David Ratcliffe of Southern Co.
Image: COURTESY OF SOUTHERN COMPANY
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Editor's note: This Q&A is a part of a survey conducted by Scientific American of executives at companies engaged in developing and implementing non–fossil fuel energy technologies.
What technical obstacles currently most curtail the growth of nuclear fission? What are the prospects for overcoming them in the near future and the longer-term?
Technical obstacles to building new nuclear plants include addressing licensing, design certification and first-of-a kind engineering.
The new Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing process provides for design certification, early site approval and combined licensing for construction and operation.
Design certification allows plant designers to secure advance NRC approval of standard plant designs. Later, these plant designs can be ordered, licensed for a particular site and built. Following an exhaustive NRC safety review, agency approval of standard designs is formalized via specific design certification rule making. This process allows the public to review and comment on the designs up front—before any construction begins. NRC design certification fully resolves safety issues associated with the design. The NRC approves the design for 15 years.
The early site permit (ESP) process enables companies to obtain approval from the NRC for a nuclear power plant site before deciding to build a plant. The process resolves any site-suitability issues before companies commit funds to a project. Companies can "bank" sites approved by the NRC for up to 20 years and build when the time is right.
ESP applications consist of three components: a site safety analysis, an environmental report and emergency planning information. Federal, state and local government officials, and the public have opportunities to participate in each of these at various stages during the NRC review.
NRC regulations provide for the issuance of a combined construction permit and operating license, also known as a combined operating license (COL). A COL may reference a certified design, an ESP, or both. This makes the process more effective and efficient by allowing the NRC review and a public COL hearing to focus on remaining issues related to plant ownership, design issues not earlier resolved, and organization and operational programs.
No applicant has yet been through the entire COL process. The NRC currently estimates that the review and approval of the first set of COLs could take as long as 42 months. Southern Company's new plant licensing team is working through the NRC's licensing process and applying the new licensing requirements.
Many new plants being considered will use first-of-a-kind engineering. Technology like the Westinghouse AP1000 that we have selected for two proposed new units at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta, Ga., is a simplified design that incorporates passive safety systems. The AP1000 has received design certification from the NRC, and the first AP1000 design reactors are currently under construction in China.
Additionally, Southern Nuclear, a subsidiary of Southern Company, is a founding member of NuStart Energy, a consortium of utilities created in 2004 for the dual purposes of obtaining a COL from the NRC, using the never-before-used, streamlined licensing process developed in 1992; and completing the design engineering for the selected reactor technologies. Because the immediate challenges facing a new nuclear investment are generic and one-time, it makes sense for the industry to work together to address these issues.
Are there obstacles to scaling up nuclear power to serve an even larger national or global customer base?
While there are obstacles to scaling up nuclear power, and any generation source, Southern Company is taking appropriate actions to address them.
For example, even though more than a decade has passed since the last U.S. reactor began operation, more than 20 new nuclear plants are being planned. One of the steps the industry is taking toward new plant construction is beginning to develop the supply chain for building new plants. This will ensure critical components are available for multiple projects.
Can the existing energy infrastructure handle growth in nuclear? Or does that, too, need further modification?
With the addition of any new generating resource to meet the needs of our customers, it is likely that we will have to expand our transmission system to maintain the level of reliability expected by our customers and required by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).
Nuclear generating plants are generally the largest on our system because of the necessary economies of scale. Therefore, we would expect growth in our nuclear resources to create the need for a significant expansion of our transmission system.
Given the current economic crisis, can your industry get the necessary capital (from public or private sources) to adequately finance its growth?
Though the liquidity crisis has tightened credit markets, Southern Company is strong financially and maintains an "A" credit rating, helping to mitigate higher costs of capital.
In addition, a bill has been introduced in the Georgia General Assembly to allow the inclusion of construction work in progress (CWIP) for nuclear projects in the rate base. [Editor's note: This bill was signed into law last week.] Under this legislation, financing costs for the facility would be recovered as the plant is built instead of when it is placed into service—avoiding a large, one-time increase in rates. Moreover, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 incorporates a wide range of measures that support today's operating nuclear plants and provides important incentives for building new nuclear plants. Southern Company supports these incentives for the industry and will utilize them to the extent that they will benefit our customers and shareholders.
From a strategic standpoint, which is the bigger competitor for nuclear: incumbent coal, oil and gas technologies or other alternative energy technologies?
Southern Company recognizes that the key to meeting the growing energy needs of the Southeast, our nation and our world lies in a diverse supply of fuel sources—that includes new nuclear, increased energy efficiency and conservation, natural gas, renewable energy sources and advanced coal.
To limit ourselves to a few sources of energy at the exclusion of others is not in the best interest of our customers, our economy and those who invest in our business.
Is there a cost target that you and others in your industry are aiming to achieve in, say, five years?
[Southern Company subsidiary] Georgia Power's proportionate share of the estimated in-service cost of the two new units, based on current ownership interest of 45.7 percent, is approximately $6.4 billion. This figure is subject to adjustments and performance bonuses under the engineering, procurement and construction contract.
While the final rate impacts will be determined by the Georgia Public Service Commission, the company estimates the typical Georgia Power customer, using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month, would see a base rate increase of about $12 per month in 2018 when both units are fully operational. This rate impact is expected to decline over time.
