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Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future (1992)

Chapter: 2 The Institutional Framework

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Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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2

The Institutional Framework

This study examines the key institutional issues that have affected U.S. nuclear power development for the past 20 years. These issues will also strongly shape nuclear power's future and must be adequately accommodated to retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements.

The major issues that are examined here are not new--they have been widely recognized and discussed since at least the early 1980s. For example, one study in 1983 tried to identify what it is that prevents nuclear power from going forward in the United States by looking at “The Utility Director's Dilemma.”

. What is the risk to the company that after it invests $2-3 billion in a 12- to 14-year process of constructing a new nuclear power plant, the plant will not be able to operate? What is the risk to the utility that the return on the $2-3 billion invested will be zero? What is the risk that events beyond the control of the company, and beyond its analysts' best forecasts, will delay by several years the date on which the plant comes on line, will double the cost, or will otherwise affect its operation in a manner that could destroy the stockholders' equity and the utility?

If the decision to order the new nuclear power plant were made today [i.e., in 1983], the plant could begin producing power between 1995 and 1997. What could happen in the interim? Could some future president or Congress, governor or state legislature, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or public utilities commission (PUC) be antinuclear? Is there reasonable likelihood of an accident of Three Mile Island (TMI) proportions or worse during the ensuing 12-14 years at one or more of the 200 nuclear power plants operating in the world? How could that affect public opinion, political referenda, and, thus, the prospects for the utility's new nuclear plant?[Allison and Carnesale, 1983]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

In the mid-1980s the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment found, after a major study, that

Without significant changes in the technology, management, and level of public acceptance, nuclear power in the United States is unlikely to be expanded in this century beyond the reactors already under construction. Currently, nuclear power plants present too many financial risks as a result of uncertainties in electric demand growth, very high capital costs, operating problems, increasing regulatory requirements, and growing public opposition.

If all these risks were inherent to nuclear power, there would be little concern over its demise. However, enough utilities have built nuclear reactors within acceptable cost limits, and operated them safely and reliably to demonstrate that the difficulties with this technology are not insurmountable.[U.S. Congress, 1984]

At about the same time, a study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reached the following conclusion.

Despite the best efforts at institutional reform and innovation in LWR [light water reactor] technology, the difficulties presently confronting the U.S. nuclear power industry are sufficiently serious and persistent that the utilities may not overcome their present unwillingness to order new LWRs during the 1990s, even if faced with a need to build large amounts of new central station baseload capacity at that time. [Lester et al., 1985]

One senior electric utility executive put it another way in 1985.

Apart from everything else, expansion of the nuclear power option in the United States is not likely to occur unless and until there is broad public and political support for it.[Willrich, 1985]

In 1989, another study examined the question, “Will nuclear power recover in a greenhouse?” It contained the following summary:

The major problems in the United States which led to removing nuclear power as a choice for new generating capacity were lack of growing demand for electricity, rising costs per plant, and bad management, as well as growing public opposition. Unless these issues are recognized and addressed, greenhouse warming will not lead to nuclear power being chosen when utility executives select technologies to pursue for meeting new demands. Actions by Congress, the public, and the industry are needed.[Ahearne, 1989]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

The issues addressed by this Committee stem in large part from observations such as those cited above as well as from personal experience.1 Often interrelated in complicated ways, these issues include future electricity demand and supply, costs (and disallowances of costs), utility management, public opinion, safety, waste management, proliferation, and licensing and regulation.

FUTURE ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Future Demand

Estimated growth in summer peak demand for electricity in the United States has fallen from the 1974 projection of more than 7 percent per year to a relatively steady level of about 2 percent per year. Table 2-1 shows the projected average annual rates of summer peak demand growth over various 10-year periods, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council The table also shows actual average annual growth rates in summer peak demand. The data indicate that projections made in the mid-to-late 1970s were too high. Enough time has not passed to know whether projections made in the 1980s will be correct.

For the period 1990 to 1999, the North American Electric Reliability Council projects that summer peak demand will increase from about 539,000 megawatts electric (MWe) to about 646,000 MWe, an average annual growth rate of 2.0 percent per year. The Council estimates that there is an 80 percent probability that the actual average annual growth over the period will not exceed 2.7 percent per year or fall below 1.2 percent per year.[North American Electric Reliability Council, 1990]

1  

There were, of course, other studies not mentioned here. See, for example, Nuclear Power in America, by William Lanouette [Lanouette, 1985], the Report of the Edison Electric Institute on Nuclear Power [EEI Task Force on Nuclear Power, 1985], An Acceptable Future Nuclear Energy System, Condensed Workshop Proceedings [Firebaugh et al., 1980], the Energy Research Advisory Board's Report to the Department of Energy, Review of the Proposed Strategic National Plan for Civilian Nuclear Reactor Development [DOE, 1986a], and other references in thing report.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-1 Projected and Actual Summer Peak Demand Growth Rates by Year of the Estimate

Year of the Estimate

Ten-Year Average Annual Projected Growth Rates (percent)

Actual Average Annual Growth Rates (percent)

1974

7.6

2.9 (through 1983)

1978

5.2

2.3 (through 1987)

1982

3.0

3.5 (through 1990)

1986

2.2

*3.5 (through 1990)

1988

1.9

 

1990

2.0

 

* NOTE: This is only 4 years of data.

SOURCES: [U.S. Congress, 1984; North American Electric ReliabilityCouncil, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, and 1986; DOE, 1986c]

The Energy Information Administration has prepared long-range estimates of growth in U.S. electricity demand. The Energy Information Administration also compared its estimates to four other forecasts. Table 2-2 summarizes the results, which range from a low of 1.6 percent per year to a high of 2.6 percent per year average annual growth from 1988 to 2010.2

Finally, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) has prepared a forecast to the year 2015. The EEI estimates an average annual growth rate in electricity demand of about 2.6 percent per year for 1987 to 2000, dropping to 1.5 percent per year for 2000 to 2015.[EEI, 1989]

Future Supply

In 1989, the United States had an installed summer generating capacity of about 673,000 MWe. During the 1990 to 1999 period, the North American Electric Reliability Council estimates U.S. additions of about 86,000 MWe and retirements of about 4,000 MWe. Average projected annual growth in installed generating capacity equals about 8,000 MWe per year. The Council

2  

DOE's National Energy Strategy, published in February 1991, provides the following growth rate projections for U.S. electricity consumption under the National Energy Strategy Scenario: 1990 to 2000 - 2.5 percent per year; 2000 to 2010 - 1.5 percent per year; 2010 to 2020 - 1.6 percent per year; and 2020 to 2030 - 1.3 percent per year.[DOE, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-2 Projections of Growth in U.S. Electricity Demand, 1988 to 2010

Source of Forecast

Average Annual Growth Rates (percent)

Energy Information Administration

2.1 to 2.6a

Gas Research Institute

2.0

American Gas Association

1.9

WEFA Group

1.9

DRI/McGraw Hill

1.6

a The Energy Information Administration's Base Case fore cast is 2.3 percent. Ranges extend from 2.1 percent per year to 2.6 percent per year depending on assumptions about oil prices and economic growth rates.

SOURCE: [DOE, 1990a]

indicates that, in 1999, total U.S. installed summer and winter generating capacity will be about 761,000 MWe and 779,000 MWe, respectively.[North American Electric Reliability Council, 1990]

Long-range forecasting has many uncertainties. Nevertheless, beyond the year 1999, a plausible scenario for supply growth rates might lie between 1.5 and 2.6 percent per year, the long-range demand forecasts given earlier. Starting from the larger estimated winter value of 779,000 MWe at the end of 1999, such growth rates would then produce supply growths of about 12,000 MWe per year to 20,000 MWe per year. If retirements of, for example, 1,000 MWe per year were assumed, new additions would need to be about 13,000 MWe per year to 21,000 MWe per year for the first several years of the next century.3

3  

During the 1990s, the North American Electric Reliability Council estimated that the largest number of U.S. retirements would be about 700 MWe in the year 1996.[North American Electric Reliability Council, 1990] The use of such figures, especially after the year 1999, assumes that aging, clean air standards, or strong pressures to reduce carbon dioxide generation do not force large scale retirement of nuclear or fossil plants. Significantly larger numbers of retirements could, of course, directly affect the need for new capacity. For example, if the licenses of currently operating nuclear plants are not extended, nuclear retirements would be about 6,000 MWe per year during the period 2005 to 2010.[NRC, 1991a]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

The new capacity would consist of both baseload and peaking units, which would be provided both by traditional utility rate-based sources and by “non-utility generators,” or independent power producers and companies with generating facilities that qualify under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). Such facilities would include cogeneration and small hydroelectric plants, for example.

Finally, some additional supply capacity is likely to be satisfied by a combination of further energy-efficiency improvements, renewable energy technologies, gas, coal, and repowering.4 Thus, the annual need for new nuclear capacity, at least during the first several years of the next century, is likely to be only a portion of the new additions (which are estimated to be 13,000 MWe to 21,000 MWe per year). This prospect is in contrast to that of the peak years of nuclear plant orders when, from 1970 to 1974, new orders for nuclear units averaged about 31,000 MWe per year [DOE, 1989a], although many of these were later cancelled.5

Growth in Competition

Due to high facility development and construction costs and state regulatory practices, utilities today are more often contracting with third party power producers through competitive bidding procedures designed to acquire new generating capacity.6 According to a recent national survey, since 1984,

4  

Accompanying a warning of electricity shortages in this decade, the report of a recent conference stated “A full mix of options and enough lead time to make sound choices on both demand and supply sides is far safer than short-term decisions and catch-up policies. Choices need to reflect local, regional and global environmental priorities, as well as the economics and reliability of the entire electric supply and delivery system.”[Fowler and Rossin, 1990]

5  

The Atlantic Council of the United States indicated that no nuclear power plants that have been ordered since 1973 have been put into construction for the simple reason that “about twice as many units were on order as were needed with the abrupt decline in the rate of growth of electric power demand. ”[Atlantic Council of the United States, 1990]

6  

One review of responses to bidding requests for proposals indicates that, in 16 states, responses exceeded requests by a factor of 8 (38,674 megawatts in response to requests for 4,781 megawatts).[Blair, 1990]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

27 states have adopted or are developing competitive procurement systems that, together with access already granted by PURPA, will affect the nation's electric power markets.7 [National Independent Energy Producers, 1990] Experience so far suggests that a substantial portion of new generating capacity can be purchased in this fashion.[DOE, 1989b]

Because several years are often required to construct generating sources, utilities have little operating experience with competitively purchased electricity. Thus, the effects of competitive power purchases on the long-term reliability of electric service--which is affected by the reliability of all sources and transmission and distribution facilities--are not yet certain and difficult to assess.[U.S. General Accounting Office, 1990]

According to the electricity supply estimates for 1990 through 1999 made by the North American Electric Reliability Council, about 18,000 MWe of non-utility generator additions are planned compared to about 68,000 MWe of utility generating unit additions.[North American Electric Reliability Council, 1990] In 1990, 6,000 MWe of non-utility generation went into service, bringing the total to 32,700 MWe.[National Independent Energy Producers, 1991]

7  

The Congressional findings underlying PURPA are ” that the protection of the public health, safety, and welfare, the preservation of national security, and the proper exercise of congressional authority under the Constitution to regulate interstate commerce require-

  1. a program providing for increased conservation of electric energy, increased efficiency in the use of facilities and resources by electric utilities, and equitable retail rates for electric consumers;

  2. a program to improve the wholesale distribution of electric energy, the reliability of electric service, the procedures concerning consideration of wholesale rate applications before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the participation of the public in matters before the Commission, and to provide other measures with respect to the regulation of the wholesale sale of electric energy;

  3. a program to provide for the expeditious development of hydroelectric potential at existing small dams to provide needed hydroelectric power;

  4. a program for the conservation of natural gas while insuring that rates to natural gas consumers are equitable;

  5. a program to encourage the development of crude oil transportation systems; and

  6. the establishment of certain other authorities as provided in title VI of this Act.”[U.S. Congress, 1978]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Others estimate the likely non-utility share at 50 percent or more.[National Independent Energy Producers, 1990]

The entities currently entering the independent power production bidding process are offering cost-competitive generating plants that use well-established gas-fired or renewable generating technologies with short construction lead times. In general, fixed-price contracts are used for construction. These circumstances do not now favor large-scale baseload technologies.

Integrated Resource Planning

The goal of integrated resource planning is to minimize the societal costs of the reliable energy services needed to sustain a healthy economy. Many utilities have installed or are installing new planning systems to assure that options to supply electricity are considered and the least-cost options are chosen.[National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, 1988; EPRI, 1988] Untapped electricity savings from end-use efficiency improvements are treated explicitly as a resource option, functionally comparable to energy deliveries to consumers from power plants. Comparisons among resource options are made on the basis of life cycle costs, and efforts are often made to incorporate environmental costs in some fashion.[Cohen et al., 1990]

These systems usually make the planning process more open and more competitive. Such systems have been pioneered in California and in the Pacific Northwest under the aegis of the California Energy Commission and the Northwest Power Planning Council. Integrated resource planning activities are also under way in many other states, including Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Wisconsin, and the New England States. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has formally endorsed this planning concept. These systems are intended to ensure that energy-efficiency improvements and supply-side technologies of all types, including future nuclear power generation, are compared on an equal basis. It remains to be seen whether these systems will favor, be neutral toward, or be negative regarding nuclear power.

