Vogtle Part 3: Was the NRC to blame?

00:00:03:02 - 00:00:24:01

Chris Keefer

Welcome back to Decouple. Today I'm joined by James Krellenstein for a part three on Vogel. I think this is a record on decouple. We have had some follow up episodes but this is really great and I'm really glad that we're spacing them out. It's not one long recording that we're breaking up. We are recording kind of a week apart, I think, generally speaking.

00:00:24:01 - 00:00:43:15

Chris Keefer

And what's beautiful about that is it's giving a real opportunity for audience feedback. Audience questions. And I'm really excited about that format. And I think, you know, both James and I have been getting precisely that kind of feedback, those kind of questions which are going to make this episode even more interesting. So, James, welcome back.

00:00:43:17 - 00:00:54:00

James Krellenstein

Thanks. Thanks for having me, Chris. No, I agree completely. I promise. This is the last episode finally of this of the saga.

00:00:54:02 - 00:01:02:21

Chris Keefer

But it's not necessarily going to be what what the audience wants to hear, I have to tell you. But people will be people be greeting that well with the opposite reaction, I think.

00:01:02:23 - 00:01:39:01

James Krellenstein

I think I think I think some may in fact, feel this way. But what I really want to, though, we were talking right before we start recording, you know, I think we'll sort of finish up what happened at both Vogel and Summer here. But I think this is a really good take place excuse me to think about where we are today in the nuclear energy sector in the United States and dare I be a little bit American centric, The US centric, you know, even in the Western world, Because I think what we're what we're seeing here, you know, sort of we're all living in the shadow of Vogel and summer, at least in the United

00:01:39:01 - 00:02:05:11

James Krellenstein

States in so many ways. I think if we think about why utilities are hesitant to order nuclear, even when we've increased social license increase pro-nuclear support thanks to the work of nuclear advocates, increase the financial sort of, you know, stimuli and sort of incentives to build new nuclear thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, among many other policy tools that are available to the Biden administration, We're still not seeing it.

00:02:05:11 - 00:02:30:00

James Krellenstein

And, you know, I think I joked with a friend last week that the tragedy of four is that there's nothing after. And that doesn't mean just not another AP1000. There really isn't a serious new nuclear power project that is happening in the United States right now. We have Kairos, maybe with a test reactor. Obviously, it's not going to generate a lot of power by design that is got a construction permit from the NRC.

00:02:30:00 - 00:02:50:13

James Krellenstein

We hope to see that start building. Obviously, the regulatory aspect of that is sort of finished from, you know, permission to construct at least we had the carbon free power project in Utah, actually in Idaho. But you know, from the Utah useful Power from Amps that got canceled, as I think we sort of foreshadowed in one of our episodes.

00:02:50:15 - 00:03:14:22

James Krellenstein

And we just really are in a place right now where we don't have anything after Vogel for that looks concrete, excuse the pun. And, you know, we see a little bit of, you know, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, we see TerraPower really try to looks like they're really moving forward in possibly building that project, but they haven't even filed an application yet with the NRC for construction permit.

00:03:15:00 - 00:03:36:18

James Krellenstein

So I think we should go back to sort of where we were, where we just sort of left the last episode where the wheels were really about to come off this project. And I think we should spend a little bit more time on what was going on at Vogel in summer, but then really sort of zoom back out and think about what the implications are for all of us.

00:03:36:20 - 00:03:38:07

James Krellenstein

And I think they're pretty profound.

00:03:38:13 - 00:04:10:13

Chris Keefer

Yeah, it sounds great. And, you know, I think it's interesting seeing the anti-nuclear narratives mature from, you know, the good old fashioned three eyed fish fear, uncertainty and doubt towards what I think are, you know, fair critiques of, you know, the performance of the nuclear industry in the last ten or 20 years. And, you know, it seems like the industry itself and its trade organizations and representatives have not done a great job of actually acknowledging what went wrong of of making that information freely available.

00:04:10:13 - 00:04:28:20

Chris Keefer

So, you know, it's up for this little upstart podcast to jump in and and do the work. We're happy to do it. It's interesting, but shameless pitch if you like this, if you find this interesting, you think this is valuable. If you think this is good for nuclear, go ahead and get in touch or hop on our Patreon.

00:04:28:22 - 00:04:33:08

Chris Keefer

We could use the support. Shameless pitch over. Take it away.

00:04:33:10 - 00:05:01:04

James Krellenstein

Yeah. So I think, you know, when we were sort of leading off, left off, excuse me, we had sort of just started talking about the major challenges that we're starting to be in as we began actual nuclear construction at both summer. And, you know, as I think I mentioned before, to to we could have a ten part 20 part podcast probably on every single thing that was wrong here.

00:05:01:05 - 00:05:26:13

James Krellenstein

Remember, there was this was for a for a licensing regime that was supposed to be completely done before the first concrete was poured. There were 188 and actually 189, if you include the infamous pipe brace license amendment requests that were actually needed to file to be filed with the NRC revisions in it to finish this plant at Vogel.

00:05:26:13 - 00:05:52:15

James Krellenstein

So that obviously we can't go through every single thing that went wrong there. But we can start talking about is is at the commercial pressures of the failures of this project really started accumulating on the project participants. Right. So let's just think about what the project participants are right now at Vogel. Right. You have a consortium of utilities, not just Southern Company, but also companies like the City of the City of Dalton, Me.

00:05:52:18 - 00:06:16:00

James Krellenstein

AG The sort of municipal electrical utility in Georgia, right, as well as of course, Georgia Power, which is owned by Southern Company that are building the plant that are ultimately the owners of the plant right there. They formed a consortium to finance and build the plant and ultimately would take ownership. The plant actually being built by at this point, a consortium of two major institutions.

00:06:16:00 - 00:06:45:21

James Krellenstein

One, of course, is Westinghouse Electrical Company, which at this point is owned by the very large Japanese conglomerate Toshiba. And then there is the EPC, the engineering procurement and construction firm, which is responsible for designing and engineering the plant, you know, with with Westinghouse, but also doing all the procurement or most of the procurement for the modules and also organizing the civil labor force of craft laborers and of manual laborers.

00:06:45:23 - 00:07:24:21

James Krellenstein

We're actually putting together this plant in in Georgia, in South Carolina, and then of course, in in South Carolina site at summer. We have also the utilities led by SCANA, but also Santee Cooper Building the plant with the same consortium and the initial arrangement here as a fixed price contract or near fixed price contract. Right. Where essentially there's a fixed price that that it's a little bit more complicated than a fixed price that that that Toshiba and Westinghouse are responsible for delivering the project to the utilities.

00:07:24:23 - 00:07:48:01

James Krellenstein

And this becomes a major challenge even before we started nuclear construction, we started actually seeing lawsuits, litigation between the two companies, between the between the consortium and between Georgia Power and the owners over who is going to basically pay for some issues that they had even before they got the license of doing the structural backfill that was necessary to bring up the plant.

00:07:48:01 - 00:08:19:03

James Krellenstein

They actually sued each other starting in 2011, 2012. Right. Which is sort of, unfortunately, I think, a harbinger of what's about to come throughout this this sort of construction. So the first thing that the first big event that happens commercially is that Shaw, which was the company, the FCC that was building the plant and had bought an old esteemed nuclear EPC called Stone in Webster, which built dozens of nuclear power plants in the United States.

00:08:19:05 - 00:08:44:14

James Krellenstein

They get bought by another company called Chicago Bridge and Iron. CB And I think we talked about this a little bit and. CB And I starts, you know, resumes responsibility, begins looking at this project and sees, hey, there is a massive liability here that we have on completing this project on time and on budget contractually that we owe as a contract to the project owners.

00:08:44:16 - 00:09:23:13

James Krellenstein

And we don't want to assume this responsibility. So. CB And I, in addition to what were at this point, numerous pieces of lawsuits between even Westinghouse and CB and I over for example, who should be held responsible if CB and I if their facility in manufacturing a module is late because Westinghouse didn't actually get a finalized design over to CB and I, who should be responsible for that delay where there's commercial implications for this and rather than I think, you know, settling this in an integrated project, sort of one team, one mission, they start suing each other.

00:09:23:15 - 00:09:42:19

James Krellenstein

So things are beginning to bring down acrimoniously, even before we get to this point. And CB and I basically saying I want out, right? I want to quit. I want to figure out a way to get out of these two builds because they look like disaster here. So we already are seeing that there is major commercial tension and.

00:09:42:19 - 00:10:24:21

James Krellenstein

CB And I figured out a way to literally sell essential early the Stone and Webster unit sort of nuclear EP C unit that is responsible for building and procuring and constructing this plant actually to Westinghouse. And there's an idea here that Westinghouse is going to assume 100% of the building responsibility they're going to build what something that a nuclear vender in the United States has never done in U.S. history, at least in the commercial in the modern commercial buildout, where it's going to not only provide the nuclear steam supply system and the nuclear island engineering, they're going to do the entire balance of plant engineering, the entire construction management.

