with the Nordstream pipelines. Every one of those abandoned plants should have been completed, regardless of higher costs, as an expression of their value of both fuel diversification and lifesaving clean air, as Vogtle now does.
Love this assessment! Have spent 17 years at NRC and 18 years at DOE/NE (supporting NGNP programs ). Great job!
The NRC is motivated by only 2 things.
1. Safety, safety above all things.
Not just the safety of the reactor but also their own safety, CYA safety. The NRC has taken on so much responsibility that if there is a problem the public will look to them for blame. So, yes, safety at all costs, literally because the safest reactor is the one that never gets built or is so expensive that no one tries again.
2. Fees.
The NRC is funded by industry fees so a long, drawn-out review process means more fees. 90% of the NRC budget comes from industry fees so there is no incentive to ever expedite anything. In fact, the slower the process the better. There is a real incentive to find problems during construction and slap on fines and delays.
Yes, unlike any other regulator. All others are required to balance safety with industry production that serves the public, FDA, FAA. Imagine no drugs or new planes for 30 years, as w US nuclear, because “safety”. If in nuclear there were dozens and hundreds and thousands killed ea year as w oil/coal/gas accidents or RX drug abuse, the NRC might have a point, but US commercial nuclear power fatalities from radiation is zero. Zero. NRC is a disgrace.
@@Nill757 The safest drug is the one that no one ever takes. The FDA suffers from the same CYA safety problem that the NRC does except most people want new and improved drugs and most people have been taught to fear nuclear, so no one complains about the NRC.
@@chapter4travels eh, people can’t understand the NRC dysfunction, because there are few to no industry professionals explaining it to them. All the money now is in in the nuclear “safety” industry, $billions for years, building nothing. They all have a vested interest in spreading fear about nuclear power. That’s a unique situation.
@@Nill757 If you're in the nuclear industry you don't dare criticize the NRC for fear of retribution and if they come after you, there is nowhere to go, they are immune from oversight. All they have to do is say "RADIATION SAFETY" and no one will challenge it, they are Gods.
Kudos to James for defending the NRC from unfair attacks. But much of the criticism of the NRC is really against the unnecessary safety culture. The NRC is just the whipping boy. To solve the climate crisis we need a radically different approach to nuclear, not just streamlining the regulatory process. It has been suggested that LWRs are inherently safe and could be built safely with the same level of regulation as a coal power plant. I would like to hear James's option on that.
Defending NRC? How do you get there? Despite the title, the NRCs role is barely discussed. I doubt K says ‘NRC’ twice. I agree there is an unnecessary safety culture, and it comes from the NRC and the nuclear safety industry attached to it. K could have explored this but says nothing.
@@Nill757 James K gave at least two specific examples of the NRC being unjustly blamed for delays, the air impact requirements and the pipe bracket fix. He explicitly called out Rod Adams as an NRC critic. But James ignored the possibility that the safety culture mindset of Westinghouse and the entire nuclear industry is what makes nuclear too expensive even with the most favorable regulation. The best example of a safety culture critic is Bret Kugelmass. He has some very controversial ideas, but they at least have the potential to fix climate change.
@@mhirasuna iirc those examples were in an earlier podcast.
@@mhirasuna just finishing the 2nd half of this latest podcast; you’re correct, he did address NRC involvement.
James K also made the claim that the NRC as the “most transparent” agency in the US. I strongly disagree. The rejection of the Oklo application with no evidence explanation whatsoever is only the most recent example. Then see all the subterfuge Director Jaczko pulled with canceling Yucca mountain, harassing employees, etc, and the infamous surprise Aircraft Impact requirement , *after* concluding all existing US reactors are ok without it.
An AP1000 plant is about half complete when the top of the containment dome is installed to close the containment.
We don't mean to rebel -- but we have taught you well @1:00:00
Thank you Dr K.
Keep these episodes coming! Can’t wait for Part 4
LOVE it - EXTRAORDINARY. Opened my eyes. Where to next ? I’m ready to go !
Huge public service. Thank you gentlemen
Fascinating! What i really liked about this podcast was detailing the vibration issue and what was entailed to get it corrected.
Great discussions
Great episode. I think James is absolutely correct on the main issue to be tackled for nuclear builds in the U.S..
I heard that they could have started the project with Bechtel but deemed that they were "too expensive". Is that correct?
I stumbled on your podcast doing some research for a talk . I live near to Sizewell in the UK where EDF plans to build a new European Pressurised Reactor of the same design as the one at Hinkley (also in the UK). A Generic Design Assessment process took place prior to the design being signed off. It was an extremely flawed process, and there was a great deal of pressure on the regulator to sign off the design by a particular date in order to have an investment plan in place and start building. Important elements of the design were not finalised , such as the control and instrumentation, and these were shunted off into something called 'Assessment findings' to be completed as the design was being built.