Environmental Factors

Nuclear power plants emit neither precursors to acid rain nor gases that contribute to global warming, like carbon dioxide. Both of these environmental issues are currently of great concern. New regulations to address these issues will lead to increases in the costs of electricity produced by combustion of coal, one of nuclear power's main competitors.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Technology is already available to limit emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from coal-based plants, the principal acid rain precursors, and new technology is being developed in the clean coal technology program at the Department of Energy (DOE) and elsewhere. However, even with this new technology, emissions of these pollutants will be much greater than those associated with the nuclear cycle. These technologies will add to the cost of electricity generated in coal-fired plants and will affect the future competition between coal and nuclear plants. Increased costs for coal-generated electricity will also benefit alternate energy sources that do not emit these pollutants.

No practical way to capture and contain carbon dioxide emissions is now available. Depending on the growth in concern about global climate change, controls on the combustion of fossil fuels to reduce such emissions could severely limit the use of coal, oil, and to a lesser extent natural gas-fired generation and could make nuclear power more attractive. Energy efficiency and renewable generating technologies would realize similar benefits.

ELECTRICITY GENERATION COSTS

In order to deliver electricity, it must first be generated, then transported and distributed to individual users. This report considers only the costs of electricity generation, which consist of the sum of capital carrying charges, operation and maintenance costs, and fuel costs. Capital carrying charges are, in essence, the cost of capital and the depreciation and amortization of the costs of building and financing the plant.8 Such charges are the predominant cost of generating electricity with nuclear power. Furthermore, capital carrying costs are constantly changing as additional investments are required over the life of the plant.

In this section, each of the components of costs of nuclear generated electricity is examined in order to understand its importance. Construction times for nuclear plants are discussed as well because of their significance to capital carrying charges. Some cost comparisons with coal are also presented. International data are provided where appropriate.

8  

See Electric Plant Cost and Power Production Expenses 1988 [DOE, 1990c] for a more complete discussion of the costs included in capital carrying charges. Decommissioning costs can also be included.[DOE, 1982; Jones and Woite, 1990] Operation and maintenance expenses and fuel expenses will be defined later.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
Capital Carrying Charges

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) analyzed the cost components in 1988 for major U.S. privately owned nuclear and coal-fired plants. There is wide variation among the highest and lowest total generation costs and among the components of that cost, as seen in Table 2-3. For example, nuclear plants have both the lowest and highest total generation costs in the table. The difference between the high and low ends is due almost entirely to large differences in the capital carrying charges (approximately a factor of 20 for both nuclear and coal). On the average, the data show that nuclear plant capital carrying charges are about three times that of coal plants, accounting for the major net difference between their total generation expenses.[DOE, 1990c]

TABLE 2-3 Components of Highest, Lowest, and Average Total Generating Costs in 1988 for Nuclear and Coal-Fired Plants Owned by Major Private Utilities (Cents per Kilowatt Hour)a

 

Highest Total

Generation Costs

Lowest Total

Generation Costs

Average Total

Generation Costs

 

Nuclear

Coal

Nuclear

Coal

Nuclear

Coal

Total Costsb

11.3

8.5

1.6

2.2

5.6

3.1

Componentsc

Capital Carrying

9.4

5.4

0.4

0.3

3.4

1.1

Operation & Maintenance

1.2

0.7

0.8

0.5

1.5

0.4

Fuel

0.7

2.5

0.5

1.4

0.8

1.7

There were 179 major privately owned electric utilities in the United States in 1988. Specific definition of the term “major” is contained in the report entitled Electric Plant Cost and Power Production Expenses 1988.[DOE, 1990c]

a These data can be interpreted as the price of electricity generated in 1988 from nuclear and coal-fired plants and do not represent the cost of producing electricity over the entire life of the plants.

b Numbers may not add due to rounding

c In the first four columns, these are the costs for each component for the plants whose total costs were highest and lowest. The last two columns represent the average plant (e.g., the average total nuclear costs are 5.6, made up of 3.4, 1.5, and 0.8).

SOURCE: [DOE, 1990c]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Existing nuclear plants have higher capital carrying charges, on average, for several reasons: (1) their equipment and buildings have been more expensive to acquire than those for coal-fired plants, (2) they have taken longer to build, thus accumulating more interest during construction (which is, in many cases, capitalized), and (3) in most cases, nuclear plant decommissioning costs are taken into account in the capital carrying charges. These are all reflected in capital carrying charges in Table 2-3.

The large amounts of capital required to build and finance some U.S. nuclear power plants are a major cause of disenchantment with the technology. The Committee was unable to find a complete and consistent set of data on such costs. Therefore, to analyze the fundamental reasons for large differences in the costs among U.S. nuclear plants, the Committee makes use of the best data found.

One measure of capital investment is called historical plant cost.9 Another measure is construction cost in mixed-current dollars.10 Although such measures mix dollars over many years, they do suggest that both nuclear and large (=300 MWe) fossil-fueled plants have exhibited cost increases over time. For example, large fossil-fueled plants that entered commercial service from 1976 to 1978 had average historical costs of about $300 per kilowatt electric, whereas those entering commercial service in 1987 had average historical costs of about $1,000 per kilowatt electric. Nuclear units beginning commercial operation from 1976 to 1978 had average construction costs (mixed-current dollars) of about $600 per kilowatt electric, whereas those beginning commercial operation in 1987 had average construction costs of about $4,000 per kilowatt electric.[DOE, 1990c and 1989d]

Because historical plant cost and mixed-current dollar construction cost data are difficult to use for cost comparisons, analysts have devised ways of

9  

Historical plant costs are the net cumulative-to-date actual outlays or expenditures for a facility. These costs are effectively those that enter the rate base and are recovered from ratepayers. Historical costs contain dollar values of the year in which the expenditure occured; thus they are a mixture of dollars in different time periods. Differences in accounting practices also affect such costs, for example, the inclusion or exclusion of time-related costs such as allowance for funds used during construction (AFUDC). For more explanation see the report entitled Electric Plant Cost and Power Production Expenses 1988.[DOE, 1990c]

10  

These costs are referred to variously as final reported completion costs and final estimates of total construction cost for nuclear units. The costs are in current dollars of a number of different years (e.g., expenditures in 1971 are in 1971 dollars).[DOE, 1989d]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

separating out the time-related costs and converting the resulting costs to constant dollars. Such costs are called overnight costs (i.e., the cost of a plant if it could be built instantaneously, or overnight).11 It is difficult to produce such numbers, but they are important. As will be seen in Chapter 3, one element of the prospective merit of new nuclear plants is their predicted overnight capital cost.

Table 2-4 summarizes the overnight construction costs in constant 1988 dollars that have been calculated for 76 U.S. nuclear power plants. The table shows that there is a wide range between the highest and lowest values of overnight cost for each time period. From 1977 to 1988, for example, the highest cost plants were three times as expensive as the lowest cost plants entering commercial operation in the same time periods. Furthermore, the data show continued escalation in overnight costs for plants beginning commercial operation during the 1970s and 1980s, with a sharp increase from the years before 1981 to 1981 and beyond (e.g., the highest cost plant from 1981 to 1984 was twice as expensive as the highest cost plant from 1977 to 1980). The cost increases do not appear to be affected strongly by the introduction of larger plants.12

The higher standards of quality and quality assurance required for nuclear plants were not initially sufficiently appreciated by the nuclear industry nor its regulators. This lack of appreciation contributed in many cases to inadequate quality, and even occasionally to mistakes, in construction, with attendant higher costs.

Time-related costs (i.e., those costs that result because the nuclear plant cannot be constructed overnight, such as financing charges) accounted for approximately 25 percent of the inflation-adjusted increase in total construction costs.[DOE, 1986b] Thus, the time-related costs are significant,

11  

For more discussion, see the reports entitled An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Construction Costs [DOE, 1986b] and The Economics of Nuclear Power, Further Evidence on Learning, Economies of Scale, and Regulatory Effects.[Cantor and Hewlett, 1988]

12  

However, one study points out that, because of the indirect effect of size on costs, there seems to be some evidence supporting claims that attempts were made to build plants too large to be efficiently managed by the constructors.[Cantor and Hewlett, 1988]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-4 Overnight Construction Costs for Selected U.S. Nuclear Power Plants, by Year of Commercial Operationb

 

1988 Dollars per kWea

   

Year of Commercial Operation

Highest

Lowest

Average

Number of Plants

Average Size (MWe)

1971-1974

1,234

480

817

13

855

1975-1976

1,284

562

1,035

12

885

1977-1980

1,608

562

1,118

11

905

1981-1984

3,326

1,003

1,733

15

1,064

1985-1986

4,204

1,342

2,620

15

1,129

1987-1988

4,596

1,383

3,133

10

1,070

SOURCE: [DOE, 1986b], supplemented by revised overnight cost database provided by Energy Information Administration staff on December14, 1990 (See Note below)

a 1982 Dollars in source material were converted to 1988 Dollars by using factor of 1.213 [DOE, 1989c]

b Nuclear Regulatory Commission data were used for dates of commercial operation and for individual plant capacities [NRC, 1990a,b]

NOTE: The data base that was provided contained 79 plants. Seabrook, Shoreham, and Three Mile Island 2 were excluded from the above calculations because the Seabrook costs only went to 1986, the Shoreham plant never reached commercial operation and costs only went to 1985, and Three Mile Island 2, which had $1.173 billion in overnight costs (1988 dollars) through 1978, was destroyed in early 1979. Plants not included in the data base were turnkey plants (for which the reported costs were not believed representative of the realized costs) and plants for which data were not available. The procedure used to compute the overnight costs consisted of starting with the historical plant costs (i.e., those that entered the rate base), and then removing the time related costs (i.e., interest and inflation). The results were the actual cash outlays for construction. The accounting procedures used by the utilities for reporting these cash outlays are governed by the Uniform System of Accounts (a set of federal regulations). Thus, the accounting variations that remain are very small.[J. Hewlett, Energy Information Administration, personal communication]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

costs are significant, although not as significant as the overnight costs.13 For this reason, it is useful to examine the time it takes to construct nuclear power plants.

Construction times are an important issue because long construction times increase capital carrying charges, directly through finance charges and indirectly through growth in the costs of labor and materials. Long construction times also increase the possibility of regulatory changes that may require expensive plant modifications.

Table 2-5 shows nuclear power plant construction times for 110 U.S. plants entering commercial service through 1989. The table indicates continually growing construction times from when the first U.S. nuclear plants entered commercial service through the 1980s. The minimum times doubled from about 3 years to 6-7 years, and the maximum times went from about 8 years to 13-19 years. The average times grew from 5 years to 10-12 years.

Table 2-6 shows how U.S. construction times compare to those experienced by other countries, particularly France (see the article entitled Nuclear Units Under Construction [Bacher and Chapron, 1989] for discussion of French nuclear plant construction), West Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. For units beginning operation prior to 1978, all countries took about the same time to construct a nuclear plant--4 to 6 years on the average. Afterwards, however, the United Kingdom 's and the United States' average times doubled (to about 11 to 13 years). There were also increases in the construction times experienced by France,14 West Germany, and Japan, but they were not so pronounced.

The high costs of recently completed nuclear plants have been subjected to intense review by state public utility commissions, and in some cases

13  

See An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Construction Costs [DOE, 1986b] for a more complete discussion of the relative importance of overnight costs versus time-related costs. In particular, that report contains the following statement: “In short, in real, inflation-adjusted terms, escalation in overnight costs, rather than time-related costs, is the principal factor causing the cost increases. Thus, attempts to reduce costs should focus on the managerial and regulatory factors that affect plant design and construction, as well as on the factors that just affect the time required for licensing of the plants.”

14  

The increase of the construction times in France is mainly due to the fact that the power of the French pressurized water reactors was raised in successive steps, from 900 MWe initially to 1,300 MWe and lately to 1,450 MWe.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-5 Construction Times For 110 U.S. Nuclear Power Plants. Construction Times in Yearsa for Plants Beginning Commercial Operation in Given Time Periods

 

Prior to 1975

1975 through 1979

1980 through 1984

1985 through 1989

Minimum Time

2.7

3.7

6.1

6.6

Maximum Time

7.6

10.1

13.4

19.3b

Average Time

5.4

7.2

10.1

12.2

Number of Plants

40

23

17

30

a Construction Time is defined here as time elapsed from actual ground breaking until the first generation of electrical energy.

b This plant first generated electricity in September 1989, even though it did not begin commercial operation until 1/8/90.

SOURCE: [NRC, 1982 and 1990f]

utilities have not been allowed to fully recapture the capital costs of plants in rates. The aggregate value of these disallowances and the reasons for them will be discussed after the next section. Mid-construction cancellations have created an additional source of financial risk. Between 1972 and 1984, more than $20 billion in capital flowed into 115 nuclear projects that their sponsors later cancelled.[Cavanagh, 1986] When a plant is cancelled, some costs are recovered by the utility from customers and others are not, depending on rulings of the applicable regulatory commissions.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-6 Comparison of U.S. Nuclear Power Plant Construction Time Spans with Those of Other Countries. Average Construction Time Spans in Yearsa for Plantsb Connected to Grids in Given Time Periods

Country

Prior to 1978

1978 through 1989

France

5.1

5.9

West Germany

4.7

7.6c

Japan

3.9

4.7

United Kingdom

5.7

12.8d

United States

5.5

11.1e

World (including United States)

5.2

7.7

a Time spans measured from first pouring of concrete to unit connection with grid.

b Both operating and shut down reactors are included.

c However, the average time span of all (four) nuclear power plants for which construction began in West Germany after the Three Mile Island accident was 5.7 years.

d These were gas reactors.

e This includes about a two year regulatory delay after the Three Mile Island accident.

SOURCE: [IAEA, 1990]

Major deterrents to new orders for nuclear plants include their high capital carrying charges, which are driven by high construction costs and extended construction times, and the risk that their construction costs will not be recovered. Both of these issues (i.e., reduced capital carrying charges and predictability of cost recovery) must be addressed before new nuclear plant orders are likely.