00:10:24:21 - 00:10:41:03

James Krellenstein

This has never, ever happened. No nuclear power plant in the U.S. has been built in this fashion. So as a utility will do the epic work, the architect and engineering work in the construction work, but never is the nuclear vendor responsible for the entire full stack of the built.

00:10:41:05 - 00:10:50:08

Chris Keefer

One particular vendor that already seems to be overwhelmed. And right from the get go is is delayed on delivering the design. This seems like a crazy thing to take on this.

00:10:50:08 - 00:11:25:20

James Krellenstein

This seems like a really interesting idea. And I think the the major issue that Westinghouse feels itself is that CBI wants out. No one wants to buy this and Westinghouse wants to complete the project. So they're kind of in this bind of, well, how do we do this? And so Westinghouse buys C, the Stony Webster unit of what was the old Shaw Chicago Bridge iron and assumes basically 100% of the responsibility of building a nuclear power plant.

00:11:25:22 - 00:11:50:17

James Krellenstein

And once again, this is weird, right? In a lot of other countries, right? Maybe with arguably more successful nuclear power builds, we build out. Right? We generally actually do see like K.H. and P right. Has some legal team Korea, right? This idea that there's going to be a unified sort of or you know dozens of organizations coming together to build a nuclear Korean nuclear power plant in France.

00:11:50:19 - 00:12:11:06

James Krellenstein

Right? We generally have Fram Atom and EDF, which both have the same majority owner, the French state, building their nuclear power plants. In Russia we have Rosatom, right. Which both is providing the reactor, often providing a lot of the components and actually building, you know, doing the engineering, procurement, construction. But for a variety of reasons in the United States, that never has been the way that we've done it.

00:12:11:06 - 00:12:32:03

James Krellenstein

We've always had this system of, you know, you had four big reactor vendors and you had a whole bunch of different architects and engineers and then even sometimes different construction firms trying to build the plant. And this is what actually explains so much of the heterogeneity in the Western nuclear power bills in the US nuclear power fleet built out.

00:12:32:03 - 00:12:38:14

James Krellenstein

Why just even the same reactor designs have very different balance of plans and support systems. I don't want an okay, so I.

00:12:38:14 - 00:13:00:06

Chris Keefer

Don't want to distract you too much. But I do just want to note, because you mentioned this was this plant was on a fixed price contract and the most recent AP1000 announcements internationally, at least I believe in Czech in Bulgaria, the Czechia one fell through because the Czech government, I think, demanded a fixed price contract. And similarly, the Bulgarians there was this announcement that it was almost like a done deal or no, you had been signed.

00:13:00:07 - 00:13:19:20

Chris Keefer

I know, and we just don't really mean much. But the Bulgarians are saying we want to it'd be thousands for 14 billion fixed price contracts. And that seems like lessons were learned here. And at least in the West, that's unlikely to happen again. I think like a lot though, as well. The the Finns didn't really lose out because I think EDF or Fram Atom or whoever was constructing and agreed to a fixed price contract.

00:13:19:20 - 00:13:23:04

Chris Keefer

So just a footnote, those days seem like they're over in the.

00:13:23:04 - 00:13:51:10

James Krellenstein

West and the Koreans, not only not only is it the French Westinghouse. Right. So, you know, as you said, the Finns sort of made out like bandits with Pluto three because the French state had to literally step in and take you French taxpayers to basically Finnish all three. Right. For a fixed price to tvod the Finnish utility. But it was way, way over that budget.

00:13:51:10 - 00:14:19:14

James Krellenstein

The same thing happened of course, at Berocca, which is often held as a successful nuclear building in the Western world. Right. This Korean led consortium that built these four EPR, 1400 plus units in the United Arab Emirates. Right. That's a similar situation where actually the more we understand and plus a lot a lot a lot of money on that project because the fixed price that they basically had agreed to.

00:14:19:14 - 00:14:54:04

James Krellenstein

And and once again, this is a little bit it's a little bit more complicated. The fixed price contract, the actual way these contracts and scopes are defined is a little bit doesn't necessarily, you know, can be described in a single term but it was more fixed price ish than what we normally have in a lot of other nuclear construction, which we call cost plus, which basically means that the EPC bills, the customer ultimately for their cost of doing a task, plus some agreed upon profit that they're going to actually make on the task.

00:14:54:04 - 00:15:19:05

James Krellenstein

And, you know, we should note that although a lot of people love the idea of fixed price, there's a lot of arguments in the history of nuclear construction that actually other contractual arrangements have worked better actually for all of the different project participants, because one of the things that you find, I think we actually get back to the 1000 builds in in South Carolina and in in in Georgia.

00:15:19:07 - 00:16:00:11

James Krellenstein

Was that in a cost plus arrangement? If you look at like the business school sorry, in a fixed price contractual arrangement, if you look at the business school studies on this, one of the thing they say is that the the PC, for example, is not particularly incentivized to be 100% transparent with the ultimate customer, because what they see as additional work that maybe needs to be done to fix something that's going to be additional cost drivers that that they don't want to necessarily either fess up to or sort of you can have you're can imagine within the EPC structure, you know, individual people within the management team are less incentivized to proactively find tasks that

00:16:00:11 - 00:16:19:03

James Krellenstein

need to be solved. And this is why some of the most successful nuclear power builds in terms of price in time in the United States, have not been cost, have not been fixed price, but either have been cost plus. And I think we started actually seeing a lot of this in the Westinghouse build in particular, right in the AP 1000 builds.

00:16:19:03 - 00:16:41:08

James Krellenstein

You know, one of the things we touched on before was that the customer was just completely unaware of how immature the design was. And it's not clear even at this point how unaware, how aware Westinghouse was in the early points of the builds. But actually what percentage of the AP 1000 build was certified for construction was issued for construction teams of those work packages.

00:16:41:10 - 00:17:02:16

James Krellenstein

As I think we've talked about, you know, the numbers went down over years or the percentage of the design that's actually done exactly the opposite direction that you want to see. And it sort of says something's wrong. But I think that may also point to a major lack of process control within Westinghouse. And, you know, a listener sort of asked over email a couple of days ago, you know, why did Westinghouse not complete the design?

00:17:02:18 - 00:17:27:02

James Krellenstein

Why did Westinghouse only not complete the design for the U.S. bills? That is starting to make this massive And we'll see is it's much, much larger of a sort of corporate collapse nightmare. Why did they do this? I don't think I know the answer to this. And it would be great news for Westinghouse, you know, sort of fessed up and sort of explained to the public, especially considering that they're trying to get other people to order.

00:17:27:02 - 00:17:52:16

James Krellenstein

If you want thousands, what happened at their corporate management level that allowed this to happen and why? It won't happen again, hopefully. But I think, you know, we should be clear that Westinghouse had not built had not been responsible in this way for building a nuclear a new nuclear power plant in a very, very long time from, you know, from a construction, from a sort of, you know, greenfield or brownfield site building it up.

00:17:52:16 - 00:18:26:20

James Krellenstein

You know, they were helping finish nuclear power plants like what? Spa that had been in construction for nearly 40 years. Right. They had obviously been working as engineers and record assisting other nuclear builds of different enterprise vendors. But this was the first time I think it's maybe sizewell B I'm not so sure when the last Westinghouse plant was and they really were responsible as an actual nuclear island vendor from the beginning to the end of a new nuclear project.

00:18:26:20 - 00:19:00:16

James Krellenstein

And I think there was just a lack of, you know, maturity in sort of this company at this point. They were rusty, and that's to be expected. I don't think it's an excuse, but it's at least somewhat of a cogent example. And I remember talking to someone within the AP1000 design team who worked at Westinghouse and just said, you know, get a design change in the late 2000 in at the AP1000 design, you know, was a manual process at that point, you know, page still paper based process.

00:19:00:18 - 00:19:22:07

James Krellenstein

And it required weeks of of people sort of getting together and having all the different teams interface together. And you actually literally had a physical meeting to do it. And just that sort of process, the sort of basic processes that we expect expecting design change and revision and design control just weren't at Westinghouse as they should have been.

00:19:22:09 - 00:19:51:21

James Krellenstein

And I think this is indicative of a rusty nuclear industry trying to come back to life, but it had such profound costs. So let's go back to where we are. So okay, so this is C.B. and I quits and says, Stone sells the stone in Webster sort of division over to Westinghouse and Westinghouse. Then all of a sudden, attempts to manage the entire project themselves takes over the entire consortium, and this one will last a couple of months.