An example of how the process was flawed can be seen in a debacle over an Acoustic Fish Deterrent. EDF included it in the design and touted it as an example of how the nuclear plant would be environmentally responsible. When they came to build the Acoustic Fish Deterrent, they found it impossible to install and operate as planned, so wanted to scrap it. EDF have now been allowed to do so in return for environmental mitigation elsewhere.
Yes, more details please James, we need to understand this stuff if we hope to do future new builds with minimal issues.
These discussions are so important and necessary. After 40 years of managing heavy construction projects, an incomplete design of construction specifications/drawings is a 100% guarantee of failure either in budget or schedule. Frankly, the people managing Georgia should have known better than to start breaking ground.
So, what do we think the maturity of the design is now? Complete? We're happy with the way Vogtle 3 & 4 were completed?
Can we say that we can now just confidently build NOAKs of the AP1000? And at a more representative NOAK price?
Should we just immediately start building the next 6, with those site licenses that exist?
And then, at the same time start finding the next 20-40 sites?
We have 10s of thousands of NPPs to build world wide, and hundreds in the USA...
And if you're watching the temps, we need to start them this evening.
Which means, we really, really shouldn't worry about FOAK prices.
The cost of the 1st off of 1000 really doesn't matter. And delaying building out NPPs is going to cost us a lot, lot, lot more with the fallout of the ever increasing shittyness that climate change will gift us.
Utilities never believed the promises of the "Nuclear Renaissance", and they are not going to buy the academic FOIK/NOAK studies either.
Instead, they are going to watch the progress of AP1000s that our State Department has been selling overseas and see how they go.
If they do go ok, that means there's another 5-7 years of watching, before US utilities are going to put in any orders for a new build.
If they follow trajectory of Vogtle/Summers, then they won't.
The need to see projected delivered on time and budget (or close to), not reports & studies.
Spot on. Cost of the first of anything is immaterial to the overall production run.
Great discussion! Sounds like we need (for better or worse) to create a more focused approach with government guidance beyond just inspections. Pick a design, finish the design, create a plan with easy to adjust work force tasks, fund with existing rates and some debts, then follow through with high quality. Nuclear is too expensive and too consequential for anything other than high control start to finish.
Great series with a needed perspective. How do we get Policymakers, the DOE and the utility industry to watch and understand what actually happened and how do we get the next nuclear plant started in the US?
*EPC - Extra Pain and Costs*
and if they go by EPCM its Extra Pain Costs and Maleficence.
I put lengthy explanations of my time in the major construction environment, but it was in mining. If you want to know what mine site construction is like just take the transcript of this and change every reference to "nuclear" and replace it with "mining."
FYI - Since they mentioned Bechtel. My last major mining project was a Bechtel site.
In agreement with many - most? - of your auditors that we want the details. In fact, we need them. Also, that this should all be in book form, a monograph at least. Nothing wrong with the genial self-acknowledged loquacity in conversation. In written form it could all be easily condensed. We’re all waiting for episodes 4 through N!
It really is valuable to have this reset on the blame-the-NRC convention. (I still think LNT & ALARA and commissioner appointments are big problems, however.)
A little surprised at a bit of “throwing under the bus” of both DeVaney and Breakthrough. Devaney may have been premature in his cost prediction in the pipe-brace case, but in my opinion, he brings a lot to the table, much of it unique. He is also the rare advocate who calls the “choir” to task from time to time concerning their own simplistic memes. In Breakthrough’s case, they immediately acknowledged the quick action of the NRC in dealing with the pipe-brace case.
If you're surprised obviously false statements are called out, that is a sad commentary on nuclear advocacy.
Part 4!
0:47 Feeling quite depressed now..........
1:09:56 OK. I'm happy again now 🙂
So how do we get down costs to
Perry unit 2 in Ohio is another one that was basically finished but never turned on. They use it as the simulator now... But there's a whole extra unused cooling tower and turbine deck 🤦
TBH James we will never see a report out of the industry or from advocates who are so in awe of a NPP, they can't see the entire energy sector around them. Advocates from within (that have actual working experience at a NPP) refuse to look beyond the perimeter fence. While the most vocal advocates have no interest in doing an honest assessment, that will burst the mythos that is nuclear builds of the 60s, 70s & 80s.
So, what are we left with...
No new large reactor builds or utility orders for France, UK, the US or Canada. None even reinstating their original COLs that have been on ice for 15+ years.
Academic-based FOIK/NOAK studies, that utility executives are not blind to the facts with the last decade plus of nuclear builds.
FFS, not even TVA is willing to take on a "pint-sized" SMR alone, letting OPG & Synthos Green share in the (hopeful) project successes, based on no previous deployments yet.
We're looking at an additional 7 years of "watch and see" with this string of large reactors, that the US State Department is selling to Europe, not the "successes" of Westinghouse through Vogtle & Summers having the Eastern Europeans banging on Westinghouse's doors.