Operation, Maintenance, and Fuel Costs

Rising costs of the operation and maintenance (O&M) of a nuclear power plant after it has been constructed are also an important consideration in the decision to build a new plant. These O&M expenses, as they are sometimes called, are defined as follows:

Operation expenses are associated with operating a facility (i.e, supervising and engineering expenses). Maintenance expenses are that portion of expenses consisting of labor, materials, and other direct and indirect expenses incurred for preserving the operating

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

efficiency or physical condition of utility plants that are used for power production, transmission and distribution of energy.[DOE, 1990c]

Fuel costs are the last component of total electricity generation costs. Fuel costs

. include the fuel used in the production of steam or for driving another prime mover for the generation of electricity. Other associated expenses include unloading the shipped fuel and all handling of the fuel up to the point where it enters the first tank, bunker, hopper, bucket, or holder in the boiler-house structure.15[DOE, 1990c]

Comparative trends from 1982 through 1988 for the average O&M costs and fuel costs of both nuclear and fossil-fueled plants are displayed in Table 2-7. These data show that nuclear O&M costs have increased significantly through the 1980s, while fossil fuel costs have decreased significantly.16,17 This result has led EIA to state

The advantage seen for nuclear power in fuel cost is diminished by their operation and maintenance expenses and high capital costs. [DOE, 1990c]

Previously, after completing a detailed analysis of the trend of O&M costs for nuclear power plants, EIA stated

Continued escalation in operating costs could erode any cost advantage that operating nuclear power plants now have. If

15  

Apparently, waste disposal costs are not included in the fuel costs of DOE's Electric Plant Cost and Power Production Expenses 1988 report [DOE, 1990c] for either coal or nuclear plants.

16  

At this time, of course, concerns about oil prices and effects of the Clear Air Act amendments raise questions about the stability of fossil fuel prices.

17  

In an earlier report EIA provided data that, when adjusted to constant 1988 cents, showed that the sum of O&M and fuel costs for coal plants was nearly 3 cents per kilowatt hour versus nearly 2 cents per kilowatt hour for nuclear plants. However, by 1987, the sum was identical (a little more than 2 cents per kilowatt hour) for both coal and nuclear plants.[DOE, 1989e]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-7 Average Operation and Maintenance and Fuel Costs for Nuclear and Fossil-Fueleda Plants Owned by Major Private Utilitiesb (1988 cents per kilowatt hour)c

 

Operation and Maintenance

Fuel

O&M plus Fueld

Year

Nuclear

Fossil-Fueled

Nuclear

Fossil-Fueled

Nuclear

Fossil-Fueled

1982

1.1

0.5

0.7

3.0

1.8

3.5

1983

1.2

0.5

0.8

2.8

1.9

3.3

1984

1.3

0.5

0.8

2.7

2.1

3.2

1985

1.2

0.5

0.8

2.6

2.0

3.1

1986

1.3

0.5

0.8

2.1

2.1

2.6

1987

1.4

0.5

0.8

1.9

2.2

2.4

1988

1.5

0.5

0.8

1.8

2.2

2.3

a In 1988 coal accounted for almost 80 percent of the generation from fossil-fueled steam electric plants owned by the major private electric utilities, gas 11 percent, petroleum 9 percent, and a small percentage from wood and waste.

b There were 179 major privately owned electric utilities in the United States in 1988. Specific definition of the term “major”si contained in DOE's Electric Plant Cost and Power Production Expenses 1988 report.[DOE, 1990c]

c Inflation indices used for 1982 to 1988 through 1987 to 1988 were 1.21, 1.17, 1.13, 1.09, 1.07, and 1.03, respectively. These indices were obtained from the implicit price deflators contained in DOE 's Annual Energy Review 1989.[DOE, 1989c]

d Numbers may not add horizontally due to rounding

SOURCE: [DOE, 1990c]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

operating costs continue to escalate, it may become economical to close some of the older plants, and thus the assumption of a 40-year operating life may be optimistic.[DOE, 1988c]

Three important factors were given by the EIA for the changes in nuclear O&M costs. These factors appear below.

Over the period studied, increases in the price of replacement power (i.e, power from other sources to replace the power lost when a nuclear power plant is out of service) offered an increased incentive to improve performance, resulting in increased O&M costs. Furthermore, State regulatory actions provided additional incentives to improve plant performance. In total, these economic and regulatory incentives to improve plant performance statistically explained about 15 percent of the escalation in real O&M costs. The analysis could find no evidence that increases in replacement power prices influenced real capital additions costs.

Plant aging has received a great deal of attention, and some analysts have cited aging as a major determinant of nuclear power plant operating costs. However, this analysis found that plant aging explained only about 17 percent of the escalation in capital additions costs. Furthermore, as plants age, real O&M costs actually fell this could be due to the fact that as plants age, the experience of the operator increases, which could result in lower costs: with all other factors held constant, real O&M costs would be about 33 percent less because of plant aging.

A third important factor is the effect of increases over time in NRC activity. Unfortunately, this analysis was unable to separate these NRC regulatory effects from those resulting from increases in industry experience and any other unmeasurable factor correlated with time. However, the combined effects of all these time-related factors were substantial. In the absence of increases in NRC regulatory activity, industry learning, and other unmeasurable factors correlated with time, real O&M and capital additions costs would be about 70 percent and 60 percent lower, respectively, than otherwise.[DOE, 1988c]

Nuclear Costs in Other Countries

U.S. nuclear power plants represent only about a fourth of those in the world.[IAEA, 1990] Therefore, it is instructive to examine the relative cost competitiveness of nuclear and coal plants through the perspectives of other nations. It is also instructive to review the means that others have used to control the costs of nuclear power plants.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

The results of examining the projected costs of nuclear power plants versus coal plants were summarized in a recent journal article based on several studies, including ones by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Union of Producers and Distributors of Electrical Energy.[Jones and Woite, 1990; Moynet et al., 1988; OECD, 1989] The authors did caution against the comparison of absolute costs between countries. 18 However, some large differences indicate the influence of institutional aspects that might have considerable importance for the economics of nuclear energy. The low investment costs of French plants to a large extent may be due to more efficient use of engineering capacity by construction of larger series of similar plants (standardization) and by the concept of twin and multiple units. The recent German experience with the Konvoi plants (decrease of investment costs in German currency) also indicates the importance of standardization.

Relative to the United States, reported O&M costs are much lower in most other countries. For France, values of 0.5 cent per kilowatt hour are reported for 1987, which is about one third of the current U.S. average. Influencing factors may be the more efficient organization of engineering infrastructure within one large utility, smaller work force, and the better employment of work force in multiple unit plants. For West Germany some increase in O&M costs has been observed, which is due to safety improvements of operating plants (backfits and accident management implementation). Still, the West-German O&M costs are about half the U.S. average.

Nevertheless, the journal article does present data that provide an assessment of the projected relative costs of nuclear and coal plants as well as the electricity they could generate. These data show that the investment cost of coal-fired plants was projected to be less than that of nuclear power plants on a dollars per kilowatt electric basis for all 22 countries examined, including the United States. For some countries (e.g., France and Czechoslovakia), projected nuclear investment costs exceeded those of coal by only a small amount. For other countries (e.g., Germany and China), nuclear plants were projected to require twice the investment of coal plants.

The electricity generation costs of projected coal plants versus nuclear power plants were also compared on a relative basis. The results were summarized by the authors as follows:

18  

Reasons are “ because of their substantial variations of economic and social systems and different provisions for radioactive waste management, plant decommissioning, and environmental protection.”[Jones and Woite, 1990]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

In short, most of the participating countries expect nuclear power to have a lower levelized generating cost than coal-fired generation or, at worst, to about break-even. However, for most countries, the projected comparisons between coal and nuclear generating costs are not clear cut when viewed across the full range of assumptions considered in the studies. Under some assumptions of parameter values, nuclear power has a sizeable cost advantage over coal; for other parameter values the reverse is the case.[Jones and Woite, 1990]

With respect to bringing the benefits achieved in the most successful countries to others, the authors tabulated ways of reducing the capital costs of nuclear power plants (e.g., feedback experience through standardization, extend planning quality and quantity by completing detailed designs and resolving political and regulatory issues before starting construction, and improve project management).[Jones and Woite, 1990]

Costs of Disallowances

U.S. nuclear plants were designed and built using a variety of arrangements utilizing architect-engineers, equipment suppliers, constructors, consultants, and internal staffs. Many of these arrangements resulted in timely construction, within budget. Others experienced significant delays and serious cost overruns.

These overruns attracted the attention of state public utility commissions. Many “prudency” reviews19 followed. These reviews resulted in disallowances of cost recovery and have become a major risk of the construction of nuclear power plants. As Table 2-8 and Table 2-9 show, these disallowances have been for a variety of reasons, including capacity not needed and imprudence (e.g., alleged mismanagement). 20 The financial losses from these disallowances have been borne by utility stockholders. The prospect of the inability to recover all costs of nuclear construction through rates is a major deterrent to future investments in nuclear power. Without reasonable assurance of cost recovery, private utilities will have difficulty in obtaining new equity as well as debt capital to help finance any baseload generation.

19  

These are post-construction reviews to determine which costs of construction were prudently incurred and should be recovered from ratepayers.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-8 Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Disallowances by Issue During the 1980s (Number of cases or disallowances are given in parentheses)

   

$ in Billions

Category

Regulatory Issuea

Nuclear

Non-Nuclear

Capital

Excess Capacity

$ 2.2 (7)

$0.6 (7)

 

Economic Value

1.0 (4)

0

 

Imprudence

7.1 (27)

0.1 (5)

 

Cost Caps

2.7 (9)

0

 

Other

0.8 (9)

0

Subtotal (Capital)

$13.8 (44)b

$0.7 (12)

Operations Imprudence

$ 0.6 (44)

$c

Totals

$14.4 (88)

$0.7 (12)

a The definitions of each type of regulatory issue are provided in the note below.

b Some cases involve capital disallowances on more than one issue.

c Non-nuclear operating imprudence not examined.

SOURCE: EEI Rate Regulation Department, December 1990 and January1991

NOTE to Table 2-8:

  • Excess Capacity - investments disallowed as not “used and useful” to the public. Such disallowances are not necessarily permanent and can be included in the rate base at a later date, if the utility 's capacity requirements have grown sufficiently. Some of this capacity may be sold to other utilities needing such capacity.

  • Economic Value - investments disallowed as excessive in comparison to alternate sources of generation. The difference between book and market value usually was excluded from rate base.

  • Imprudence - capital costs said to have been imprudently incurred. Typically, imprudence findings have centered on decisions which affected the schedule for completion of the plant, or which involved the management of engineering and construction tasks.

  • Cost Caps - investments disallowed in order not to exceed a predetermined cap on the rate base value of a project. In most cases, such caps were the result of negotiated settlements.

  • Other - disallowed investments that do not fall within the above categories (e.g., rate case settlements that cannot be attributcd to a specific issue described above).

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
  • Nuclear Operating Imprudence - nuclear operating expenses said to have been imprudently incurred. In these decisions, PUCs typically disallowed incremental replacement power costs or maintenance expenditures incurred as a result of imprudently extended outages (i.e., actions, or the lack thereof, which unreasonably increased the length of outages).

(e.g., alleged mismanagement).20 The financial losses from these disallowances have been borne by utility stockholders. The prospect of the inability to recover all costs of nuclear construction through rates is a major deterrent to future investments in nuclear power. Without reasonable assurance of cost recovery, private utilities will have difficulty in obtaining new equity as well as debt capital to help finance any baseload generation.

The state public utility commissions have demonstrated that incurred costs that the commissions have deemed imprudent will not be recovered. This is an authority of utility commissions that has seldom been used before. It has been primarily applied to nuclear, rather than fossil, power plants.21 Knowing that costs might be considered "prudent" or "imprudent," the industry must develop better methods for managing the design and construction of nuclear plants. Arrangements among the participants that would assure timely, economical, and high-quality construction of new nuclear plants, the Committee believes, will be prerequisites to an adequate degree of assurance of capital cost recovery from state regulatory authorities in advance of construction. The development of state prudency laws also can provide a positive response to this issue (see discussion later in this chapter).

20  

Another source indicated that the disallowances for imprudent actions were $13 billion during the period 1984 to 1988. "That represents an average disallowance of 14 percent of all plants judged to have imprudent actions associated with it, including both alleged mismanagement of construction and excess capacity judgments."[Cohen, 1989]

21  

Table 2-8 demonstrates that disallowance for non-nuclear plants represented a small fraction of the total.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-9 Nuclear Disallowances By Year During the 1980s (Number of cases or disallowances are given in parentheses)

$ in Billions

Category

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

Totals

Capital

0

0

0

0.3(1)

0.1(1)

4.2(8)

3.7(14)

1.5(6)

1.8(7)

2.2(7)

13.8(44)

Operationsa

- (1)

- (3)

0.1 (4)

- (2)

- (3)

0.1(12)

0.1(5)

0 (3)

- (6)

0.1(5)

0.6b (44)

a “-” means less than $50 million

b Numbers do not add because of rounding

SOURCE: EEI (Edison Electric Institute) Rate Regulation Department,December 1990

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
Liability Protection

The nuclear industries have been covered since 1957 by the Price-Anderson Act. This act limits the maximum liability of the nuclear industry to a catastrophic accident. This limit is now about $7 billion (i.e., $200 million in primary liability insurance plus $63 million per plant for 100+ plants if the primary insurance is exceeded). In case of an accident, money would be collected by insurance pools from all nuclear plant operators and paid to claimants on behalf of the plant that had the accident. No more than $10 million per plant per year would be collected.[Presidential Commission on Catastrophic Nuclear Accidents, 1990] Damage costs above this amount would probably, but not necessarily, fall to the federal government to pay; in any event, federal payments would require legislation by the Congress. The Price-Anderson Act was renewed in 1988 and will expire in 2002 unless it is renewed again by the Congress.[Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988]

In its original consideration of this legislation, Congress had an estimate by the Atomic Energy Commission of the possibilities and consequences of severe nuclear power accidents. (This estimate was entitled “Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants,” WASH 740, March 1957.) Since then, the estimated probabilities and consequences of major large accidents have changed. The question arises: Will this liability limitation still be needed as nuclear industry protection after 2002, or can the nuclear industry rely upon its own resources? The clear impression the Committee received from nuclear industry representatives was that such protection would continue to be needed, although some Committee members believe that this was an expression of desire rather than of need. At the very least, renewal of Price-Anderson in 2002 would be viewed by the industry as a supportive action by Congress and would eliminate the potential disruptive effect of developing alternative liability arrangements with the insurance industry. Failure to renew Price-Anderson in 2002 would raise a new impediment to nuclear power plant orders as well as possibly reduce an assured source of funds to accident victims.