00:19:51:23 - 00:19:59:11

James Krellenstein

And literally, Westinghouse begins saying, you know, we actually need someone else. So they go over to a different episode. Sorry, go ahead.

00:19:59:12 - 00:20:17:10

Chris Keefer

No, I'm just curious because the Westinghouse is owned by Toshiba. Toshiba is this, you know, massive Japanese company. Did they do like a BWR, as in Japan? Do they have other nuclear expertise? And if so, did they bring any of those Japanese resources in that more recent experience over to help out at Vogel? I'm just I'm just curious.

00:20:17:11 - 00:20:25:15

Chris Keefer

Like you think of Westinghouse as this, you know, American company all on its own here, but they are owned by a much bigger consortium that simply has more recent experience.

00:20:25:17 - 00:20:48:04

James Krellenstein

And not only does Ishiba have experience in building the BWR, they actually even have an BWR product line that they're independently marketing marketing that's actually marketed successfully partially of South Texas project Unit three and four new plants that never were built. They also have their own pressurized water reactor line, I believe, as well as Japan, and not a particularly good one, I don't think.

00:20:48:04 - 00:21:23:08

James Krellenstein

But but still, they have a lot of experience. It's not exactly clear why that Toshiba sort of sort of experience isn't being translated down when you do start seeing, just to be honest, in sort of the the documentation is, is that these supply chain issues that have really on the modules that have plagued this project, we do start seeing a bunch of the work transferred over Meadville to Japan, to Japan, companies like, yeah, not only Toshiba works, but I h II begins fabricating a lot of the sub modules.

00:21:23:14 - 00:22:11:11

James Krellenstein

Right. It's a relatively prestigious Japanese heavy metal, heavy manufacturing combine. And so we do start seeing a little bit of Japanese sort of, you know, input, but we don't necessarily see maybe at this point the project control, the management, the sort of the, the management and build and engineering philosophy that I think was was so instrumental in the advanced boiling water reactor builds with General Electric, Hitachi, Toshiba and in the first case, TEPCO four, K six and seven, that sort of integrated sort of project, you know, very Japanese, almost like, you know, it seems us, you know, forgive my if this seems a little naive, like almost like Toyota production management sort of approach with

00:22:11:11 - 00:22:39:17

James Krellenstein

Kaizen and sort of continuous improvement and planning every single thing out that does not obviously be translated over, I think, much to I think everyone's fault. But Toshiba ultimately is responsible for backstopping Westinghouse. And what begins happening is that Toshiba is having to report as a publicly traded company in Japan that they have this massive liability to these two different utilities.

00:22:39:17 - 00:23:12:13

James Krellenstein

And literally this the liabilities are so large that Toshiba, a illustrious large household name that makes microwaves and turbines and, you know, massage, you know, you know, televisions. Right. Computers, Right. They are literally threatened. You know, Toshiba stock begins plummeting as they begin reporting the liability exposure that they have out of their Westinghouse division because of what's going on in the Vogel and summer plants.

00:23:12:15 - 00:23:43:14

James Krellenstein

So even the very, very large and there's even talk of the need maybe of the Japanese state to come in and step in and backstop the the the Toshiba because its financial solvency is being so threatened by the liabilities that are implicit in this in these project bills. So what happens? Well, so two things begin happening. First of all, this idea that Westinghouse is going to sort of manage the entire thing, I think everyone realizes pretty rapidly that's not a great idea.

00:23:43:16 - 00:23:54:14

James Krellenstein

And they bring in another APEC company out of Texas called Flor, which, you know, has some experience historically in nuclear power build, obviously a very, very large, well-regarded engineering procurement.

00:23:54:14 - 00:23:56:21

Chris Keefer

And the new scale backers.

00:23:56:23 - 00:24:43:14

James Krellenstein

Exactly. And would later become the new scale backers backing a new scofflaw gets involved in helping manage this project and basically for also doesn't particularly work out. So you have basically the utility so at this point SCANA Right. This sort of the South Carolina project is so far behind and they begin realizing that the testimony that has been provided both by Westinghouse and by SCANA executives to the Public Service Commission of South Carolina, which is responsible for protecting the ratepayers of South Carolina, A lot of that likely was actually and we now know this because there's been criminal prosecutions when people have pled guilty or actually been found guilty.

00:24:43:16 - 00:25:14:03

James Krellenstein

A lot of the sort of updates on the status of the V.C. summer units two unit three builds are likely. Actually people were plagiarized and they weren't being honest, even though they were under oath with the public service Commission. And this leads a decision to cancel those projects completely. So $9 billion in the whole, you know, the ratepayers of South Carolina are left with a rusting heap of a half to half built or quarter built upon thousands in South Carolina.

00:25:14:03 - 00:25:32:19

Chris Keefer

And just just very briefly, I don't interrupt the flow too much, but are those units a write off now, like I've been talking to Mark Longo over in Philippines and we talk about the baton plant, which is a laid up monster. It's a bit of a repeat of here anyway. It's a it's a smaller p.w are and yeah.

00:25:32:19 - 00:25:34:08

James Krellenstein

I mean I think Westinghouse actually Yeah.

00:25:34:08 - 00:25:48:05

Chris Keefer

And they've mothballed it carefully and I think the end is okay but the balance of plants is kind of rusty and would take a major overhaul like could could that South Carolina V.C. summer come out of the ashes and rise again or is it all rusted to shit.

00:25:48:07 - 00:26:15:20

James Krellenstein

So you know the the Philippine Bataan nuclear plant which is a Westinghouse to loop old style Westinghouse tube plant like like a guinea or something. You know, that plant was really completed and, you know, just never was turned on. And, you know, the whole and last was not only assemble a containment dome on right they actually did all the radiographic and non nondestructive examination of the sun really was ready to go.

00:26:15:22 - 00:26:33:06

James Krellenstein

This is not what summer is like. Some are if you look at just the aerial photos, there's no roof on the containment. Right. You can actually still see in the aerial photos. You can see the steam generators that are actually there. Right. You know, just from the satellite photos, because there's no roof on the containment. And so I've not been to that site.

00:26:33:06 - 00:27:11:00

James Krellenstein

I don't know. But I would imagine getting re qualifying those components as part of your ten part 50 Subpart B and Q, A one. I don't you know, I haven't thought about that problem particularly. I would imagine that would be a very, very non-trivial task. And speaking to some nuclear engineers about this, they would say, you know, in some ways it might be better to start from, you know, either tear everything down, start from the basement, or maybe even even just start start fresh because there's a possibility of all right now, I don't know or I don't really you know, I haven't looked at this in any depth, but there isn't a roof.

00:27:11:02 - 00:27:22:02

James Krellenstein

There's the turbine building is not done right. You can see the sort of structural framework of the turbine building. You can see directly into the the containment because there's no roof on the containment that I don't think even the shield. Yeah. Yeah.

00:27:22:02 - 00:27:39:12

Chris Keefer

That gives you a sense of how far along it was like when I, you know, I don't know much about a lot of things in nuclear and I just thought some or maybe got to the stage of like the basement and and the civil works in the concrete's poured and nothing else was done but they dropped in some monster modules as you're saying, like this thing advanced quite a ways.

00:27:39:14 - 00:27:54:02

James Krellenstein

And not only that, a lot of the major components, the triple S are on site. The reactor pressure vessels, they're the steam generators are there. The at some of you know the pressure riser is their reactor coolant pumps are actually a great theme park.

00:27:54:04 - 00:28:08:23

Chris Keefer

It's a great theme park for nuke pros because especially like you know, I visit a lot of nuke plants, but it's just the turbine hall. Turbine and turbine hall. I'm like, I want to go inside containment. So, I mean, at least I could be a very minor source of income. It wouldn't pay back $9 billion of sunk cost, but I'd pay a couple hundred bucks to go tour it.

00:28:08:23 - 00:28:12:08

Chris Keefer

And you know, I've an amusement nuclear amusement park there.

00:28:12:10 - 00:28:49:15

James Krellenstein

The unfortunate history of the United States nuclear industry is is that summer two and three is hardly the the only abandoned nuclear project MIT built. Right. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of nuclear power plants of various various build states, all abandoned throughout the United States. I mean, what's got you know, I grew up, of course, in Long Island, and we have a beautiful nuclear power plant out in Suffolk County called Shoreham that literally was complete, not only complete, did low power testing and never turned out.

00:28:49:15 - 00:29:06:05

James Krellenstein

And that's a full blown thing. You can actually sneak in there. You know, allegedly you can actually sneak in there and there's videos on YouTube. You can find the people rummaging through the plant, including in containment. Right. Of the entire thing. It's like an hour and a half. And it's actually quite scary and probably pretty dangerous to do.