See what we're tweeting about
9 Comments
Add CommentNot one question on how to handle waste?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey're asking the same questions to people in every industry. So if they asked this guy about nuclear waste disposal, they'd have to ask the wind power guys about wind waste disposal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKind of silly, since as your question makes clear, we obviously have different questions we want answered for people in different industries.
That is the Achilles heel of Nuclear the fact that the waste is the responsibility of the Government and not the Creators of it(the Utilities!) allows them to skirt the issue of who pays for the Eons of looking after the safe storage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you guys notice that the nuclear industry will be getting back the billions they put into Yucca Mountain?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's right, the utilities that produce the waste have been paying into this from the get go.
The problem is that the federal government oversaw the program which meant delays and huge cost overruns since our government can't seem to manage a large program like this without doing that, cause, y'know, they don't have to make a profit!
That's what happens when your government makes promises, collects money, and then doesn't deliver.
The feds made the promise many years ago, they can't deliver, and now they have to give the money back.
This is one of those situations where you need to understand all of the repercussions.
The time is right to support a new nuclear technology in America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn his letter to the President Obama, the climatologist Dr. Jim Hanson recommended the Thorium fuel cycle and the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Dr. Edward Teller, the father of Fusion, after a lifetime of work on every aspect of nuclear technology had at the end of his life come to this conclusion in his final study: the LFTR is the best of all possible reactor types.
The LFTR, which is currently in development in France, Japan, and Russia, is a very simple, efficient, and elegant type of reactor. It can start up on any kind of nuclear fuel, bomb material, or nuclear waste product to produce very efficient and high temperature heat and at the same time breed more fuel in the bargain. This thrifty approach to nuclear energy greatly appeals to me, but I became even more interested in the LFTR when the details of a new patent were revealed by Dr LeBlanc (see below @ minute 53). It opens up the possibility of building a very compact but powerful reactor that can run for 30 years without refueling. With no danger of a core meltdown or runaway reaction, it can be operated remotely in an unattended fully automated intrusion detecting mode and sited underground while it breeds self perpetuating new fuel within the thorium structure of the reactor itself.
At the end of the service life of the Lftr, the reactor vessel is sent back to the factory where it is reduced to liquid fluoride salts that become the feedstock of a next new Lftr. This feedstock can only be used by the new Lftr and not for bombs. A few handfuls of waste products are held at the factory for a few hundred years to cool down before they are mined for the many precious elements contained within like platinum and iridium. Now that is what I call a safe, efficient and thrifty mode of operation!
To learn more see one of the following:
Aim High
http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh
What Fusion Wanted To Be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8
Liquid Fluoride Reactors: A New Beginning for an Old Idea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So
That sounds so good that I just have to expect some kind of horrible catch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWaste, pollution, depletion and environmental damage would have been good questions to ask of all the CEO's. Some nuclear advocates go on at length about windmills killing birds and destroying the view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question that's unique to nuclear power is the connection with nuclear war. Globally, nuclear power and nuclear weapons are closely linked, as current controversies show. A government that pushes nuclear power plants may not now intend to acquire nuclear weapons; but that government may be replaced by one that does, or may change its collective mind. A country that is actively pursuing nuclear power for peaceful purposes may also secretly develop nuclear explosives to the point where the last stages of assembly and military deployment could be carried out very quickly. Other countries may use peaceful nuclear power programs as a pretext for war, claiming to fear the development of nuclear weapons.
All nuclear power plants produce plutonium which can be used to make weapons. The facilities that enrich uranium for power plant can, with a little more effort, further enrich it to make weapons.
At a minimum, multilateral international security for nuclear materials is essential to the expansion of nuclear power.
And then, of course, we do still have to deal with the waste.
@Rachel in California
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe pure thorium fuel cycle does not produce plutonium in any appreciable amounts, and the use of fluoride salts in reactors allow over 99% in fuel efficiency; i.e. not much waste.
The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland has some good things to say about thorium in
"C a n F u t u r e N u c l e a r Powe r B e M a d e P r o l i f e r a t i o n R e s i s t a n t ?" as follows:
http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/future_nuclear_power.pdf
<i>Thorium reactors and nuclear batteries have potentially attractive proliferation and terrorism-resistant characteristics and could play a valuable role in any renaissance of nuclear power. It would be unwise to rush into a nuclear renaissance with the technologies that are the most developed now but which would not necessarily be the most suited to a large-scale expansion of nuclear power if other reactor technologies promise significant advantages.
Our principal illustration of thorium fuel cycles is a denatured sustainable molten salt reactor, i.e., a reactor that needs little further supplies of enriched uranium after startup, that requires isotope separation to obtain weapons-grade U-233, and that produces plutonium in significantly smaller quantity and poorer isotopic quality compared to an LWR. In addition, like the nuclear battery, no spent fuel is discharged during the reactor’s operating lifetime, and this, plus the enhanced passive safety features and potential for underground siting of both batteries and molten salt reactors, lead to an enhanced level of both proliferation and terrorism resistance, including against radiological sabotage.</i>
What I described in my first post was a thorium fueled molten salt nuclear battery; the amalgamation of all the best of these nuclear approaches.
The “Catch” is that large international nuclear energy companies can’t make any money at selling Lftr fuel. Thorium and nuclear waste is not expensive and does not require any processing before it is added to the Lftr fuel load. This is a major disincentive to the deployment of the Lftr.
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