UTILITY MANAGEMENT OF CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATIONS

Currently, 53 utilities are licensed to operate nuclear plants in the United States[NRC, 1991a] The federal government made an early commitment to nuclear power. Plant construction was initiated based on limited research, development, and demonstration. Many reactor suppliers and many architect-engineers and contractors launched ambitious plans to secure market share. This hindered the sharing of experiences nationwide as well as the development of efficiencies usually associated with a learning curve. As costs

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

escalated, fixed price contracting often shifted to cost plus arrangements, with a consequent reduction of control over costs by utilities.

Concurrent Design and Construction

As seen in Table 2-10, construction of large nuclear plants began before lessons could be learned from operating the early smaller nuclear plants. Additionally, construction of most plants began with incomplete designs,22 a practice that proved to be a problem for this then-emerging technology. Such problems were exacerbated by regulatory standards that were developed piecemeal over many years, without review and consolidation, as issues arose in the construction and operation of current-generation plants.23

These regulations have been criticized by the industry as redundant, confusing, and in some instances, contradictory. Because this regulatory framework evolved with and is mainly intended for LWRs with active safety systems, it should be critically reviewed and modified (or replaced with a more coherent body of regulations) for advanced reactors of other types, particularly LWRs incorporating passive safety systems.

In 1989 NRC issued 10 CFR Part 52, the new licensing rule, which for certification requires that designs of evolutionary LWRs be “essentially complete.” For certification of other types of reactors, 10 CFR Part 52 requires that there be either (1) “. analysis, appropriate test programs, experience, or a combination thereof; sufficient data on the safety features ;” and a design that is “complete” in “scope,” or (2) “. acceptable testing of an appropriately sited, full-size, prototype of the design ”24 [GSA, 1990] A strict application of such requirements would assure both that design concurrent with construction would be minimized and that future nuclear plants would have a high degree of standardization. The Electric Power Research Institute's Advanced Light Water Reactor Utility Requirements Document specifies that designs be 90 percent complete prior to beginning construction (see Chapter 3, Table 3-2).

22  

“Construction on many recent nuclear plants was begun with <15 percent of the plant design complete.”[Chung and Hazelrigg, 1989]

23  

In addition to the basic rules, those in the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR--), NRC publishes regulatory guides, branch technical positions, and assorted other advisories. As of 1987, the 10 CFR regulations filled more than 1,000 pages of the federal code, and NRC had 141 regulatory guides on power reactors and reactor-related areas.[Ahearne, 1988]

24  

See Chapter 3 for more discussion of certification requirements for reactors other than evolutionary LWRs. In November 1990, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a portion of 10 CFR Part 52, but left the remainder, including this requirement, untouched. (See later discussion in the Licensing and Regulation Section.)

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-10 Comparison of Average Sizes of U.S. Nuclear Power Plants in Commercial Operation with U.S. Plants Receiving Construction Permits

Year

Average Size In Commercial Operation (MWe)

Average Size Construction Permit (MWe)

Ratio (Op'n/Constr'n)

1964

118

542

0.2

1965

118

610

0.2

1966

118

704

0.2

1967

118

747

0.2

1968

310

801

0.4

1969

412

909

0.5

1970

466

877

0.5

1971

540

946

0.6

1972

574

871

0.7

1973

624

1,052

0.6

1974

686

1,064

0.6

1975

713

1,151

0.6

1976

729

1,148

0.6

1977

752

1,027

0.7

1978

756

860

0.9

SOURCE: [NRC, 1989a]

Standardization

There were five major competing suppliers of first-generation nuclear reactors in the United States. Three of these were suppliers of pressurized LWRs of similar basic design, one supplied boiling LWRs, and one, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.

LWR vendors competed by offering reactors of ever-increasing capacity to take advantage of expected economies of scale. In addition, most of the utilities tailored designs of individual plants to their own special requirements. Rather than adhering to a single design and slowly and systematically improving it, suppliers, architect-engineers, and utilities made substantial changes to each design. Additionally, virtually every plant was modified

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

extensively throughout the construction phase. The result was that most U.S. plants became customized, unique designs.

There is general belief that standardization of nuclear plants will result in accelerated licensing, improved construction schedules, lower capital costs, and increased safety. There is little evidence in the United States, however, to verify this claim.

In the past, changes in regulatory requirements and individual utility preferences made licensing of replicate plants nearly impossible. Claims for improved quality and cost control for factory built modules, as compared to on-site fabrication, have not yet been substantiated.

Other countries have developed their nuclear power industries differently. In France, for example, there is a single reactor vendor and architect engineer, and a single utility. France concentrated on a single technology, the pressurized water reactor design, and exploited this technology with uniform construction practices and evolutionary design upgrades in a disciplined, controlled process.[Giraud and Vendryes, 1989]

Furthermore, Electricité de France has capitalized on its standardized designs by standardizing many aspects of maintenance, operations, and training. Many observers believe that the vigorous approach to standardization, in both design and operation, has been an important factor in the overall success of the French program.

Of the nuclear stations in the United States, only a very few are “standardized.” (However, in a number of cases, 2, and in some instances 3, nearly identical units are located at the same site.) Examples include the two SNUPPS units, Calloway and Wolf Creek; the four units at Byron and Braidwood; and the three units at Palo Verde. The operators of these units point to substantial benefits from a limited approach to standardization.

Achieving a significant degree of standardization will prove to be very challenging. The new NRC licensing rule provides a vehicle for encouraging standardization. However, achieving a high level of standardization through 10 CFR Part 52 is likely to be expensive and time consuming. The debate over implementation of Part 52 has revealed that there is not a uniformly accepted definition of standardization. Also, utility industry efforts to create and sustain common patterns of purchasing behavior may raise anti-trust concerns that will need careful review (the Committee did not address this issue).

The industry, under the auspices of the Nuclear Power Oversight Committee (NPOC), has developed a position paper on standardization that provides definitions of the various phases of standardization and expresses an

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

industry commitment to standardization. The NPOC paper discusses four phases: (1) Standardization of Utility Requirements, (2) Standardization of Design Certification and Standardized Licensing, (3) Commercial Standardization,25 balance of plant,” and (4) Standardization Beyond Design.[Nuclear Power Oversight Committee, 1991]

The Committee believes that a strong and sustained commitment by the industry's principal participants (utilities, suppliers, and architect-engineers) will be required to realize the potential benefits of standardization (of families of plants) in the diverse U.S. economy.

Plant Management

Many nuclear plants in the United States have operated very well over extended periods of time. Their managements have been identified as being

24  

To illustrate the definitions provided by NPOC, the Committee has extracted the following example:

Commercial standardization expands the level of design standardization achieved under design certification...in that it addresses design decisions beyond regulatory requirements and provides design standardization outside the regulatory scope.

Commercial standardization is the nonrecurring engineering which can be performed generically and applied directly to all plants referencing the same design certification. Simply stated, commercial standardization begins with the level of design detail required for design certification and concludes with the level of design detail where site-specific and project-specific characteristics control. Since the level of detail required for design certification will vary based on the safety significance of the system, it follows that the starting point for commercial standardization will also vary by system. Commercial standardization will also vary by system. Commercial standardization includes all of the engineering needed to complete the nonrecurring engineering tasks for a family of plants. It will include procurement, construction, and installation specification details beyond those required for design certification, including function, fit, and form details for standardized equipment. Prior to beginning coustruction, some recurring engineering must be completed to account for site-specific and project-specific items. Site-specific differences are minimized by employing a 'site-envelope ' design approach that bounds most U.S. sites; therefore, site differences should not significantly reduce the degree of standardization.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

competent and responsible. Effective plant management has been identified both by NRC and by the industry as critical to safe, economic operation of nuclear power plants. Inadequate management practices can have serious consequences, as noted in the examples below:

  • Pilgrim, shut down by NRC for over four years because of poor management;

  • Peach Bottom, shut down for two years after operators were found asleep in the control room, with strong criticism of management made by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and NRC;

  • Rancho Seco, closed by referendum after an extended period of inadequate management by both the board of directors and line management;

  • Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) nuclear program, one of the largest in the United States, shut down completely for more than four years; and

  • Washington Public Power Supply System, about $8 billion to produce 1 operating plant, 2 moth-balled plants, and 2 cancelled plants.

Such management failures increase skepticism about and opposition to nuclear power generally. Today, the whole utility industry therefore has a stake in helping to improve the management practices of its weakest members, or as a last resort, to insist that the weakest members not operate nuclear power plants.26 Because of the high visibility of nuclear power and the responsibility for public safety, a consistently higher level of demonstrated utility management practices is essential before the U.S. public's attitude about nuclear power is likely to improve.27

26  

One industry report analyzed the industry's problems and recommended many initiatives. The report stated that some utilities are not living up to appropriate standards, and recommended that the industry publicly identify such utilities.[Nuclear Power Oversight Committee, 1986]

27  

Emphasis upon current reactor operations has been stressed by Norman Rasmussen:[George Washington University, 1989]

First and foremost we must operate today's reactors safely and efficiently for the next 5 to 10 years, and create a climate where people begin to accept reactors as good neighbors that produce electricity rather cheaply and don't pollute the environment. We don't need any more Pilgrims, any more Peach Bottoms, or any more problems like TVA.

. that is mainly an industry responsibility to get more serious about it, put in the proper management, and run more reactors the way we've already demonstrated that 25 percent of them run.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

U.S. nuclear utilities made an industry-wide commitment to address collectively their management problems seriously through establishment of INPO following the TMI accident.28 INPO has become highly regarded. Its establishment was clearly a major step toward improving nuclear operations and toward better communication among nuclear plant operators. Trends in the performance indicators discussed below confirm that operation of many plants is improving, although as shown previously O&M costs are also rising rapidly.

Plant Performance

On average, U.S. nuclear power plants have not achieved a capacity factor (or load factor)29 as high as planned, or as high as is obtained in many other countries. This gives some hope that the cost of nuclear power can be reduced by proper attention to plant performance. In this section we present a historical survey of the trends of load factors and other performance indicators.

For plants devoted to baseload operation, as most nuclear plants are, load factor is a good indicator of performance. As load factors increase, plants produce more electrical energy in a given time period. The International Atomic Energy Agency collects load factor data for the world's nuclear power plants. A ten year overview of load factors for countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is provided in Table 2-11. This table indicates that, from 1978 through 1987, U.S. nuclear plants had an average load factor of about 60 percent, with the highest annual average (68 percent) occurring in 1978 and the lowest average (58 percent) occurring in 1983. The U.S. lifetime average also was

28  

The 1979 report of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island contained a recommendation that the nuclear industry must “set and police its own standards of excellence.” In response, INPO was formed.[INPO, 1989] The industry also formed the Nuclear Safety Analysis Center, the Non-Destructive Evaluation Center, and the Nuclear Maintenance Assistance Center to deal with specific aspects of nuclear plant safety and performance improvements.

29  

In the United States capacity factor is the ratio (expressed as a percentage) of actual electrical energy generation to the electrical energy that could have been generated if a unit ran continuously at maximum capacity during a given time period. The International Atomic Energy Agency defines load factor in essentially the same way. For the purposes of this section, capacity factor and load factor will be used interchangeably.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-11 Load Factors of Nuclear Power Plants (OECD Countries)

Country

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

Lifetime

Belgium

81.5

74.2

81.3

83.9

83.3

79.4

86.8

82.9

77.8

82.7

81.2

Canadaa

76.9

78.3

85.1

89.9

87.4

86.5

76.2

70.9

72.9

72.4

78.2

Finland

79.0

82.4

58.7

77.7

84.9

86.0

88.8

89.2

89.0

91.6

85.1

Franceb

72.4

57.8

67.4

65.2

57.4

65.9

74.5

74.7

71.2

64.7

68.1

Germany FR

63.3

55.5

54.9

67.3

71.1

71.5

82.4

85.7

77.9

78.7

73.6

Italyc

92.0

31.0

25.0

23.3

59.5

43.4

57.9

53.7

74.6

1.6

47.1

Japan

54.3

49.2

61.4

61.2

70.1

69.9

72.1

74.1

76.3

79.3

68.0

Netherlands

87.8

74.4

91.5

77.8

83.7

77.0

77.1

82.4

90.3

74.5

81.5

Spain

77.6

68.0

52.8

68.2

47.3

48.4

65.9

64.8

74.1

80.6

67.6

Swedenb

70.2

62.1

70.4

69.5

66.0

64.9

75.4

75.3

79.6

76.3

71.7

Switzerland

89.3

88.1

80.0

84.6

84.4

86.8

89.4

84.2

83.3

84.2

85.0

United Kingdomd

62.7

62.6

59.0

59.4

69.7

78.9

79.4

82.6

69.4

66.0

69.1

United States

68.0

60.9

58.4

60.5

58.6

57.5

58.4

61.4

59.1

60.2

60.5

a Pressurized heavy water reactors

b Affected in later years by load following

c Political moratorium in 1987

d Gas-cooled reactors

NOTE:

  • Only non-prototype reactors = 100 MWe considered.