00:29:06:05 - 00:29:27:07

James Krellenstein

I don't recommend that. Don't do that at home. I that's but that's not the only thing I mean think about marble hill in Utah in in Indiana, right. Think about the abandoned Washington nuclear project three and five Washington nuclear project. One and four. Right. They're all there, right? And they're. is this a U.S. is this a U.S. phenomenon?

00:29:27:07 - 00:29:35:22

Chris Keefer

Because you got to be a rich, wealthy country. I mean, I guess you said Philippines also abandoned. So so it's not just us, but the sheer quantity of half built sites is that.

00:29:36:00 - 00:30:02:03

James Krellenstein

Yeah, see that around the world? It's no, you don't. And I think this has to do with the fact that we don't have a you know, with the exception of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Right. We don't have a federally backed utility. Now, TVA, of course, has also been to very large, almost complete abandoned nuclear projects in Alabama called Bellefontaine, which were Babcock and Wilcox pressurized water reactors.

00:30:02:08 - 00:30:25:09

James Krellenstein

Right. That if you look at them, they look like a complete nuclear power plant. And you can go and there's actually a lot of people who have tried to buy that site and turn it back up. So that's not you know, it doesn't it is a weird quirk of the United States that we have these, you know, half built three quarters, built elephant, 90% built nuclear power plants.

00:30:25:09 - 00:30:35:12

James Krellenstein

And, you know, some of them what's bar one and two are the example that I would give have been actually, you know, construction has been resumed and the plants actually finished. Right.

00:30:35:14 - 00:30:37:17

Chris Keefer

But that's TVA. That's one that's TVA.

00:30:37:17 - 00:30:58:01

James Krellenstein

That's one of our one came on line 96. And then once part two came online in 2016, 25th, something like that. And so, you know, and if you look at actually the data like those that started construction in 1972, it completed in 2016. So Eric, what are the largest nuclear builds in U.S. history? But, you know, we could go on about this.

00:30:58:01 - 00:31:20:12

James Krellenstein

You know, most nuclear if you go to a single unit nuclear plant, just one more point here you go like a nuclear power plant like. SEABROOK Right. If you look at SEABROOK, you'll notice that there's, you know, unit number one, which is fully finished generating power. And the next to it is another turbine building. And this, like, weird, half built concrete structure, which is SEABROOK Unit two, which was abandoned mid construction, right?

00:31:20:13 - 00:31:55:04

James Krellenstein

There's so many of these actually you would last point the would move of the film of the Abyss by James Cameron right This was a film that was filmed in the abandoned containment building of Cherokee Nuclear Power plant in also in South Carolina. That was never, ever finished. Right. So the the U.S. is is just filled with with the rusting hulks and the careers of the utility executives who ordered them nuclear power plants, which is not really important thing to understand.

00:31:55:04 - 00:32:11:08

James Krellenstein

And I think it's horrible. I'm just going to be frank. You know, once again, you know, the Mac or Kraft Macaroni dinner may need to come out here, but it is horrible that we ended up this way in the nuclear renaissance of the naughties, as you to use your terrible term, if I may be so bold. Right. Like that.

00:32:11:10 - 00:32:50:08

James Krellenstein

The fact that we ended up again with an abandoned hulk of two nuclear power plants, billions of dollars that the ratepayers are responsible ultimately to pay that, that's how we got and it's the same story, unfortunately, that led to so many of these abandonments previously. Right. And that same story is these projects went way over budget, way over schedule and just seemed like a managerial and commercial fiasco and therefore the utilities thought it would be more prudent as a public service commission to just abandon them, cut their losses rather than complete the plan.

00:32:50:10 - 00:33:21:01

James Krellenstein

And I just can't emphasize again, how I think destructive this has been to new nuclear buildups in the United States. And, you know, to go back. So we now have Toshiba, Westinghouse goes into bankruptcy, made construction of this plant, and you literally have Southern Company, which kind of heroically and the Georgia Public Service Commission, which is agreeing to allow the continuation of this nuclear power plant build, which is an amazing sort of story.

00:33:21:01 - 00:33:44:09

James Krellenstein

And I think we have a lot of we should be one respectful for with Southern's perseverance here. Their decision to actually start taking the management of the plant allows the construction of the plant themselves on and also the Georgia PSC and the Georgia ratepayers who are saying, you know what, we're going to finish this. It's going to be better that we we sort of finish what we started rather than we just abandoning billions of dollars of debt with nothing for it.

00:33:44:11 - 00:34:04:18

James Krellenstein

And we have, you know, the loans program office under both President Obama and under Trump began actually expanding the amount of loans that can get guaranteed to finish this project. So we have a lot of government support sticking in, you know, starting to come in. And so here we are at this point where they take in floor, right?

00:34:04:18 - 00:34:44:10

James Krellenstein

Westinghouse doesn't want to match it. Westinghouse goes into bankruptcy. And it's so serious that actually Southern Company demands at that. And when they go into bankruptcy that all the intellectual property assets that Westinghouse has associated with the AP1000 and the software codes, the regulatory codes, everything goes into an escrow account, you know, a virtual escrow account held by their lawyers so that if if Westinghouse no longer was able to sort of continue as a continuing entity, Southern would have the ability to use that those IP to finish the plant on the market.

00:34:44:12 - 00:35:10:07

James Krellenstein

So so Southern takes over. They realize Fluor is really not competent as a No that's that's unfair to for for whatever reasons I don't have any insight into them. They decide that it would be better to go to battle as the epic so just let's go through here for one second. We have now gone through in this single nuclear power plant project and global for arguably different pieces, right?

00:35:10:07 - 00:35:31:16

James Krellenstein

So we started with Shore and Shore own 20% of Westinghouse at the beginning of this in shore gets owned by Chicago Bridge and Iron. Chicago Bridge. And Iron says, you know, this ain't for me, right? Sells it back to Westinghouse so that we have Westinghouse managing the Old Stone and Webster sort of Epyc Then we go over to floor, and then we end up at Bechtel.

00:35:31:18 - 00:36:14:11

James Krellenstein

So I guess actually I counter-drug. That's five. Really. They're right in a single project at a single site for building two two reactors. That is pretty horrific. And I got to give amazing credit to both Southern and Bechtel because southern and back to really do turn around this project and begin actually building a really competent quality assurance team, a really good licensing team, really actually start building up the sort of project control and project management that was lacking in this project from from the get go and working with Westinghouse in bankruptcy to really finish this project up.

00:36:14:11 - 00:36:38:13

James Krellenstein

And part of the reason is that Bechtel, I think even even people from other EPCs will admit that this is the most it has historically and today been the most nuclear experience epic, not only is the vast that they're the single largest EPC that has built the existing U.S. nuclear power fleet, they also have a pretty large sort of naval reactor.

00:36:38:15 - 00:37:00:17

James Krellenstein

And that's you know, that, for example, the nuclear reactors, the core design in the Gerald Ford class of aircraft carriage is actually design. The core is the A-1 D core right back to the core. So they really are very, very sophisticated and arguably had that experience both historically and in the presence to turn this this project around. And they did that project.

00:37:00:19 - 00:37:35:01

James Krellenstein

We end up actually finishing this project with Westinghouse in bankruptcy. Toshiba sells it over to Brookfield's distressed debt, sort of that Brookfield distressed debt, private equity arm of Brookfield buys Westinghouse out of bankruptcy. They renegotiate a contract between Bechtel, Westinghouse and Southern, and we finished the project roughly at roughly about ten years of nuclear construction, worth about $15 billion over the initial sort of estimate of what the cost are doubled.

00:37:35:07 - 00:38:12:04

James Krellenstein

The actual cost of of the plant with two casualties in Southern and South Carolina. And we see the CEO, CEO of of SCANA go to jail. We see a Westinghouse engineer who was a very senior engineer who actually worked on the Chinese plants as well, also plead guilty just recently to fraud in in South Carolina and is facing a possible jail term for what happened in South Carolina.

00:38:12:04 - 00:38:49:03

James Krellenstein

We see the rate payers of South Carolina having to spend $9 billion for this rusting hope. That's not going to ever while maybe it looks right now, not going to generate a lot of power and we have Vogel three and four, Vogel force critical. Now, Vogel three is commercially operating, doing great kind of. Thank God we actually had that perseverance of both the PSC, Bechtel and the Westinghouse staff and Southern really come together and say, We're going to finish what we started, which I think was the right decision in hindsight and we have the Chinese nuclear power plant built.

00:38:49:03 - 00:39:11:22

James Krellenstein

SIMON Men in Hyang, which were also the AP1000 builds. They also finished, but they were also Simon Unit number one was the longest nuclear power plant build in Chinese history, right? China is a is a country that is fantastic at building nuclear power plants. The median time to build a light water reactor for nuclear research is about five and a half years.

