By John Hallam
The US nuclear power industry is dead in the water. However, there are ambitious plans to revive it, and there has been talk, however muted, of new reactor orders. There are moves to revamp the whole US regulatory framework to allow faster licensing of a new generation of nuclear power plants.
However, the prospects of a new reactor order based on a "new generation" of nuclear technology — such as the modular high temperature gas cooled technology (MHTGR), GE's PRISM technology, GE/Toshiba's advanced boiling water reactor technology, or Westinghouse and Mitsubishi's advanced pressurised water reactor technology — still look distant.
The US has 111 operating nuclear reactors. Four are in construction, of which two — Bellefonte 1 and 2 — are owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The TVA has had big problems with its construction program and had to close down its Browns Ferry 1, 2 and 3 reactors for major safety-related backfits that have cost US$4 billion.
In the glow of confidence occasioned by the opening of the Browns Ferry plants, TVA now seems to be considering completing Bellefonte 1 and 2, rather than abandoning them or converting them to natural gas, after a construction freeze that has lasted years.
The real action in the US centres on a "new generation" of nuclear technology, and on attempts to "reform" the licensing process to allow that new generation of nuclear plants.
At the moment, "new" nuclear technology in the US falls into two categories: "evolutionary" technology based on experience with existing PWR and BWR technology, and "revolutionary" technology based on new design concepts such as a modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor, and GE's PRISM. GE has actually got a foot in both doors — with PRISM and the ABWR it is developing jointly with Toshiba.
The debate, however, centres on how all this wonderful new technology (none of which has a working prototype) is to be licensed. The idea is to produce a "one-stop" licensing process — instead of the present two-stop method. Under the one-stop plan, once a plant has been given a construction license, there will be no reviews.
This has been opposed bitterly by nuclear critics such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, who argue that a post-construction review phase is essential to ensure that the job has in fact been done right, and that the reactor hasn't been built with 1450 control circuits installed backwards, or earthquake support systems mirror-imaged as at Diablo Canyon, or faulty welds as at Seabrook, or no emergency planning procedures as at Seabrook and Shoreham. The nuclear industry argues that the removal of licensing delays is essential if there are ever to be new nuclear plant orders.
Another innovation is the idea of "generic" licensing. The idea is that a particular design — such as AP-600 or MHTGR or PRISM — can be licensed in advance of any particular reactor construction project. The plan is to solve the "generic" issues first by doing a complete analysis of a series of standard designs, and follow with abbreviated one-off site-specific plant licenses.
Questions have immediately arisen about the completeness of the designs, the availability of documentation for them — notably safety analyses of the AP-600 — and the "proprietary" nature of some of the safety documentation.
Groups such as UCS say that the proponents of the new designs are keeping safety information under wraps by declaring it to be proprietary, short-circuiting the supposedly public and open safety review process.
The prospects for new nuclear orders in the future remain bleak, and absolutely no-one has any interest in making a new order. Outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commission chief Kenneth Carr, as he handed the official emergency beeper to Ivan Selin, the new chairperson, said he had hoped that someone would order a new reactor "on his watch", but that a new reactor would come on the next watch.
The Department of Energy in the US has plans to order an MHTGR by the year 2000, but it's for weapons production and is still uncertain. There is no sign of anyone placing an order for the AP-600 or the ABWR plants in the US. n