  • All permanently shut-down reactors are excluded.

  • Load factor calculated from the month following the date of commercial operation.

SOURCE: [OECD, 1989 and IAEA PRIS, Report NBLG020G 89-02-02]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

about 60 percent as of 1987. On a lifetime basis, only Italy had poorer performance, due at least in part to the political moratorium on nuclear power in 1987.[OECD, 1989] In 1988 the U.S. capacity factor was 65 percent, in 1989, 63 percent, and in 1990, 68 percent.[NRC, 1991a]

Some U.S. nuclear plants perform very well compared to others in the world, while some do very poorly. For example, the list of 22 top performing plants in OECD nations (those plants with lifetime load factors to 1988 of 85 percent or more) contains only 3 U.S. plants. On the other hand, of the 22 bottom performing plants (lifetime load factors to 1988 under 50 percent), there are 12 U.S. plants.[IAEA, 1990]

There have been claims by some U.S. utilities that special surveillance, backfit, and maintenance requirements specified by NRC extend normal refueling outage times beyond that for fuel changeout only. An annual outage duration of 2 weeks limits the maximum possible capacity factor to 96 percent, and 10 weeks limits the maximum to 80 percent. Accordingly, a number of utilities have changed from annual refueling to extended operating schedules employing 18-month or 24-month refueling schedules. If a 6-week outage is scheduled every 12 months, the maximum capacity factor possible is 88 percent; if every 24 months, 94 percent. Attempts to improve U.S. nuclear plant capacity factors by scheduling less frequent refueling outages are receiving increasing attention. The Committee did not quantify differences between outage durations in the United States and those in other countries attributable to regulatory requirements.

Other nuclear power plant performance indicators of interest are the number of unplanned automatic reactor scrams (i.e., trips or shutdowns) while a reactor is critical, the number of selected safety system actuations, and the collective radiation exposure per plant. INPO publishes such data for U.S. plants, and they appear in Figure 2-1.30 The data show considerable improvements in the industry averages over the 1980s. The 1990 goals shown in Figure 2-1 were established in 1985.

30  

The Federal Republic of Germany has some similar data.[Birkhofer, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Equivalent availability factor

Equivalent availability factor is the ratio of the total power a unit could have produced, considering equipment and regulatory limits, to its rated capacity, expressed as a percentage.

Unplanned automatic scrams

The graph shows the average number of unplanned automatic scrams while the reactor is critical that occurred at nuclear plants operating with an annual capacity factor of 25 percent or greater.

NRC’s “Automatic Scrams While Critical” indicator and the INPO indicator differ in the criteria for including new units and units operated for part of a year.

FIGURE 2-1 U.S. industry performance indicator trends through 1990 (p. 1 of 4). SOURCE: [Z. Pate, President, INPO, personal communication, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Unplanned safety system actuations

Unplanned safety system actuations include unplanned emergency core cooling system actuations and emergency AC power system actuations due to loss of power to a safeguards bus.

The industry indicator monitors the actual operation of major system components; NRC's “Safety System Actuations” indicator monitors all actuation signals whether or not the signal results in system operation.

Lost-time accident rate

Lost-time accident rate is the number of worker injuries involving days away from work for every 200,000 man-hours (100 man-years) worked.

FIGURE 2-1 U.S. industry performance indicator trends through 1990 (p. 2 of 4). SOURCE: [Z. Pate, President, INPO, personal communication, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Low-level, solid radioactive waste per unit

The average annual volume of radioactive waste per unit for both boiling water and pressurized water reactors is shown on these charts.

Gross heat rate

Low gross heat rate, or btu per kilowatt hour, reflects emphasis on thermal efficiency and attention to detail in the maintenance of balance-of-plant systems.

FIGURE 2-1 U.S. industry performance indicator trends through 1990 (p. 3 of 4). SOURCE: [Z. Pate, President, INPO, personal communication, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Collective radiation exposure per unit

This indicator examines the average annual collective radiation exposure in man-rem per unit for both boiling water reactors (BWRs) and pressurized water reactors (PWRs).

FIGURE 2-1 U.S. industry performance indicator trends through 1990 (p. 4 of 4). SOURCE: [Z. Pate, President, INPO, personal communication, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

The obvious question is, “What conclusions can be drawn from a review of these and similar performance indicators?” After studying nuclear plant performance in several countries and observing the great variation in performance among U.S. plants, one group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [Hansen et al., 1989] concluded that

. the key to improving the U.S. nuclear industry lies not in changing the system within which utilities operate, but rather in implementing managerial reforms that have proven crucial to success elsewhere.

It also was convinced that

. utilities both here and abroad that show consistently good results operate with a high level of managerial involvement in day-to-day problems,

and suggested that U.S. managers would do well to look to their foreign counterparts for help in solving problems. Finally, the group stated that

. managers in the United States must take vigorous steps to pressure operators of the weakest plants to improve their performance.

A later publication (which involved one member of the previous group) contained the following observation:

Performance of LWR [light water reactor] plants varies substantially among industrialized countries, largely because of differences in management style. The relatively poor showing of the U.S. is striking because it cannot be explained by differences in hardware, safety regulatory systems or nuclear industry structure. It stems, instead, from the way in which the plants are run. [Golay and Todreas, 1990]

Except for capacity factors, the performance indicators of U.S. nuclear plants have improved significantly over the past several years. If the industry is to achieve parity with the load factor performance in other countries, it must carefully examine its failure to achieve its own goal in this area and develop improved strategies, including better management practices. Such practices are important if the generators are to develop confidence that the new generation of plants can achieve the higher load factors estimated by the vendors.

Construction schedules and costs have been identified as serious problems for the current generation of plants. The financial community and the

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

generators must both be satisfied that significant improvements can be achieved before new plants can be ordered. The industry itself has recognized this, and NPOC has recently issued a “Strategic Plan for Building New Nuclear Power Plants,” November 1990, which discusses these and other issues.

PUBLIC ATTITUDES

Influencing Factors

It is widely accepted that public attitudes have been a growing problem for nuclear power.

Public support for building nuclear power plants declined from strong majority support prior to TMI, to a break-even level by 1982, to four to one opposition in 1987. Support for constructing a plant in one's local area began to decline even before TMI.[Nealy, 1990]

Several factors seem to influence public attitudes:

  • For the past decade or more, electricity supplies have been ample, and the public feels no sense of urgency about supporting the addition of new generating capacity of any kind.

  • The public recognizes that there are alternatives to nuclear power plants to produce electric power and believes that nuclear power is more costly than many of these alternatives.

  • Well publicized problems with U.S. nuclear power plants undermine the public's perception of their safety.

  • The public does not have a high degree of trust in either the governmental or industrial proponents of nuclear power.

  • The public has concerns about the health effects of low-level radiation.[DeBoer, 1988]

  • The public is concerned that there is no safe way to dispose of high-level radioactive waste.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
  • Many skeptics of nuclear power (including what Alvin Weinberg has called the “articulate elites”31 [Weinberg, 1989]) believe the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation is a major threat posed by the use of nuclear power.32

Ambiguity of Polls

In response to the question, “On the question of nuclear power, in general, do you favor or oppose the building of more nuclear power plants in the United States?” opinion shifted between 1975 and 1988, from about 63 percent in favor, 19 percent opposed, to about 61 percent opposed, 30 percent in favor.[Harris, 1989] In a recent poll, about 75 percent of respondents said that nuclear energy was the most dangerous way to generate electricity. [Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Inc., 1990]

On the other hand, when asked “how important a role should nuclear energy play in the national energy strategy for the future?” 81 percent of those surveyed said “very important” or “somewhat important,” although when asked, “If a new power plant is needed in your area, would you favor, oppose, or reserve judgment for a nuclear plant? ” 59 percent said that they would reserve judgment and 23 percent that they would oppose a nuclear plant.[DOE, 1990b]

Polls, in fact, have consistently shown higher levels of opposition to building nuclear plants near respondents' own communities as compared to nuclear power development in general. Also, some disagree that the accident at TMI was a watershed event that destroyed public confidence in nuclear power. (“When public opinion is viewed over a 15-year period beginning in the early 1970s, TMI looks like little more than a small blip, which slightly accelerated a secular trend against nuclear power.”)[Ganson and Modigliani, 1989] Finally, at least on nuclear power issues, interpreting the meaning of public opinion polls is difficult because widely different views seem to be supported by different polls. This result may occur because responses appear

31  

For example, Carl Sagan stated in the widely read Parade Magazine that “ there's one other problem: All nuclear power plants use or generate uranium and plutonium that can be employed to manufacture nuclear weapons.”[Sagan, 1990]

32  

Non-skeptics have also commented on the risk of proliferation. For example, one senior utility executive said “We who believe that nuclear power can and should play a role in meeting mankind's future needs for energy must do everything we can to strengthen the barriers between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.”[Willrich, 1985]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

especially sensitive to small differences in question wording and context in the interview.

Improving Public Attitudes

In the Committee's judgment, the following developments and conditions would improve public attitudes toward nuclear power, leading to greater public acceptance.

  • A recognized need for a greater electricity supply that can best be met by new large-scale baseload generating stations;33

  • A national environmental policy leading to sanctions to reduce emissions resulting from the use of coal, oil, and natural gas in generating electricity (Of course, such a policy would also make alternative sources of electricity more attractive, including energy-efficiency improvements and renewable energy technologies.);

  • Maintaining the safe operation of existing nuclear power plants, and communicating this fact in a coherent manner to the public;

  • Providing the opportunity for meaningful public participation in nuclear power issues, including generation planning, siting, and oversight;34

  • Communicating to the public in a coherent and comprehensive way the whole issue of natural and man-made low level radiation as well as that of perceived and estimated risks;

  • A resolution of the high-level radioactive waste disposal stalemate; and

  • Assurances that a revival of nuclear power would not materially affect the likelihood of nuclear weapons proliferation.

33  

Nuclear plants are presently considered not to be appropriate for service as peaking units for operational as well as economic reasons, although they can be used for load-following.

34  

As an illustration of the way greater public participation might improve public acceptance, it could be worthwhile to mention that (what are called) Local Information Commissions are established in France where nuclear power plants are located. Each Commission is chaired by an elected representative of the local population and consists of representatives from the media, unions, various associations, etc. These Commissions are regularly informed about the operation of the plant and can at any time summon the management to provide explanations on any incident which might occur. The mere existence of such Commissions assures the local population that no event seriously affecting the safety of the plant or the environment could happen without the public being immediately aware of it.[G.Vendryes, personal communication]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

SAFETY ISSUES

Prevention of Nuclear Accidents

U.S. designers of nuclear plants have employed a “defense-in-depth” philosophy to ensure the safety of these plants. Defense-in-depth means the use of multiple safety systems and barriers to prevent serious accidents or mitigate their consequences. Measures intended to prevent accidents also protect the investments in the plant, the people who work in it, and the general public. Measures designed to mitigate the effects of an accident, once it occurs, are intended primarily to protect the public's health and safety.

The preceding section on public attitudes indicated that the potential hazards of nuclear power are important to the public. Although having enormously different health consequences, the accidents at TMI and Chernobyl reinforced the public's concern about the safety of nuclear power plants. The Congress recognized the necessity of assuring that peaceful applications of atomic energy would be safe when it passed the Atomic Energy Act, which states

. regulation by the United States of the production and utilization of atomic energy and of the facilities used in connection therewith is necessary in the national interest to assure the common defense and security and to protect the health and safety of the public.[U.S. Congress, 1981]

Investors in nuclear plants are interested in a high level of accident prevention measures because a serious core damage accident will turn the investors' assets into a large liability. For example, TMI, Unit 2, a new plant that cost about $1 billion to build, became a liability to General Public Utilities within a few hours. The cleanup costs are estimated to have been about $1 billion, exclusive of replacement power costs.35 Moreover, an accident in one plant, even though it causes no outside fatalities or health effects, is likely to have profound consequences for all similar plants. The TMI accident led to an immediate, though temporary, shutdown of all similar reactors in the United States.

35  

There is no doubt that the top executives of utilities that own nuclear plants are concerned about protecting the investment. For example, Detroit Edison's new chairman stated: “Fermi represents 35 percent of our assets, 10 percent of our capacity, 20 percent of our energy. The first thing I do every morning when I come in is look at the morning report and see what 's going on at Fermi. When it runs well, the company does well.” The previous chairman was also reported to have said, after learning about a serious operator error at Fermi in 1985, “. we all found out about this very serious safety shortcoming. I was literally sick to my stomach.”[Myers, 1990]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Public policy makers also should be concerned about the level of accident prevention measures because another accident like that at TMI in the near future would seriously affect the future of nuclear power in the United States.

While the Committee is mindful of the importance of the mitigation of accident consequences to protect the public, the safety discussion in this section has focused on the prevention of accidents. In the next section, the safety policy of NRC as it relates to the protection of the public is discussed.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Safety Policy

The Atomic Energy Act, as amended, authorizes and mandates NRC to regulate commercial use of nuclear energy to protect the public health and safety. NRC must therefore base its decisions on public health and safety considerations rather than on the economic impact on a utility or the industry.