00:39:12:00 - 00:39:21:01

James Krellenstein

We are more than at 9.4 years to finish. SIMON Unit number one. We're more than two standard deviations outside of that build time, right?

00:39:21:01 - 00:39:22:18

Chris Keefer

And I'm not that far.

00:39:22:18 - 00:39:23:11

James Krellenstein

Off from Google.

00:39:23:11 - 00:39:24:22

Chris Keefer

Just build times.

00:39:25:00 - 00:39:43:15

James Krellenstein

Not that far off into the nuclear construction. Right? Vogel was about ten years. And remember, Vogel had not only this challenge, Vogel was finishing construction during COVID and a major issue that suddenly all happens. How do you build a nuclear power plant which does not actually turn out to work very well from remote work, right construction. But it turns out it's not a great remote work.

00:39:43:15 - 00:40:15:11

James Krellenstein

You know, you can zoom in to this. They had that major challenge of building it. They had the aircraft impact assessment role. Right. Unlike the Chinese build and the actual nuclear construction time is not that significantly different, about six months to eight months longer. And and so it really does show that, you know, I know that there's a huge sort of industry almost that nuclear advocates have created of figuring out ways to blame the NRC for this sort of debacle.

00:40:15:13 - 00:40:53:23

James Krellenstein

I don't think that the NRC, of course, is challenging. As I said in the last podcast, complying with the aircraft impact assessment role was challenging no one's going to say it wasn't. But to argue that this was the issue when we have this example of Sandeman and Hyang, where they're about the same time, and we know that in China we have built 42 reactors in the post-Fukushima era or brought them to operation the Shima at large light water reactors of various different kinds of some of sometimes first of a kind where we have inexperienced workforce, experienced managers of great regulator, right?

00:40:54:00 - 00:41:34:05

James Krellenstein

We didn't have to comply with the aircraft impact assessment rule. And even then the AP1000 built there were about as long as they were in the United States. It really does point that maybe there's a common factor here, which is the mismanagement of the project. And what's so interesting to me is that I think that considering we finished three and four, VOGEL Three and four, when I first entered into the nuclear advocacy realm, quote unquote, rather than looking at this from a more engineering perspective, I think that I can say, well, our number one task, of course, is to understand exactly every single thing that happened at this project so we can make sure not

00:41:34:05 - 00:41:58:23

James Krellenstein

only that it doesn't happen again and make sure that the companies involved and utilities, you know, we can advise them how to prevent this, but in some ways, even more importantly, explain to a rightfully skeptical public why this won't happen again. And when I was so shocked by is is that we got instead so much of the nuclear advocacy has been focused on, frankly, fake stories about how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was the major issue.

00:41:59:05 - 00:42:28:08

James Krellenstein

And I'll give you one perfect example that was in my first many months of being involved with the advocates. There was this story, I believe I traced it back to a blog post that or a substack post that Jack Delaney made. And there's a $30 million pipe brace at Vogel three. And the reason why it cost $30 million was to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission required a license amendment, and it would take 30 days for the NRC to issue this license amendment that was required for the simple pipe race.

00:42:28:08 - 00:42:51:00

James Krellenstein

Without the NRC, it would have been done in one day. And as I looked into this issue and, you know, the NRC is the most transparent federal agency in the United States and literally their entire document management system is public. Right. As the documents come in, you just can see it online. So I'm literally looking at the not what the NRC is saying, what Southern is saying about this.

00:42:51:00 - 00:43:14:08

James Krellenstein

Some of this is absolutely incorrect. Like just it just was made up from thin air. Right. It is true that there was a license amendment that was required in order to fix the problem in a more expedient error. But the NRC fixed the issue that error in that that license went in less than two business days, I think in 34 hours from when the request was actually made.

00:43:14:13 - 00:43:36:10

James Krellenstein

And it was so fast that it was faster than it required. The actual report, the the the material and the labor force that was needed to repair the plant. The plant was on site. The NRC license was amended, was there. Right. And I'm just sort of what why are we pretending? Why was there such an incentive to blame the Nuclear Regulatory Commission here, even to the point where we're making up the story?

00:43:36:10 - 00:43:48:13

James Krellenstein

I can tell you what happened at the pipe race story, because it's a really good story. And there was an op ed written about this by nuclear advocates. Right? There are huge Twitter threads and none of it had any grounding in truth.

00:43:48:15 - 00:43:49:19

Chris Keefer

So what would just briefly what.

00:43:49:22 - 00:44:10:23

James Krellenstein

I'm always so what happened was, okay so like when Vogel three had finished, you know, basically went through a process called hot functional testing. What does that mean? That means that we have the plants basically done. We want to have basically fill the reactor coolant system up with water. We're going to run the reactor coolant pumps up. Right.

00:44:10:23 - 00:44:31:06

James Krellenstein

There's no fuel in the core, right? We're going to heat up the system and bring it up to pressure, up to temperature and run the brakes without any fuel in the core. How do we bring it up into temperature? Well, the reactor coolant pumps and these things are so massive. Remember when the if you want thousands at full power, it is moving 15 tons of water per second through the core.

00:44:31:12 - 00:44:48:15

James Krellenstein

Right. So you can literally just bring up the reactor coolant system up to temperature and pressure by simply just running the reactor coolant pumps, even with no fuel or no decay, heat load in the in the car. So we do this for the first time and we're doing this to check for leaks to see to make sure that actually, you know, everything is fitting together.

00:44:48:17 - 00:45:08:00

James Krellenstein

But it's the first time that the RC is at temperature. And if you think about the reactor cooling system is it's a lot of piping, a lot of vessels, a lot of valves, a lot of pumps. They're all steel and they're going from, you know, room temperature basically up to a couple hundred degrees Celsius. Right, to over 300 degrees Celsius.

00:45:08:02 - 00:45:29:07

James Krellenstein

So literally the plant expands, the radius literally physically expands. And when you when you cool it back down, it contracts. Right. So it literally can do structural dynamics of in our. Yes. Can change based of that first heat up and cool down. But when we heated up we did hot functional testing. It was all fine. You know there was some issues but we we fix them.

00:45:29:11 - 00:45:48:23

James Krellenstein

Cool. So then we we go to the NRC and the NRC gives permission to load fuel into the core. So we go to load to the core. And, you know, we have the reactor shut down. Remember? The Court The fuel is ungraded, so there's no heat beam, then it's the fuel, you know, almost, you know, it's a little bit radioactive, but you could hold it in your hand and it wouldn't be a problem.

00:45:49:01 - 00:46:25:08

James Krellenstein

So we also we do another thing called pre critical testing, where we again, with the fuel in the core, we start bringing the reactor coolant system up to temperature and up to pressure and testing it out. And what happens is we begin seeing and this is in December of 2022, what happens is we get alarms in the control room which is saying that the that there is a high vibration levels on the automatic depressurization system and stage three and stage four, which is, if I remember correctly, the EADS is at this point 4/16 stage for the assembly is actually on the top of the pressure riser.

00:46:25:10 - 00:46:54:21

James Krellenstein

And and we're realizing that there's a vibration that's so significant that was not seen in the pre critical tests in the functional testing. That is alarming in the control room. Obviously this is not good. And the first clue to the new process should have been you do not see unanticipated vibrations in the reactor coolant system that that is so severe that you're you know, alarming in the control room especially of a design that has been built a couple of times before.

00:46:54:23 - 00:47:28:17

James Krellenstein

And they can't figure this out. Why did this not happen beforehand? What what what exactly causing that you shouldn't see This obviously brought this plant up to temperature and pressure before we had the Chinese plants that are operating at the same sort of design. What's going on here? And it takes them literally almost a month to figure out what the issue is when they do a walk down in early January of 2023, they realize that a huge number of the pipe supports the sort of piping support modules that were supposed to be installed in there, not actually module, let's call them.

00:47:28:23 - 00:47:51:17

James Krellenstein

They're components of this hadn't been installed, just simply had not been installed by the workforce and had not obviously been caught by the. Q You see sort of processes that we have at a a nuclear power plant at the construction. So what is the fix? Well, the fix is to install the components that were actually in the original plant drawings.

00:47:51:19 - 00:48:14:13

James Krellenstein

The problem is, is that under the technical specifications that Southern itself had written, right, you couldn't disable the automatic depressurization system when there is fuel on the core. And rather than then having to fuel the core, which would have taken much, much longer, that, hey, NRC, you know, we need to amend our license because there's no actual safety problem.

00:48:14:13 - 00:48:33:09

James Krellenstein

Even if we lose coolant. Right. The fuel has never been created. There's no decay, heat load. It's okay. Right. You can hole. There's no source term. There's nothing. So we can we should just amend the tech specs so that it just says the ABS has to be operational once the core has gone critical. Right. So the core hasn't gone critical.

