New nukes on the horizon
Uncertainty Surrounds Plans for New Nuclear Reactors
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, June 3 — The nuclear industry is poised to receive the first new orders for reactors in three decades, but what remains unclear is whether the smartest buyers will be those at the head of the line or a little farther back.
The industry expects orders for a dozen or so new reactors. Since the last completed order was placed in 1973, much has changed. There are new designs, a new licensing system, new federal financial incentives, new costs and new risks, and no one is sure how the changes will play out as orders, or requests to build, are filed.
For example, the federal government is offering "risk insurance" for the first six reactors, to protect builders against bureaucratic delays, with the biggest share of the insurance going to the first two. Loan guarantees are also possible, but probably only for the first few plants.
Manufacturers have design costs that they will probably try to recoup from the first few reactors sold, increasing the cost. And no one seems eager to be the first to try out a radically different licensing system.
Substantial questions remain about the predictability of the regulatory process, said James R. Curtiss, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who is a lawyer at Winston & Strawn. The firm recently helped with an application for a license for a new uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico.
Long delays occurred, Mr. Curtiss said, as new issues were argued before a three-judge administrative law panel and then went to the five-member commission for a ruling. Licensing a second plant will go much more smoothly, he said.
(The rest of the story is here.)
TM comment: As NSC Director responsible for nuclear issues, I pushed mightily for a new generation of nuclear reactors, which burn clean and put only about 1/40th as much pollution into the atmosphere as coal or fuel oil power plants. In fact, coal plants put more NUCLEAR material into the atmosphere than nuclear plants (per KW hour generated). Surprising but true.
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, June 3 — The nuclear industry is poised to receive the first new orders for reactors in three decades, but what remains unclear is whether the smartest buyers will be those at the head of the line or a little farther back.
The industry expects orders for a dozen or so new reactors. Since the last completed order was placed in 1973, much has changed. There are new designs, a new licensing system, new federal financial incentives, new costs and new risks, and no one is sure how the changes will play out as orders, or requests to build, are filed.
For example, the federal government is offering "risk insurance" for the first six reactors, to protect builders against bureaucratic delays, with the biggest share of the insurance going to the first two. Loan guarantees are also possible, but probably only for the first few plants.
Manufacturers have design costs that they will probably try to recoup from the first few reactors sold, increasing the cost. And no one seems eager to be the first to try out a radically different licensing system.
Substantial questions remain about the predictability of the regulatory process, said James R. Curtiss, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who is a lawyer at Winston & Strawn. The firm recently helped with an application for a license for a new uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico.
Long delays occurred, Mr. Curtiss said, as new issues were argued before a three-judge administrative law panel and then went to the five-member commission for a ruling. Licensing a second plant will go much more smoothly, he said.
(The rest of the story is here.)
TM comment: As NSC Director responsible for nuclear issues, I pushed mightily for a new generation of nuclear reactors, which burn clean and put only about 1/40th as much pollution into the atmosphere as coal or fuel oil power plants. In fact, coal plants put more NUCLEAR material into the atmosphere than nuclear plants (per KW hour generated). Surprising but true.
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