NRC published the current safety policy, “Safety Goals for the Operations of Nuclear Power Plants,” in November 1988.[10 CFR, Part 50, 1988] This policy does not contain required numerical values for core melt frequency, emergency core cooling system failure rates, or other performance characteristics. Instead, it sets forth qualitative safety goals and high level quantitative objectives to protect the public. (See Note with 10 CFR Part 50 at the end of this chapter.) However, the Commission has recently stated

A core damage probability of less than 1 in 10,000 per year of reactor operation appears to be a very useful subsidiary benchmark in making judgments about that portion of our regulations which are directed toward accident prevention.[Chilk, 1990a]

With respect to this benchmark, the NRC staff has stated

If each of the current population of approximately 100 plants had a calculated core damage frequency approximating this overall mean value [i.e., 1 × 10-4 per reactor year], it would imply the overall occurrence of such events, on average, at a frequency of about once in a hundred years, a time interval larger than the expected lifetime of any single plant.[Stello, 1989]

The design requirements for the advanced reactors are more stringent than the NRC safety goal policy.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
Utility Improvement and Self-Regulation

Inherent in the Atomic Energy Act, as amended, and in the licensing process for utilities is the idea that the primary responsibility for the safety of commercial nuclear power plants rests with the operator (the licensee). The important safety role of federal regulation must not be allowed to detract from or undermine the accountability of utilities and their line management organizations for the safety of their plants.

Over the past decade, utilities have steadily strengthened their ability to meet this responsibility. Their actions include the formation and support of industry institutions, including INPO. Self-assessment and peer oversight through INPO are acknowledged to be strong and effective means of improving the performance of U.S. nuclear power plants. This U.S. utility industry organization has recently been emulated on a worldwide scale by the formation of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO).

The Committee believes that such industry self-improvement, accountability, and self-regulation efforts improve the ability to retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements. The Committee recommends that NRC encourage such industry initiatives.

Safety of Existing Reactors

There are three basic methods that provide complementary insights into the safety of a reactor or set of reactors: operational history, inspections for compliance with applicable standards, and probabilistic risk analysis.

In over 1,400 reactor years of U.S. commercial reactor operation [NRC, 1990b], there have been one core melt accident (TMI), one serious fire that threatened core damage (Brown's Ferry), and several serious system or component failures in commercial LWRs.36 None has led to significant offsite releases of radioactive material.

NRC administers and directs an accident sequence precursor (ASP) program. This program was established at the Nuclear Operations Analysis

36  

The Browns Ferry fire was discussed in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Annual Report for 1975, and the Accident at Three Mile Island was the subject of the report of a Presidential Commission in October 1979. A possible recent example of a serious system failure was the loss of control rod position indication, feedwater control system, plant computers, and some plant lighting as a result of a main transformer fault at the Nine Mile Point Unit 2 nuclear reactor in August, 1991.[NRC, 1991b,c]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1979 to provide a means of evaluating the significance of operational experience. Under this program, operational experience reported by the U.S. commercial nuclear power plants was reviewed to identify and categorize precursors to potential severe core damage accidents.[NRC, 1989b] According to NRC's report:

The operational events selected in the ASP Program form a unique database of historical system failures, multiple losses of redundancy, and infrequent accident initiators. These events are useful in identifying significant weaknesses in design and operation, for use in analysis of industry performance, and for use in probabilistic risk assessment-related studies operational occurrences that involve portions of postulated core damage sequences are identified and evaluated. Event tree models and probabilistic risk assessment techniques are used to put the reported data in perspective for evaluation. The event trees model plant equipment that could affect, or could be used to mitigate, the event being evaluated, as well as human actions. This method allows quantitative estimates of the significance of the event in terms of a conditional core damage probability.37

The breakdown of precursors in 1984 through 1988 by conditional core damage probability is shown in [Table 2-12]. In 1985, there was one precursor with conditional core damage probability in the 1E-2 range and one precursor with this probability in the 1E-3 range. The 1985 precursor with conditional core damage probability in the range of 1E-2 was an operational event at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station involving a complete loss of feedwater. The precursor with conditional core damage probability in the 1E-3 range was an operational event at Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant, Unit 1, involving a stuck-open safety relief valve and a loss of the high-pressure coolant injection system and the reactor isolation cooling system.

In 1986, there were two precursors with conditional core damage probability in the 1E-3 range. The precursors were operational events at Catawba Nuclear Station, Unit 1 and at Turkey Point Plant, Unit 3. The event at Catawba Unit 1 was a small-break loss-of-coolant accident involving a guillotine rupture of the letdown line. The event at Turkey Point Unit 3 involved a reactor trip with a stuck-open pressurizer relief valve. There were no precursors with

37  

The definition of “conditional core damage probability” provided by the NRC staff follows: “[It] is the likelihood that an event or condition will result in core damage given actual observed initiating conditions and degradation and failures of equipment needed to mitigate the event.”[Jordan, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

TABLE 2-12 Number of Precursors and Associated Conditional Core Damage Probabilitiesa (from NRC's Accident Sequence Precursor Program)

Conditional Probabilityb

Number of Precursors by Year

 

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1E-2

0

1

0

0

0

1E-3

1

1

2

0

0

1E-4

15

8

4

10

7

1E-5

8

13

7

9

14

1E-6

8

16

5

14

11

a The definition of “conditional core damage probability” provided by the NRC staff follows: “[It] is the likelihood that an event or condition will result in core damage given actual observed initiating conditions and degradation and failures of equipment needed to mitigate the event.” [Jordan, 1991]

b 1E-2 means 10-2 or 0.01, etc.

SOURCE: [NRC, 1989d]

conditional core damage probability greater than 1E-3 in 1987 or

In 1988, four of the seven precursors with the highest conditional core damage probability (i.e., 1988 precursors having an estimated conditional core damage probability greater than 1E-4) involved common mode failures; another event involved potential common mode failures. These data illustrate the importance of common mode failures to reactor safety and the need for continued vigilance in the areas of maintenance, inspection, and testing of safety equipment.[NRC, 1989b]

The data in Table 2-12 indicate a slightly declining frequency of occurrence of precursors with relatively high conditional probabilities, suggesting that safety may be improving.

Inspection is used by NRC to evaluate a plant in relation to the large body of NRC regulations and license commitments. If a plant is found by inspectors to meet the regulations, it is deemed “safe. ” Few plants have been ordered shut down because NRC found them unsafe, although examples include Pilgrim and Peach Bottom. NRC has never permanently shut down a licensed plant on safety grounds.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) has been used increasingly since 1979 when NRC endorsed this technique following a congressionally mandated review of the Atomic Energy Commission's Reactor Safety Study.38 [Chilk, 1979] The review recommended greater use of PRA.[Lewis, 1978]. As a result, PRAs have been performed for many U.S. nuclear plants. By the mid-1980s, new methods for analyzing severe accidents had evolved, leading NRC to reassess the risks of such accidents in five commercial nuclear plants. The results are presented in the latest version of NUREG-1150 and numerous supporting documents.[NRC, 1989c] NUREG-1150, entitled Severe Accident Risks: An Assessment for Five U.S. Nuclear Power Plants, is a major step forward in PRA methods. The major advancements in NUREG-1150 methodology are the inclusion of an uncertainty analysis based on the use of expert opinion to develop parameters and probability distributions where there is insufficient experimental and analytical data, and the inclusion of external initiating events in two cases (Surry and Peach Bottom). The elicitation of expert opinion is a formalized process so that the assumptions and approximations employed by the risk analysts become explicit to all who read the analyses. There are two issues regarding this procedure, however; the question of just who is an expert on a given issue, and the data upon which the experts base their opinion. In NUREG-1150, these issues are important when considering how the methodology and results will be used, and in understanding the limitations of this methodology.39

In 1989, the NRC staff stated:

Available PRA evidence to date suggests that current plants, on the whole, probably are configured such that the overall mean core damage frequency is probably near but still somewhat above 10-4 per year.[Stello, 1989]

However, NUREG-1150, in 1990, indicated that this estimate may be pessimistic. Although “NUREG-11150 is not an estimate of the risks of all

38  

Specifically, NRC stated: “Taking due account of the reservations expressed in the Review Group Report and in its presentation to the Commission, the Commission supports the extended use of probabilistic risk assessment in regulatory decisionmaking.”[Chilk, 1979]

39  

The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards has cautioned, “Since there is a dearth of information concerning many of the phenomena that determine severe accident progression, expert elicitation was used most extensively in the Level 2 portion of the PRAs. However, with insufficient information there can be no experts. Thus, use of the term 'expert opinion' in a description of some of the Level 2 work may be misleading.”[NRC, 1990g]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

commercial nuclear power plants in the United States,” it did provide “a snapshot in time of severe accident risks in five specific commercial nuclear power plants.”

So-called external events (e.g., seismic and fire) were analyzed for only two of the five plants (Surry and Peach Bottom). Two widely divergent predictions for the seismic hazard curve existed, one prepared by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by consulting a large group of experts [Bernreuter et al., 1989], the other by the EPRI [Seismicity Owners Group and EPRI, 1986] employing somewhat different methods of using expert opinion. NRC chose to report the core melt frequencies associated with each seismic hazard curve independently, rather than average them in some fashion.

The mean core melt frequencies reported in NUREG-1150 for these five commercial nuclear power plants are reproduced in Table 2-13.

TABLE 2-13 Mean Core Melt Frequency (Reactor Year-1)

 

INTERNAL EVENTS

EXTERNAL EVENTS

   

LLNL

EPRI

   

Seismic

Seismic

Surry

4.0E-5

1.3E-4

3.6E-5

Peach Bottom

4.5E-6

9.7E-5

2.3E-5

Sequoyah

5.7E-5

   

Grand Gulf

4.0E-6

   

Zion

3.4E-4*

   

*Recent changes in equipment and procedures now lead to a predicted mean core melt frequency of 6E-5 for the Zion Plant, according to NUREG-1150

SOURCE: [NRC 1989c]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

It is noted that all commercial nuclear power plants that have not had a prior PRA performed are required to undertake a PRA, or an equivalent systematic evaluation of the risk of core melt and of significant radioactivity release, in order to identify any plant specific “outliers” that might be making too large a contribution to risk.

One of the key utility design requirements for advanced LWRs (discussed later in Chapter 3 of this report) is for the core melt frequency to be less than 1 in 100,000 years of operation as estimated by PRA.40

PRA has proven to be of greatest value for comparison and insight. NRC used PRA in the early 1980s to review the safety of the Indian Point reactors by comparing them with other reactors. PRA also has provided insights into previously unseen problems. As NRC Chairman Carr recently observed: “. virtually every probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) performed has led to some modifications in plant design or operational practices that would reduce the estimated severe core damage frequency.”[Carr, 1990] However, both NRC and its Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards have expressed concern that, in view of the large uncertainties in PRA, the results not be misused. NRC Chairman Carr also stated that

. simple estimates are subject to much uncertainty inherent in projecting core damage probabilities; these averages are driven by plants that may have much higher core damage frequency than the majority and for this and other reasons, are subject to potential misuse.[Carr, 1990]

With respect to NUREG-1150, NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) recommended that

. its results should be used only by those who have a thorough understanding of its limitations.[NRC, 1990g]

Earlier, in commenting on approaches to implement NRC's safety goal policy, the ACRS observed

40  

The discussion in this and in the previous section on safety goals is of core melt accidents. The containment building is expected to provide significant additional protection against radiation release for most accident scenarios. Consistent with this concept, the NRC, in addressing goals for evolutionary LWRs, “approved the overall mean frequency of a large release of radioactive material to the environment from a reactor accident as less than one in one million [1×10-6] per year of reactor operation. The Commission has not agreed on a definition of a large release. ”[Chilk, 1990b]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

. it is universally agreed that the 'bottom line' estimates are among the weakest results of a PRA.[NRC, 1988a]

and

We do not believe that probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is sufficiently developed to be used to make narrowly differentiated decisions about specific plants. the search for risk outliers for individual plants should be performed. We believe that detailed qualitative information on plant characteristics and behavior is an important result of such a search, but that quantitative information (such as core melt frequency estimates for an individual plant) developed by a PRA is less robust.[NRC, 1987a]

and

We note that there must be recognition of important limitations in the implementation of the Safety Goal Policy. These limitations are essentially those of the PRA methodology used, and are caused by a fundamental inability to accurately predict and calculate precise values of risk. Variability in data, uncertainty about applicability of data, imperfect understanding of important physical phenomena, and inevitable incompleteness in analysis all contribute to this limitation. [NRC, 1987a]

While PRA is not a perfect tool for assessing risk, it provides valuable methods and is currently used by vendors and some utilities to evaluate design modifications. NRC has also requested that an integrated plant examination be performed at all U.S. nuclear plants using PRA techniques. The purposes of this examination are:

. for each utility (1) to develop an appreciation of severe accident behavior, (2) to understand the most likely severe accident sequences that could occur at its plant, (3) to gain a more quantitative understanding of the overall probabilities of core damage and fission product releases, and (4) if necessary, to reduce the overall probabilities of core damage and fission product releases by modifying, where appropriate, hardware and procedures that would help prevent or mitigate severe accidents. It is expected that the achievement of these goals will help verify that at U.S. nuclear power plants severe core damage and large radioactive release probabilities are consistent with the Commission's Safety Goal Policy Statement.[NRC, 1988b]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

After examining the available information, the Committee has reached the following conclusions.

  • The risk to the health of the public from the operation of current reactors in the United States is very small. In this fundamental sense, current reactors are safe.

  • A significant segment of the public has a different perception, and also believes that the level of safety can and should be increased.