00:48:33:09 - 00:48:55:06

James Krellenstein

It doesn't need to be to be functional. So they went to the NRC, they submit via email, a draft emergency request. The NRC convenes in emergency public hearing the night that the request comes in and the next day issues the license amendment request. And literally so this is literally less than 24 hours. The actual repair time is over.

00:48:55:06 - 00:49:17:04

James Krellenstein

Ten days turns actually took a little bit longer. So what I'm trying to say here is here the NRC wasn't in any way a barrier to the resolution of what was admittedly a significant problem, but it's not the nurse's fault. Right. This should have been caught by the Q HQ. See, this should have obviously it should be installed in the first place.

00:49:17:06 - 00:49:58:16

James Krellenstein

The quality assurance, quality control sort of processes at the build should have caught this. It's okay, right? These sorts of errors happened. This is why we do two rounds of testing, among many other things, before we bring the core critical. What I find so interesting about this is here we have a project that is $15 billion over budget and we have a huge amount of press that literally press that is generated over this, that is based on a story that has no relationship to reality and is basically predicated on the idea that a $30 million pipe, you know, cost overrun was the nurse's fault in a $15 billion cost overrun with the NRC, wasn't that

00:49:58:16 - 00:50:23:18

James Krellenstein

fault at all. And my basic question to us is, why are we focusing on that issue? Why are we focusing on a made up issue? And we can go through recent nuclear advocacy? And it would be amazed. It always amazes me how much stuff is made up here about blaming the NRC, but I don't think the NRC was the primary barrier to the completion of this project.

00:50:23:18 - 00:50:47:18

James Krellenstein

And my argument is a simple one. Go over to China, where the NRC has no authority, and they took basically as long to finish nuclear construction as they did in the United States. No aircraft impact assessment rule, no NRC. We have a little case control study explained to me the issue here, and I'll go one step further before I let you patiently speak.

00:50:47:20 - 00:51:09:18

James Krellenstein

One of the things the NRC just did as vocal for I talked out is they released a 35 publicly page. I think it's actually a little longer that public report on the lessons learned. How can the NRC do better in the part 52 process right as we bring more power plants is the first time we brought a nuclear power plant under this one step licensing process.

00:51:09:20 - 00:51:27:18

James Krellenstein

What are the lessons learned? There's criticisms of what the NRC did, what needs to change at the NRC, and I think that's a really healthy thing, is, of course, the NRC was not perfect in this. The NRC in many cases probably should have helped the vendor a little bit more, should've been less particular. But they're fessing up to that.

00:51:27:20 - 00:51:51:17

James Krellenstein

They're releasing this for public comment. My question to the nuclear energy industry is, where's your report? Where is the report of the industry saying, hey, we obviously a lot of things went wrong here. What can we do better? And the thing is, is that when you're building a large light water reactor, this is a social contract that we have because ultimately the ratepayers, you and I, are paying for that at the end of our bills.

00:51:51:22 - 00:52:13:15

James Krellenstein

And I don't mean to sound like an anti-nuke, I'm not an anti what I'm trying to say is you can't have people go to jail. You can't have a $9 billion project failure and then to say, everything is okay, just trust us. The next be because we need an honest appraisal of what went wrong and what is what the steps the industry is taking to fix it now.

00:52:13:17 - 00:52:29:13

Chris Keefer

I mean, all in all I was going to ask James was, you know, if you could provide and I think you just did like that balance of like, okay, this is not obviously this is it's been scapegoated as the main driver for a variety of reasons, which I think are difficult to comprehend in the way that you've laid it out.

00:52:29:13 - 00:52:43:16

Chris Keefer

But, you know, what is an example of the NRC going a little overboard or being being obstructionist either in this project or otherwise just one. I don't want to take a lot of time on this, but just to provide that balance of like what's an example of NRC screwing up and and obstructing.

00:52:43:18 - 00:53:07:13

James Krellenstein

So you can argue we've talked about this before, that you know, the decision to require the aircraft impact assessment rule. I think ultimately for a large light water reactor, it's actually kind of doable, but it's going to drive costs and drive complexity of the project. I think that's that's something that we really need to have a much more concrete discussion amongst ourselves in amongst the public about whether this makes sense.

00:53:07:13 - 00:53:29:14

James Krellenstein

You know, obviously was put into place with the NRC basically being threatened by Congress that if you don't do it, we'll pass a federal law that will require the NRC to do this. And it is a rulemaking that the NRC has right now to basically, you know, they could actually change it themselves. The commission could just change the regulations if they decided to.

00:53:29:16 - 00:53:47:18

James Krellenstein

We really do need to think about whether that's a good idea. Now, I think a lot of people are going to argue that there's this huge issues in the initial the first six, roughly, of the License Amendment request had to do with the rebar design of of Fogel three and Local four. And there's actually corresponding ones in Southern.

00:53:47:20 - 00:54:14:03

James Krellenstein

And it turns out there was extremely high tolerances. The NRC was holding the licensee to to that rebar design the rebar specs as well as also the mud mat configuration. Right. Which the whole base was going to be built on. Yeah. So we can argue that the NRC was way too pedantic about that and should have not been holding to the tolerances that they actually ended up helping the licensee too.

00:54:14:03 - 00:54:43:12

James Krellenstein

And this delayed the project a good amount. But my problem with that argument is that the tolerances for those both the rebar designs and the mud mat build were not, you know, imposed by the NRC. They were actually the license in the license that the applicant itself submitted to the NRC. And the NRC said, well, okay, this makes sense If you want to build to those tolerances, will approve those tolerances.

00:54:43:14 - 00:55:05:18

James Krellenstein

And they had to go through a license amendment process mid build to revise those tolerances. Right. But the question is, is the NRC is sort of like, you know, they're sort of like your you know, you try to build a house and you go to a zoning board, you say this is the design I want to build the zoning boards job in many cases.

00:55:05:18 - 00:55:24:20

James Krellenstein

Not to say, well, actually it can be easier to build that house if you build it this way rather than that way. And I wonder, yeah, maybe the NRC could have been faster in improving those License Amendment requests. I think that's a fair argument. I think they were pretty green, too, but I'm not so sure that you can say it's really fair to say that.

00:55:24:20 - 00:55:47:06

James Krellenstein

The problem is the nuclear regulator didn't tell you that your you were choosing the wrong design tolerances in your own license application. And why I'm saying this is not because I'm a huge NRC. Stan. I think that the environmental report, environmental impact statement issuance process is disaster at the NRC, although much of that is required statutorily by the National Environmental Policy Act.

00:55:47:11 - 00:56:23:06

James Krellenstein

We saw that coming to not only an issue at Vogel three and four, but the issuance of the Turkey point six and seven licenses, two years to do. The problem there is that one that's required by NEPA. But two, I want to go back. If you compare this nuclear power plant build into the NRC involvement compared to any historical nuclear power plant built in the United States, it is hard to see how this is not a step change in the way the NRC was behaving compared to what it was preparing in the 1980s, right where we had huge regulatory instability.

00:56:23:06 - 00:56:48:18

James Krellenstein

I suppose Three Mile Island, sort of regulatory changes started happening. And under the once the two step licensing process, plants in construction had to comply with regulations that literally did not exist when that plant was built. And if you compare that process to where we are with part 52 and with this design certification, subpart C process, it's a totally different world.

00:56:48:20 - 00:57:09:09

James Krellenstein

On the other hand, one, the lessons that we did learn and you see G.E. Hitachi taking this lessons to heart is that it maybe doesn't make sense to build your first of a kind plant using this one step process because it's one step process is assuming everything is finalized before you begin construction. And that obviously was a major delay.

00:57:09:11 - 00:57:15:00

Chris Keefer

Okay. One one question, and I know it's I can never keep you to a quick, quick answer, and that's okay because I'm.

00:57:15:00 - 00:57:17:16

James Krellenstein

Going to try to be brief. But it's a hard, hard just.

00:57:17:16 - 00:57:41:20

Chris Keefer

Briefly, in terms of the aircraft impact assessment rule or whatever the rules called, like why, why, why do some people feel it's essential and some people feel it's unreasonable? I think it's harder to fly an airplane into a containment dome that close to the ground surface than, you know, a massive tower in the New York skyline. But that's that's the only rationale I've heard as to why it might not be necessary.

00:57:41:22 - 00:57:57:23

James Krellenstein

As briefly as I think the argument is, you know, the basic argument that we often have, I mean, there's that argument. I'm not a pilot. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how easy it is. I haven't been going to flight school and, you know, saying I don't need to worry about landing just to, you know, fly into something.

