A pragmatic assessment of nuclear energy’s future follows.
The Department of Energy is proposing to “license” commercial nuclear power plants in an apparent attempt to circumvent the lawfully designated authority, namely the Nuclear Energy Commission (NRC). Strikes me that the massive Federal energy bureaucracy is simply attempting to line their own pockets. Rather than dictate the direction of the nation’s nuclear energy efforts, the over-staffed DOE needs to return to providing cost-effective help in conjunction with proper industry requests. Proper means the technology has a realistic prospect of being reasonably competitive without resorting to never ending government subsidizes.
That being said, in current form the NRC has evolved into a massive impediment to U.S. nuclear energy. The NRC needs to return to their original lawful roots (as re-emphasized by recent laws) of helping insure that the public is safe from hazardous radiation, as opposed to imperiously dictating all-matters nuclear.
The way out of this swamp is not that difficult, as outlined below:
1. The lion’s share of NRC efforts must be commiserate with the public’s risk to hazardous radiation. In regulatory parlance, that means efforts fundamentally revolve around “Safety-Related”.
2. Demonstration of acceptable hazardous radiation risk is the applicant’s legal obligation and has been since the dawn of the commercial nuclear industry. The NRC’s lawful duty resides with being reasonably satisfied that the applicant has met their fundamental legal obligation.
3. Industry codes and standards are the backbone of commercial nuclear efforts, as clearly emphasized by the Modernization Act of 2019. In that regard, the NRC’s lawful obligation rests with collaboration with industry in the development of key industry codes and standards – see Modernization Act.
The applicant must identify the key codes/standards employed for safety-related activities. There is no legal requirement for the NRC to approve, sanction, or otherwise accept the huge number codes and standards routinely employed in conjunction with nuclear power plant design, construction, and operation. To do so creates a springboard for wildly excessive regulatory overreach while degrading nuclear safety because plants end up being stuck in a time-warp induced by archaic outdated standards.
4. Regulatory guidance documents are voluntary and have no legal standing. The NRC cannot force the applicant to explain not conforming to guidance documents or any part thereof. NRC inquiries must be specifically tied to meaningful hazardous radiation risk, as opposed to blunderbuss inquiries using guidance documents that are themselves replete with tenuous to non-existent linkages to the public’s hazardous radiation risk.
Actual implementation of this approach is easily accomplished. Simple and unambiguous language should be inserted into general introductory sections of the Code of Federal Regulations (10CFR50 series). No changes to guidance documents are required because they are immaterial from a legal standpoint, although some contain information that can be helpful. In passing, this commonsense approach has been previously formally proposed in conjunction with recent public comment efforts involving advanced reactors – see proposed 10CFR53.
The impact of complying with recent law should lead to at least a 30 percent drop in nuclear power construction costs. However, natural gas power plants would remain formidable competitive forces.
In passing, the Trump administration is axing all manner of green energy subsidies and replacing that largess with similar massive nuclear energy subsidies. Appears one form of taxpayer abuse has been replaced by another. Exasperatingly, a number of the currently heavily subsidized ($ billions) advanced reactor types have little or no chance of ever being reasonably commercially competitive. Some are too small, some heavily push the limits of technical and operational practicality while some are flatly not viable, as proven by multiple massive ($ billions) earlier commercial failures.
In closing, the prudent use of taxpayer money should be a primary Federal objective, as opposed to an obscure footnote.