  • As a result of operating experience, improved operator and maintenance training programs, safety research, better inspections, and productive use of PRA, safety is continually improved. In many cases these improvements are closely linked to improvements in simplicity, reliability, and economy.

Industry plans for advanced reactors include safety requirements that exceed those of current plants.[EPRI, 1986]

HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL

Lack of resolution of the high-level waste problem jeopardizes future nuclear power development. First, there are enough arguments made against nuclear power based on the lack of resolution of the high-level waste disposal issue that this constitutes a major cause of the public 's unfavorable perception of nuclear power.41 Second, state regulation may prohibit further nuclear power development until the high-level waste disposal issue is resolved. For example, California law prohibits the construction of more nuclear plants in that state until the California Energy Commission certifies that the high-level waste problem is solved.

In the United States, DOE has been assigned the task of siting, constructing, and eventually operating a geologic high-level radioactive waste repository. The work is being funded by ratepayers through a special surcharge on electricity generated at nuclear power plants. DOE now estimates that this geologic waste repository will not be ready to receive spent reactor fuel before about 2010. Even this date is in doubt, given the legal and regulatory problems and the political and technical uncertainties that have arisen regarding the identified Yucca Mountain site.[National Research Council, 1990] These problems are exacerbated by the requirement that, before operation of a repository begins, DOE must demonstrate to NRC that the

41  

For example, a paper discussing the case against reviving nuclear power states “The daunting problems of nuclear waste disposal and nuclear materials proliferation grow ever more indomitable as governments fail to come up with solutions and the materials themselves accumulate. ”[Flavin, 1988]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

repository will perform to standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which limit the release of radionuclides to specific levels for 10,000 years after disposal. [EPA, 40 CFR 191] NRC's staff has strongly questioned the workability of these quantitative requirements, as have the National Research Council 's Radioactive Waste Management Board and others.42 For example

The [National Research Council Board on Radioactive Waste Management] believes that this use of geological information and analytical tools--to pretend to be able to make very accurate predictions of long-term site behavior--is scientifically unsound.

The Board also wrote:

The United States appears to be the only country to have taken the approach of writing detailed regulations before all of the data are in. As a result, the U.S. program is bound by requirements that may be impossible to meet.

and

. the demand for accountability in our political system has fostered a tendency to promise a degree of certainty that cannot be realized. [National Research Council, 1990]

EPA's criteria also were criticized by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board set up by the Congress to review the high-level waste program:

. the release limits [in the draft revision of 40 CFR 191, the EPA high-level waste regulation] appear very conservative and inconsistent with present day regulatory practice and scientific consensus. [Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, 1990]

In addition, the criteria have been criticized by EPA's own Scientific Advisory Board.[Collier, 1984]

The Committee concludes that the EPA standard for disposal of high-level waste will have to be reevaluated to ensure that a standard that is both adequate and feasible is applied to the geologic waste repository.

42  

10 CFR 60, promulgated by NRC, might also present difficulties, depending in part on how NRC's staff seeks assurance that the EPA standards and NRC's own requirements have been met, particularly for events such as intrusion and climate changes. The Committee did not analyze the implications of 10 CFR 60.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

In the meantime, storage pools at some operating reactors are nearing their licensed capacities. However, dry storage of spent fuel could alleviate this immediate problem at most reactors, and such storage has been judged to be adequate for many decades.[NRC, 1990c] The Atlantic Council of the United States has recommended that the electric utility industry “develop plans for intermediate storage at plant sites or special sites in order to assure continued operation of their nuclear plants if the DOE deadlines are not met.” [Atlantic Council of the United States, 1990]

The Committee believes that the legal status of the Yucca Mountain site for a geologic repository should be resolved soon, and that DOE's program to investigate this site should be continued. In addition, a contingency plan must be developed to store high-level radioactive waste in surface storage facilities pending the availability of the geologic repository. However, by current law the federal government cannot construct a temporary above-ground storage facility (Monitored Retrievable Storage, or MRS) until the Commission has issued a license for the construction of a repository.43

LICENSING AND REGULATION

The New Licensing Rule

An obstacle to continued nuclear power development in the United States has been the uncertainties in NRC's licensing process. The new licensing rule, 10 CFR Part 52, was intended to improve this process. The rule provided for (1) certification of reactor designs, (2) early NRC approval of nuclear power plant sites, and (3) a combined construction and operating license for applications for certified reactors on pre-approved sites.[GSA, 1990] The rule was designed to deal with practically all licensing issues in the initial stages of the project, leaving to the end only relatively narrow issues such as whether the plant had been built in accordance with the license. The Commission believed that the new rule went as far as its legislative authority

43  

Section 148 (d)(1) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, amended in 1987, provides that “construction of such [a monitored retrievable storage] facility may not begin until the Commission has issued a license for the construction of a repository. ” However, DOE 's National Energy Strategy indicates that Congress will be requested to enact legislation to address, among other things, “ the siting and operation of the MRS [monitored retrievable storage] facility, which is needed to begin Federal acceptance of spent nuclear fuel by 1998. Progress on the siting and licensing of the MRS facility should be independent of the schedule for siting and licensing the repository.”[DOE, 1991]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

permitted in establishing a “one step” licensing regime. However, the new rule was challenged in court. The basis of the challenge was that, by increasing the number of issues decided early in the process so as to largely eliminate the possibility of a second hearing after construction, the Commission had violated the Atomic Energy Act. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled, on November 2, 1990, that

. the plain language of Section 185 [of the Atomic Energy Act] requires the Commission to make a post-construction, pre-operation finding that a nuclear plant will operate in conformity with the Act and that the plain language of Section 189(a) requires the Commission to provide an opportunity for a hearing to consider significant new information that comes to light after initial licensing and that implicates the Commission's finding obligations under Section 185. Accordingly, we find that two subsections of the regulations are inconsistent with the statute. We thus vacate 10 C.F.R. Section 52.103(b) and 10 C.F.R. Section 52.103(c); we uphold the remainder of the regulations against petitioners' various challenges.

The Court concluded that the Commission's

. 'rulemaking power is limited to adopting regulations to carry into effect the will of Congress as expressed in the statute.' Thus, the ultimate responsibility for such reforms as embodied in Sections 52.103(b) and (c) lies not with the Commission, but with the Congress.[U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 1990]

On March 27, 1991 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated this November 2nd decision and chose to address, en banc, these and other licensing issues.[Energy Daily, 1991]

It is likely that, if the possibility of a second hearing is to be reduced or eliminated, legislation will be necessary. The nuclear industry is convinced that such legislation will be required to increase utility and investor confidence to retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements.[NPOC, 1990] The Committee concurs.

There are important questions about the level of detail required to certify a new reactor design. For example, one portion of 10 CFR Part 52 that was discussed earlier and was not overturned by the court says that the design of an evolutionary LWR proposed for certification should be “essentially complete.” The meaning of this term has been clarified by a recent NRC policy statement.[Chilk, 1991]

The Committee views a high degree of standardization as very important for the retention of nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

energy requirements. Such an approach has been shown to be effective in France, in the Konvoi plants in Germany, and in Canada. The long-term success of standardization will depend on a determination by new owners to insist on standardized designs, and their willingness to maintain a high degree of standardization during construction and throughout the life of the plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Impact of Advanced Reactors

Earlier in this chapter the Committee stated that NRC's regulations should be critically reviewed and modified (or replaced with a more coherent body of regulations) for advanced reactors. In addition, some of the advanced reactor technologies discussed later in this report will make new demands on NRC. For example, the licensing of an advanced liquid metal reactor and in situ reprocessing may raise new licensing issues and may require reopening of the GESMO (Generic Environmental Statement on Mixed Oxide) proceeding. In addition, NRC may have to address the licensing of new institutional arrangements because of reprocessing, concerns about diversion of sensitive nuclear materials, and lack of utility experience with the technology.

Relations with Licensees

Nuclear plant licensees have been critical of the Commission as evidenced by comments received in 10 major areas in a recent survey of utilities: 44 [NRC, 1990e]

44  

The following statement, which was included in NUREG 1395 [NRC, 1990e], provides perspective for this survey:

In reading the summary and the specific licensee comments presented in this survey, it must be borne in mind that these views are not intended as a balanced portrayal of the impact of NRC activities. The staff sought out licensee observations of problems and the perceptions of problems in NRC's activities rather than comments on the benefits or the positive effects of agency regulatory activities. It is not surprising therefore, that this survey portrays a one-sided view of NRC activities. In some cases, the perceptions and opinions given are at variance with the staff's understanding of the facts. Nonetheless, the report presents the unvarnished views of the wide range of licensee representatives who talked with the staff.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
  • Licensees believe that the Commission issues so many new requirements that it is attempting to manage the utilities' resources rather than to regulate the industry.

  • The Commission was accused of untimely reviews of licensee submittals relating to technical issues, of issuing technical specifications of low quality, and of providing inadequate provisions for appeal on technical matters.

  • Objections were raised that Commission inspectors impose many backfits, unauthorized by the Commission, by setting successively higher standards of performance.

  • Licensees object to NRC's Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance (SALP) process, arguing that (a) it is an improper mechanism for obtaining improved performance, and (b) public and outside organizations misuse and misinterpret SALP results. They argue it is too subjective and not uniformly applied among the regions.

  • Objections were raised about the collective impact of oversight by multiple organizations such as the Commission, state safety inspectors, insurance inspectors, and personnel from INPO.

  • Although all utilities supported recent changes to the operator requalification examination process, they were concerned that operators are not permitted to function in the simulator examination process as they normally do on shift, that examiner standards change continually, and that too many organizations are involved in requalifications.

  • Licensees complained that the Commission takes enforcement action for violations and new generic requirements for which corrective action has been taken or is planned. They expressed fears that challenges by the utilities to such actions would result in lower ratings in their performance assessments.

  • Complaints were made that the Commission's thresholds for reporting significant events are too low, that conflicts exist in the documents governing reporting requirements, and that reporting may impair licensees' ability to respond to an event.

  • Licensees expressed reluctance to raise issues about Commission actions for fear of retaliation.

  • Issues were raised about the qualifications and training of commission personnel.

NRC's staff is reviewing such complaints to see what can be done to improve and reduce requirements, to apply Commission rules consistently, and to improve performance of Commission personnel. The Commission 's survey

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

of NRC employees, published in mid-1990, revealed an underlying general observation that licensees are extremely sensitive to NRC activities and sometimes acquiesce to avoid confrontations. In addition, three other themes were:

  • NRC neither adequately considers cumulative impacts on licensees of requirements it issues nor identifies priorities for such requirements;

  • NRC significantly impacts licensees by the volume and scheduling of its on-site activities; and

  • NRC's continued loss of experienced professionals has depleted its knowledge base and, in some instances, unnecessarily impacted licensees.

Changes to the regulatory program are being considered by NRC as a response to the above findings.[NRC, 1990d]

The Committee concludes that NRC should improve the quality of its regulation of existing and future nuclear power plants, including tighter management controls over all of its interactions with licensees and consistency of regional activities. Industry has proposed such to NRC.[Lee, 1991]

The Committee encourages efforts on both sides to reduce reliance on the adversarial approach to issue resolution.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

NRC's staff is often required to investigate its own role when serious incidents at nuclear plants occur, which some believe represents a serious conflict of interest.[Lewis, 1986] Furthermore, experience shows that the staff managed investigations often do not identify NRC actions or inactions as among the root causes of incidents.[Lewis, 1986]

One approach that has been proposed to correct the above problems is the formation of an accident investigation board separate from the NRC staff. Such a group would be modelled generally after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).[Union of Concerned Scientists, 1987; Lewis, 1986] NTSB is independent of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), so it can criticize FAA's role in an accident, such as a controller error, as well as the aviation industry's role. Such a Board could help assure objective illumination of the role played by NRC's personnel and processes in nuclear accidents or near-misses. It could also help assure that recommendations for corrective measures address NRC actions or inactions.

There is considerable Congressional testimony over the last decade in favor of an NTSB-like organization to examine nuclear power accidents. Rep. Udall's Interior Committee, for example, has held hearings on this concept.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

Professor H. Lewis, ACRS member, has testified many times in support of thing concept. For example, in 1986 he told the House Interior Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment that

. the best way to learn how to distinguish the real precursors to major accident sequences from the distractions is to learn systematically from operating experience, and that that requires an investigation that is disjoint from the issues of regulatory self-interest or of imposition of the necessary fixes. In both of these matters, the regulatory agency, whichever it is, is not above suspicion. (Indeed, the prototype for such boards, the National Transportation Safety Board, was once part of the regulatory agency, but experience demonstrated the prudence of separation, as it will here, in time.) [Lewis, 1986]

NTSB always includes industry experts on the investigative teams, thereby getting the most knowledgeable people.

The Committee believes that the NTSB approach, as a substitute for the present NRC approach, has merit. In view of the infrequent nature of the activities of such a committee, it may be feasible for it to be established on an ad hoc basis and report directly to NRC' s chairman. Before the establishment of such an activity, its charter should be carefully defined, along with a clear delineation of the classes of accidents it would investigate. Its location in the government and its reporting channels should also be specified.

State Regulation of Nuclear Power45

The Committee believes that the trends in government involvement in regulation are to transfer authority from the federal to state and local governments. The Committee has not explicitly addressed the long-term implications for nuclear power of these changes, except for the changing role of states in safety and economic regulation. 46

45  

The Committee notes that state regulatory authorities have limited influence over federal power marketing administrations or municipal utilities.