00:57:57:23 - 00:58:19:18

James Krellenstein

You know, I love Muhammad Allah. You know, I'm not, as I said once that famously before, I'm not a jihadist right. Yet. But so the the the question that I have I think a lot of arguments are, well, we don't really require almost anything else in our industrial or civilian or commercial infrastructure to be able to withstand a direct aircraft impact.

00:58:19:18 - 00:58:54:03

James Krellenstein

For example, one World Trade Center down, you know, three miles from where I'm sitting. Right, right, right. You know, the place where we we had, you know, two airplane fly into. Right. And collapse and kill thousands of people, you know, I believe what World Trade Center many, many times, I can tell you that plant that that is not compliant with any aircraft impact assessment roll right necessary to allow that thing to be able to withstand a 767 crashing into it again and likely as we know, I think even if we had a direct hit of a nuclear power plant, there'd be a lot less than 3000 deaths.

00:58:54:05 - 00:59:14:09

James Krellenstein

They probably would be actually no deaths associated with it. Maybe, you know, some plant workers would die from the crash itself. But the question is, is and this is a classical question we have in all nuclear regulation, and I think it's a fair one is why is the nuclear industry held up to such a different standard in terms of protecting the public than anything else that we have in anything else in our society?

00:59:14:11 - 00:59:39:00

James Krellenstein

I think that's a fair question to ask. I'm not like saying like, you know, nothing in the nuclear regulatory apparat needs to change. That is not my argument. But my argument is, is that if China if a Chinese regulator can build first of a kind reactors in five and a half years and do it, you know, 42 times or 40 times over, and they have to have a regulator that that works to do, you know, achieve that build speed.

00:59:39:06 - 00:59:58:20

James Krellenstein

And we try to build this plant there with an experienced workforce. Right. Without, you know, you know, there's no atomic safety licensing Board hearings at at in China. Right. That maybe none that you would to disagree with publicly. Right. If they had such a strength problem here. I'm not trying to say that nothing needs to change at the NRC.

00:59:59:00 - 01:00:16:16

James Krellenstein

I was at the NRC a couple of weeks ago advocating for specific changes that need to happen there. But that is not my argument. My argument is, is that let's focus on the real issues, let's including advocacy. And one of the things that is funny, as I'll say, maybe is is too long evidence, like in a lot of.

01:00:16:18 - 01:00:17:18

Chris Keefer

The people will.

01:00:17:20 - 01:00:18:18

James Krellenstein

What.

01:00:18:20 - 01:00:21:06

Chris Keefer

They'll rebel if you will.

01:00:21:07 - 01:00:40:00

James Krellenstein

Yeah well or like you know they'll be they'll be burning effigies of me, you know no doubt. So one of the arguments that you often hear as well, you know, we can only put pressure on the NRC. We can't push and put pressure on the industry. And I just like I said, there's did a lot of advocacy in my life.

01:00:40:00 - 01:01:02:23

James Krellenstein

I'm like, damn, like most advocacy is focused on corporations, Right? And in a way that can work really constructively with the corporations. We can talk about that if we're interested of other examples of advocacy. But I really do think that one we need to understand is you started with this process that I think obviously there's a huge anti-nuclear movement in this country, and I'm not one to say there isn't.

01:01:03:01 - 01:01:24:04

James Krellenstein

There's a huge anti-nuclear politics in this country as well. But we have made, thanks to the nuclear advocates, including some of the people who maybe I disagree with some of this. I don't mean to in any way diminish their kind of heroic and actually heroic work in making this fight happen. That is a challenge and will be a challenge.

01:01:24:06 - 01:01:50:04

James Krellenstein

I'm not so sure at this point. It's the rate limiting challenge that we have to to new nuclear builds. As we said, we have a lot of regulation of license sites. Remember in the first in that in the naughties we license something like 15 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity. Actually, we license 17 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity in the United States in just 2008 till 2016.

01:01:50:06 - 01:02:11:23

James Krellenstein

Right Of that, we built two. We got we started building four. We built to what I'm trying to say is, is that really the regulators fault? That's my question that I ask for you. Is the regulator the challenge here? Now, the regulator does need to improve. The NRC itself admits it. There's stuff that in the Secret world called the construction reactor oversight program.

01:02:12:02 - 01:02:53:15

James Krellenstein

Sirup or sirup. Right, needs to change. But I am hard to see. I am I'm struggling here to see how that is the rate limiting factor. And, you know, to give you an example of something that we I don't know if you want to go to another example of us blaming the NRC for everything. Yeah. Yeah. It so one of the things that sort of shocks me recently is there was a claim made by the Breakthrough Institute that the primary chart that the reason why why Nuscale went from 50 megawatts to 77 megawatts electrical and their new scale power module is because of a change that was mandated by the NRC in the containment peak

01:02:53:15 - 01:03:14:03

James Krellenstein

pressure in the in the safety evaluation report. And, you know, I was like, I know what that change was, is actually a relatively minor change. It changed less than 5% containment, peak pressure, and it was just an accident sequence. So I literally reached out to engineers at Nuscale. I said, Hey, guys, is this actually what happened? And it was like, No, this is no relationship to the truth whatsoever.

01:03:14:03 - 01:03:45:08

James Krellenstein

We don't know where they're coming from. And in some cases they literally reached out to BTI and told PTI, Hey guys, this is not what happened. And yet we still have this persistent myth that the challenge with the with with the new scale design is that the NRC made some minor during the design of that plant rather than maybe that the civil works of that plant for plant that is literally 50% of the the power output of an AP1000 is more than twice as large as in AP 1000.

01:03:45:10 - 01:04:06:12

James Krellenstein

Right. And rather, we're focusing on the new scale power module design. That's less than 10% of the overall cost of the plant. I'm just trying to say it. Do we want a hippie punch and shit on the NRC? If we want to do that, then we're doing a great job. Do we want to actually get to a place we're building new nuclear power plants?

01:04:06:14 - 01:04:17:16

James Krellenstein

I think that is what I'm interested in, not in having some deregulatory revolution. Right. And pretending that or only challenge right now is regulatory.

01:04:17:20 - 01:04:45:15

Chris Keefer

And, you know, I do think this is a track worth worth following just a tiny bit more. I feel like a lot of the critique of the NRC comes from the advanced nuclear community or those representing the advanced nuclear vendors. Do you think that you know, and I've heard one of the reasons Canada is a more attractive regulator in order to pursue that, pursue potentially advanced designs or so-called gen4 designs is because we're less prescriptive.

01:04:45:17 - 01:04:49:13

Chris Keefer

Is that a shortcoming of the NRC? Just really briefly.

01:04:49:15 - 01:05:24:11

James Krellenstein

So I don't want to, you know, start talking about new regs, zero 800 versus new regs. 1537 But here's my my question. I think that the NRC recognizes there is a lot of prescriptive regulations in part 50 in particular. Right. And also other parts of of an operation is on. My question for this is at what country right now in the West, what regulator has issued a construction permit to begin construction on a non light water reactor today?

01:05:24:12 - 01:05:54:22

James Krellenstein

To my knowledge, the NRC has I don't think Canada. I don't think CMC has issued right KAIROS for the Hermes test reactor, which is not a power reactor, and therefore it was able to use a different standard review plan, a different set of regulations right. Able in less than 24 months. Right. To get a issued construction permit to begin building a about as non light water reactor as a non light water reactor.

01:05:54:22 - 01:06:15:18

James Krellenstein

You can imagine this is a graphite moderated flybe cooled tri. So fuel old reactor. Right. And we got through the NRC safety evaluation report was an 18 months fast. It's not like it's not like you know Kairos was just waiting around. If it wasn't for the NRC, they would have been done. It kind of still hasn't started construction on that.

01:06:15:20 - 01:06:34:14

James Krellenstein

But we have a construction permit. It actually was done in 18 months. Had there not been a mandatory a hearing process that took six months extra. Right. This is required by federal law that no one, including the NRC, supports being there. Right. It would have been done in 18 months. And, you know, everyone has said the NRC can't do non light water reactors.

01:06:34:16 - 01:07:03:19

James Krellenstein

Well, I say, hey, they were able to do it in a very, very fast manner. Right. Faster in many ways than the actual company was able to begin building. I am not convinced that that. Now, do I think part 53 is a train wreck? Absolutely. I don't necessarily think the issue that we have for these first is a non LWR is is going to be getting it through the NRC through part 50.

01:07:03:20 - 01:07:30:12

James Krellenstein

Right. There are challenges there. Absolutely. But if you talk to the NRC staff or if you talk to advanced reactor vendors, the ones that are competent, they will argue that, you know, they have the ability to go through part 50 right now and make the exception that need to be made using that standard either. You know, there's also obviously nuclear industry developed standards review plans like any 2107 and 1804.

