Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee...
by freeflight on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @02:34PM
(#27053862)
Tbh I can understand the need for near complete blueprints: Trying to judge a systems safety, based on plans of only half the system, does not sound like it would be a very useful judgement.
What's to prevent cutting massive corners after the original half plan was approved?
Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee...
by DennisP on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @02:39PM
(#27053926)
They weren't asking for final approval at an earlier stage. They were just asking for feedback along the way. That way they wouldn't have to guess whether their basic idea had a chance, and they could make changes to address concerns before spending hundreds of millions nailing down the details on something the NRC could have told them it considered fundamentally flawed. It would also help them with investors, when they could show favorable early feedback.
A few years ago I got to sit in a meeting between reps from a bunch of GenIV reactor startups, and a former head of the NRC. The reactor people had one complaint: that the NRC required near-complete blueprints before they would even look at a design. It cost several hundred million dollars to get to that point, then the NRC would give a flat yes or no. If no then you were out of business, and if yes then you still just had a paper reactor.
That's a really difficult environment for investors. They said it would be a huge help just to have a multi-stage process. The NRC person was unsympathetic, said it wasn't the NRC's job to help develop nuclear technology, and brushed off climate change arguments.
Fortunately Congress has gotten involved since then and things seem to be improving a bit.