This is a monumental risk advocacy, and the nuclear build industry is taking, praying every second these reactors can get built on time & budget, or at least start down that path.
Again, this is 7 more years spent waiting for the industry to deliver a project and regain some trust from utility CEOs!
They need project deliveries, not another academic report generated, before they will sign on the dotted line.
How much more brow-beating will it take to get the industry & advocates to wake up and stop with all their strawman arguments?
I have lost all faith in any nuclear designs of the West (Westinghouse/Areva).
* AP1000 had its Vogtle, Summers and Sanmen, discussed in this excellent 3 part series.
* EPR had Olkiluoto 3 (2005), Flamanville 3 (2007), Taishan 1 (2009) and 2 (2010) Hinkley Point C (March 2017).
In all cases, it has been a complete clusterfuck, totally cost uncompetitive against anything.
EPR is the most damning one. Hinkley Point C (that started in 2017) is now (less than half-way into the build) 50% over budget. That is despite being build after others have been nearly finished. That means designs should be workman-ready and supply chains established. Also designed and build by France and with its strong industrial and nuclear tradition.
Note that even Chinese couldn't build AP1000/EPR in expected time and budget. The thesis in video is unfinished designs, poor QA/QC and it will be better next time.
It's not better for Hinkley Point C. I have severe doubts AP1000 will fare any better.
Maybe it's time to throw in a towel and just use ABWR, APR-1400 or Hualong One. At lest they have shown that it's possible to build them in time and budget, whereas EPR/AP1000 is 0 out of 12.
correct me if i'm wrong but isn't the potential liability of publicly traded corporations now practically untenable. delays, supply chain failures, qc, or even post construction mismanagement seem insurmountable for scaled up nuclear build out. too expensive, too complex, too difficult to fake qc or even process control which was systemic in gold rush days of the cold war.
What about NRC refusal to look at LNT Radiation Regulation? Why the PASS? If you criticize Jack Delvany on how to make Nuclear Cheap, this is Jack's best logical argument for why the NRC needs Major Reform if not elimination 3000 Gov employees for what? $$$$$
I'm pretty sure the LNT regs are from the EPA but the NRC is the one who has weaponized them for "Safety". Decouple is a large PWR-only group and they like the over-regulation of the NRC. It keeps out the competition.
@@chapter4travels I believe and may be wrong but in 2015 a group petitioned the NRC to re-examine LNT ? and NRC Refused?
I believe you're right. "Different organizations take different approaches to the LNT model" From Wikipedia. So the NRC is acting independently on the LNT regs/standards. These regs allow the NRC to do almost anything, it's one of their most anti-nuclear tools, and they will never give it up. Even if they are forced to by Congress, they will continue to use them anyway and scream "Safety", who will challenge them?
@@briancam_2000 The NRC slammed them mercilessly (for example, pointing out where the petitioners were misrepresenting the data). They didn't refuse to re-examine, they did and denied the petition.
Link: www.regulations.gov/document/NRC-2015-0057-0671 (I hope this is not deleted as spam)
Fixed price contracts on projects on this kind of complexity and risk is almost always going to fail. Look at the UK based NEC contract system for a far more intelligent and successful approach. (PS the lawyers will likely hate it.)
And once an industry breaks the chain of senior people mentoring juniors into ANY industry - it's very hard to reforge it.
Every society that has successfully totally decarbonized in under a decade has done so through NUCLEAR ENERGY: France, Sweden, South Korea, and Ontario Canada. S. Korea cut the cost of building nuclear plants 30% in real terms from 1971 to 2008. The NRC in the U.S. crushes new nuclear business where the ONR in the U.K., the PAA in Poland actively support new nuclear companies like Last Energy (USA). The second of the Vogtle plant’s two reactors was 30% cheaper to build than the first because workers and project managers learned from their mistakes building the first reactor. NRC standards set radiation level guidelines TEN THOUSAND times lower than science justifies, which is a primary source of nuclear’s expense. Extreme unjustified standards translate to much more money borrowed for a much longer period of time, that is 70% of your ultimate cost. The NRC must be abolished, it cannot be adequately reformed, not in the U.S. Return to building the 1965 to 1975 designs in 36 months, as was done at that time, and get cheap nuclear energy. And build 10s of thousands of Last Energy type reactors and put them EVERYWHERE.
NRC************************POP
They were able to be built safely, to budget, in a timely manner fifty years ago.
The problem is the stupification of the population. Incompetence, low skills, are a problem.
You only have to look at leadership, the fifties and sixties threw up Eisenhower and Kennedy, the twenty twenties have thrown up Biden and Trump.
World War 2 and the GI Bill did a lot to lift US national capacity as a technical superpower. Unfortunately those gains have slipped away.