01:07:30:18 - 01:08:11:06

James Krellenstein

Right. That allow us to basically use an alternative from the light water reactor review plan. I just am not convinced that it one, I'm not convinced that this is the main barrier I will give you. Absolutely. The NRC is the current regulatory apparat is designed to regulate light water reactor plants. Here's my question to you. Should we begin reforming the entire NRC regulatory infrastructure as part 53 entails to do that before we've built even one light water, non light water reactor?

01:08:11:08 - 01:08:32:16

James Krellenstein

Or should we maybe build a couple, see where the regulatory process goes, get that real world experience both with the regulator and, with the actual build, and then build our Part 53, part 56, whatever you want to call it, you know, to actually have a more non LWR focused, you know, reform now.

01:08:32:16 - 01:08:43:16

Chris Keefer

I mean just James, I would argue that baby steps and I think you should probably start with your first non light water reactor being being, you know, one of these super advanced heavy water reactors we have up here in Canada. But you know.

01:08:43:21 - 01:08:53:09

James Krellenstein

Well that might be actually that actually might be a challenge for the NRC because. yeah. So let me let me just let me let me let me go back and I feel like get.

01:08:53:09 - 01:08:55:06

Chris Keefer

Back to Bulgaria. Let's get back to Portugal, because we.

01:08:55:06 - 01:09:14:01

James Krellenstein

Promised the people we were. I want to say one more thing, that there are a lot of things that need to change at the NRC right. To get us ready for not now. I am not trying to say that I'm, you know, pushing the NRC, among many other people to change lot of this shit. This is not my argument.

01:09:14:06 - 01:09:30:13

James Krellenstein

And I'm sorry if I'm saying, you know, everything is perfect. No, everything is not perfect of the NRC. It does need to evolve. It does need to change. It does need to adapt. We do need to see a different culture there. What I'm trying to say is, is that to pretend that that is our central challenge is not helpful to us.

01:09:30:15 - 01:09:39:14

James Krellenstein

And we need to actually start figure out how are we going to deal with more design maturity right? And so on.

01:09:39:16 - 01:10:07:11

Chris Keefer

Okay, I feel terrible because I feel like you probably had a really cohesive narrative. You could have given an hour long lecture and, you know, hit on a bunch of points and I can hear some audience members going, Kiefer, stop interrupting the man. I do prefer something conversational. I do think it was very useful to drift a little bit into this territory because otherwise you're saying, you know, I am totally up for a part four because I feel like we didn't fully digest and follow that follow that trajectory that you were mentioning.

01:10:07:13 - 01:10:20:11

Chris Keefer

I think that's probably best. And I like the idea of a four part. It will give our audience again, it'll give our audience, it'll give our audience a little more chance to digest and give us feedback. Is there anything else you wanted to sort of close up with?

01:10:20:13 - 01:10:37:06

James Krellenstein

Well, no, not in the remaining 8 minutes. I want to say, you know, first of all, I'm a Jewish kid from Long Island, right? You know, if you don't cut me off, I will. I will. I won't stop. So you got to you got to at certain points, right? Like, you know, there's many things I am, you know, Loquacious is one of them.

01:10:37:08 - 01:11:12:15

James Krellenstein

But, you know, I just want to say, you know, I guess I'm trying. I want us all to to, to level set here and represent end on the tragedy of vocal for and that is we finish we're going to finish vocal for vocal for is going to work to the great vocal three is already doing fantastically in terms of operating performance and it's it's very heartening to see We got to figure out what are the next steps to building new nuclear.

01:11:12:17 - 01:11:39:20

James Krellenstein

And I think we have focused a little bit too on the NRC, the linear no threshold hypothesis a Laura Right. And not enough on what are the commercial challenges that we're seeing? What actually happened? How do we talk about Bold Summer? One of the the biggest problems, I think that I started this long, many decades ago when we started the first episode of this podcast, right?

01:11:39:20 - 01:12:19:11

James Krellenstein

Was that the we don't talk about what happened at Vogel in summer and we got to we got to admit that for a lot of how do I say this right? This is not the first time that we've had to abandon a nuclear project made construction for a rusty heap. That is part of our as great as we are providing 19 point something percent of the of the electric power of the United States, we also have a long history of destroying the careers of utility executives who order our products.

01:12:19:13 - 01:12:46:15

James Krellenstein

We have a long history of kind of screwing the ratepayer a little bit in the initial construction of this right, screwing public service commissions and, people who do this and a lot of that, especially in the eighties and seventies, was anti-nuclear, opposition, fair and square. Shoreham in Long Island, 100% anti-nuclear opposition. You know, obviously things could have gone better in that build, but you can't really blame that on the industry.

01:12:46:17 - 01:13:03:16

James Krellenstein

But a lot of these cost overruns that we've seen historically, we got to figure out how we are going to be able to credibly say to people how we are going to deliver your product on time and on budget. And this is why and this is what we've learned about it in that we're not afraid to talk about what happened in the past.

01:13:03:22 - 01:13:27:10

James Krellenstein

No, we're proud to talk about it. We're proud to explain to you all of the steps that we have proactively taken so that that won't happen again. Once again, I, I and this is not me sounding anti-nuclear. It's me saying if we got to wake up, get out of our bubbles and figure out what the actual issues that we have collectively in getting new nuclear power built in this country.

01:13:27:12 - 01:13:37:15

James Krellenstein

And that's cost, that's timing, that is anti-nuclear opposition. That is reforms of the NRC. But it's all of these things. It's not just the NRC in the eighties. Okay.

01:13:37:19 - 01:13:51:00

Chris Keefer

Just as a teaser and preview for what's next. And that may change again based upon my wonderful listeners feedback on Twitter, on LinkedIn, wherever you want to get in touch, what would you say is is what do we have left to cover in this episode?

01:13:51:00 - 01:14:15:06

James Krellenstein

So Skip, we haven't actually. I mean, I don't know if you want to go into grueling detail and we'll talk afterwards. We I kind of slept I kind of skipped over like, you know, we, you know, these massive litigations, the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the switching of from floor to Southern, from Westinghouse to Florida, southern to Bechtel. Right. The Bechtel report, what happened in in South Carolina in particular.

01:14:15:09 - 01:14:48:08

James Krellenstein

There's a huge stories in each one of these things. And I kind of hand waved across it only because it's really complicated what happened there and the challenges that we face really, really huge. And we should probably dive deep into that. The the issue is, is that that's pretty painful stuff. I don't necessarily it's a lot of there's there's going to be a lot of spoonfuls of sugar that are going to need to help make that medicine go down.

01:14:48:10 - 01:15:12:18

James Krellenstein

And I guess my question is, is do we want to have that sort of I mean, how much do I want to be hated is going to be the right question here. But but, you know, that's that's that's the question I have. So once again, the you know, there is this is not a great part of our collective history.

01:15:12:18 - 01:15:49:20

James Krellenstein

And I think the argument is really there, especially in many regions in the United States, as we start focusing both decarbonization, energy independence and resource and secure and real sort grid resources as power demands for, you know, really growing on the grid, places there for new nuclear. The case is really there. And I think until we start addressing all of these issues, including getting some of the toughest topics, then the hard to bear stuff where we're going to be, it's going to be hard to get to convince people to be able to build this.

01:15:49:22 - 01:16:15:13

Chris Keefer

Okay. Well, listen, I'm not too worried about getting dirty. We actually moved. Hopefully I can sustain this, but to biweekly decouple releases. So maybe we're going to have one like alternate episode for for the nerdcore. And one more. Yeah, one more for the regular people. But honestly, I mean, this is a highly intelligent, incredible audience. I'm always impressed by the folks who, you know, meet me at conferences and say, Hey, I listen to your podcast and I really appreciate it.

01:16:15:13 - 01:16:37:08

Chris Keefer

This, that or the other. It's pretty high caliber folks, just fluffing the egos of those listening again. James, thank you for being here to the audience. Thank you for your support. I could use a little more, so hop on Patreon and and join the community there. We have a variety of different clubs. They're kind of entertaining different levels of support.

01:16:37:10 - 01:16:56:23

Chris Keefer

If you want to make a larger donation, you can reach out to me directly and we'll find you a more efficient way to do that again. Wow, Shameless self-promotion. It's happening. But I think this project is important and big and I don't think it's happening in Ross. James, thanks for being part of what makes that happen. Really, really appreciate your time, man.

01:16:57:04 - 01:17:04:06

Chris Keefer

I have learned a gobsmacking amount over the course of our podcast together and in this one in particular, so.

01:17:04:08 - 01:17:07:10

James Krellenstein

Thank you, sir. Look, thank you for having me.