46  

A general reference for state-federal interactions that involve nuclear regulation was prepared in 1987 under the auspices of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[Pasternak and Budnitz, 1987]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×
State Safety Regulation

Although the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 assigned the role of safety regulation to the Atomic Energy Commission and its successor since 1975, NRC, several states have established substantial programs for safety oversight of nuclear power plants. Some utilities are concerned that aggressive state oversight programs could complicate an already difficult management job, reduce efficiency, increase costs, and perhaps adversely affect safety.[Inside NRC, 1990] However, the states with current programs have not attempted to take action in areas reserved for federal authorities, and, in general, state personnel coordinate their activities with local NRC personnel. The Committee sees the possibility that existing state programs might expand and that additional states may engage in safety oversight activities.

State Economic Regulation

The states have primary authority for the economic regulation of the production and retail sale of electrical power within their borders. Among the most important decisions of state public utility commissions are those relating to what capital expenditures may be incorporated in the rate base and recovered from customers with a return on investment.

Some nuclear power proponents contend that, since utilities have a relatively low allowed rate of return, they must have a high level of assurance of full cost recovery. However, any agreements made in advance are unlikely to incorporate guarantees of recovery of costs that substantially exceed costs for alternative ways to provide the same service to ratepayers. Thus, unless the problems that have led to the current high construction costs and cost overruns of nuclear plants are solved, limited assurances are not likely to be of much value.

One remedial response would be enactment by the states of the Utility Construction Review Act offered by the Council of State Governments ' Committee on Suggested State Legislation in July 1990. This legislation would facilitate the construction of electricity generating power plants that state regulators have authorized as necessary. It would permit periodic approvals of completed construction work on utility facilities and assured rate recovery (absent fraud, concealment, or gross mismanagement) for approved expenditures. Similar proposals by others have been called rolling prudency reviews. The concept of state-utility shared responsibility would also apply to a continuing evaluation of the need for power, so that if circumstances changed, the state public service (or utility) commissions would be obligated to immediately notify the utility building a new plant which may no longer be needed. In this case, the legislation would again permit recovery, through rates, of a utility's investment in the delayed or cancelled facility up to the

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

time of notification by the public service (or utility) commission.[Committee on Suggested Legislation, 1991] The Committee believes that enactment of such legislation could remove much of the investor risk and uncertainty currently associated with state regulatory treatment of new power plant construction, and could therefore help retain nuclear power as an option for meeting U.S. electric energy requirements.

On balance, however, unless many states adopt this or similar legislation, it is the Committee's view that substantial assurances probably cannot be given, especially in advance of plant construction, that all costs incurred in building nuclear plants will be allowed into rate bases. The solution to the problem of recovering construction costs must begin with the nuclear industry. The Committee believes that greater confidence in the control of costs can be realized with plant designs that are more nearly complete before construction begins, plants that are easier to construct, use of better construction and management methods, and business arrangements among the participants that provide stronger incentives for cost-effective, timely completion of projects.

Some state public utility commissions have placed the nuclear plants they regulate under incentive systems to reward utilities for plant performance above specified levels and to penalize them for plant performance below these levels. In early 1990, a total of 73 nuclear plants in 18 states were operating under performance incentive systems that use such indicators as equivalent availability factor, fuel costs (or replacement power costs), and construction costs.[Inside NRC, 1990] In Massachusetts, the Boston Edison Company's Pilgrim plant operates under incentives primarily based on capacity factor, but also on NRC's SALP process. In addition, there are much smaller incentives related to narrowly focussed performance indicators such as number of scrams and number of safety system actuations.[Boston Edison Company, 1990] The economic effects of these provisions are uncertain, but, according to one report, the Massachusetts Attorney General's office estimated that Boston Edison's maximum annual revenue increase and loss under them would be $4.5 million and $19 million, respectively.[Inside NRC, 1989]

Industry representatives have argued that incentive arrangements using SALP or performance indicators (other than long-term capacity factor) have the potential to compromise safety.[Inside NRC, 1990] In a policy statement NRC has expressed concern about the states ' use of the SALP system and other indicators for economic incentives. The policy statement recognized that state regulatory actions can have either a positive or negative impact on public health and safety, and specifically identified the approaches that are of particular concern (e.g., inappropriate reliance on SALP scores). NRC's policy is to continue monitoring incentive programs consistent with the belief that they should not create incentives to operate a plant when it should be shut down for safety reasons.[NRC, 1991d]

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

It is the Committee's expectation that state incentive programs will continue for nuclear power plant operators. Properly formulated and administered, these programs should improve the economic performance of nuclear plants, and they may also enhance safety. However, they do have the potential to provide incentives counter to safety. The Committee believes that such programs should focus on economic incentives and avoid incentives that can directly affect plant safety.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

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Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

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deBoer, C., and I. Catsburg. 1988. The Polls-A Report, the Impact of Nuclear Accidents on Attitudes Toward Nuclear Energy. Poll Report: Nuclear Energy, Public Opinion Quarterly. 52: 254-261. American Association for Public Opinion Research. University of Chicago Press.

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DOE, Energy Information Administration. 1990c. Electric Plant Cost and Power Production Expenses 1988. DOE/EIA-0455(88). Released for printing August 16, 1990.

DOE. 1989a. Commercial Nuclear Power 1989, Prospects for the United States and the World DOE/EIA-0438(89).

DOE. 1989b. Annual Outlook for U.S. Electric Power 1989, Projections Through 2000. DOE/EIA-047(89).

DOE, Energy Information Administration. 1989c. Annual Energy Review 1989. Energy Information Administration. DOE/EIA-0384(89). Released for printing May 24, 1990.

DOE, Energy Information Administration. 1989d. Nuclear Power Plant Construction Activity 1988. DOE/EIA-0473(88). Released for printing June 14, 1989.

DOE, Energy Information Adminstration. 1989e. Historical Plant Cost and Annual Production Expenses for Selected Electric Plants 1987. DOE/EIA-0455(87). Released for printing May 8, 1989.

DOE, Energy Information Adminstration. 1988c. An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Operating Costs. DOE/EIA-0511. Released for printing March 16, 1988; and letter dated August 10, 1990 from the Director of EIA's Office of Coal, Nuclear, Electric and Alternate Fuels to Archie L. Wood.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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DOE. 1986a. Review of the Proposed Strategic National Plan for Civilian Nuclear Reactor Development. A Report of the Energy Research Advisory Board to the United States Department of Energy. DOE/S-0051. 1-4:(October).

DOE, Energy Information Adminstration. 1986b. An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Construction Costs. DOE/EIA-0485. March/April 1986.

DOE, Energy Information Administration. 1986c. Financial Analysis of Investor-Owned Electric Utilities. DOE/EIA-0499. November.

DOE, Energy Information Administration. 1982. Projected Costs of Electricity from Nuclear and Coal-Fired Power Plants. DOE/EIA-0356/2. 2(November).

EEI. 1989. Electricity Futures: America's Economic Imperative. January.

EEI Task Force on Nuclear Power. 1985. Report of the Edison Electric Institute on Nuclear Power. February.

Energy Daily. April 2, 1991. Appeals Court Reverses Earlier Ruling on NRC Licensing Rule. 19: 62

Environmental Protection Agency. 40 CFR Part 191.

EPRI. 1988. Status of Least-Cost Planning in the United States.

EPRI. 1986. Advanced Light Water Reactor Utility Requirements Document, Executive Summary, Part I. The Electric Power Research Institute Advanced Light Water Reactor Program. June.

Firebaugh, M. W., and M. J. Ohanian, eds. 1980. Gatlinburg II, An Acceptable Future Nuclear Energy System, Condensed Workshop Proceedings. Institute for Energy Analysis, Oak Ridge Associated Universities. March.

Flavin, C. 1988. The Case Against Reviving Nuclear Power. World-Watch. July - August. 1: 4.

Fowler, T. K., and A. D. Rossin. 1990. First 1990 Group on Electricity. University of California, Berkeley. January 12, 1990.

Ganson, W. A., and A. Modigliani. 1989. Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach. Research supported by National Science Foundation grants SES-801642 and 8309343. University of Chicago. Reprints from Department of Sociology, Boston College.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
×

George Washington University. 1989. International Conference on Enhanced Safety of Nuclear Reactors August 9-10, 1988. Proceedings published as ITSR Report Number 008 Institute for Technology and Strategic Research, The School of Engineering and Applied Science 192-193.

Giraud and Vendryes. 1989. Main Issues Requiring Resolution for Large-Scale Deployment of Nuclear Energy International Workshop on the Safety of Nuclear Installations of the Next Generation and Beyond Chicago. August 28-31, 1989.

Golay, M. W., and N. E. Todreas. 1990. Advanced Light-Water Reactors. Scientific American. April.

GSA. 1990. Title 10 (Energy) Code of Federal Regulations, Part 52. Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Services, General Services Administration as of January 1, 1990.

Hansen, Winje, Beckjord, et al. 1989. MIT Report, Making Nuclear Power Work: Lessons from Around the World Technology Review, February/March.

Harris, L. 1989. The Harris Poll, Sentiment Against Nuclear Power Plants Reaches Record High. Louis Harris and Associates. Released January 15, 1989.

IAEA. 1990. Nuclear Power Reactors in the World. Reference Data Series Number 2 Vienna, Austria. April.

INPO. 1989. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, 1989 Annual Report. March.

Inside NRC. 1990. Outlook On State Regulation. April 9, 1990.

Inside NRC. 1989. Boston Edison Rate Settlement Makes Use of SALP Scores, INPO Indicators An exclusive report on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission McGraw-Hill. 11: 22 (October 23).

Jones, P. M. S. and G. Woite. 1990. Cost of nuclear and conventional baseload electricity generation IAEA Bulletin. Quarterly Journal of the International Atomic Energy Agency 32:3. Vienna, Austria.

Jordan, E., NRC. 1991. Facsimile dated March 19, 1991 to Theresa Fisher, National Research Council staff.

Lanouette, W. 1985. Nuclear Power in America. The Wilson Quarterly/Winter.

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Lee Jr., B., President and Chief Executive Officer, Nuclear Management and Resources Council. 1991. Comments Letter to Samuel J. Chilk, Secretary, NRC Subject: Notice of Availability, SECY-90-347 “Regulatory Impact Survey Report,” 55 Fed. Reg. 53220 (December 27, 1990). January 28, 1991

Lester, R. M., Driscoll, et al. 1985. National Strategies for Nuclear Power Reactor Development Program on Nuclear Power Plant Innovation. MIT NPI-PA-002. March. (NSF Grant No. PRA 83-11777)

Lewis, H. W. 1986. Oversight Hearings. Testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-Ninth Congress. June 10, 1986. Serial No. 99-68. (Lewis also provided testimony before this House of Representatives' Subcommittee on April 26, 1988 relating to creation of an independent Nuclear Safety Board. In addition, John F. Ahearne provided testimony relating to such a Board before the Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on June 18, 1986, and Bill S.14 was introduced in the Senate on January 6, 1987 to amend the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 to create an independent Nuclear Safety Board.)

Lewis, H. W., Chairman. 1978. Risk Assessment Review Group Report to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NUREG/CR-0400. September.

Moynet, G., et al. 1988. Electricity Generation Costs Assessment Made in 1987 for Stations to be Commissioned in 1995 UNIPEDE (International Union of Producers and Distributors of Electrical Energy). Sorrento Congress. May 30-June 3, 1988.

Myers, R. 1990. Nuclear Industry, Sitting Pretty. U.S. Council for Energy Awareness. Summer.

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. 1988. Least-Cost Utility Planning: A Handbook for Public Utility Commissioners Volumes 1 & 2.

National Independent Energy Producers. 1991. Written Statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources February 21, 1991.

National Independent Energy Producers. 1990. Bidding for Power: The Emergence of Competitive Bidding in Electric Generation. March.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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National Research Council. 1990. Rethinking High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal A Position Statement of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management National Academy Press. July.

Nealy, S. M. 1990. Nuclear Power Development, Prospects in the 1990s. Battelle Press. Columbus, Ohio.

North American Electric Reliability Council. 1991. Electricity Supply & Demand 1991-2000 July.

North American Electric Reliability Council. 1990. 1990 Electricity Supply & Demand for 1990-1999 November.

North American Electric Reliability Council. 1989. 1989 Electricity Supply & Demand for 1989-1998 October.

North American Electric Reliability Council. 1988. 1988 Electricity Supply & Demand for 1988-1997 October.

North American Electric Reliability Council. 1987. 1987 Electricity Supply & Demand for 1987-1996. November.

North American Electric Reliability Council. 1986. 1986 Electricity Supply & Demand for 1986-1995 October.

NPOC. 1990. A Perfect Match: Nuclear Energy and The National Energy Strategy A Position Paper by the Nuclear Power Oversight Committee. November.

NRC. 1991a. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Information Digest, 1991 Edition NUREG-1350. 3(March).

NRC. 1991b. Preliminary Notification of Event or Unusual Occurrence. PNO-IIT-91-02A. August 22, 1991.

NRC. 1991c. Preliminary Notification of Event or Unusual Occurrence. PNO-IIT-91-02. August 19, 1991.

NRC. 1991d. Policy Statement, Possible Safety Impacts of Economic Performance Incentives. 7590-01. July 18, 1991.

NRC. 1990a. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Information Digest, 1990 Edition. NUREG-1350. 2(March).

NRC. 1990b. Licensed Operating Reactors, Status Summary Report. Data as of 12-31-89. NUREG-0020. 14: 1 (January).

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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NRC. 1990c. 10 CFR Part 51. Consideration of Environmental Impacts of Temporary Storage of Spent Fuel After Cessation of Reactor Operation; and Waste Confidence Decision Review. Final Rules, Federal Register. 55: 181 (September 18).

NRC. 1990d. Survey of NRC Staff Insights on Regulatory Impact. SECY-90-250, July 16, 1990.

NRC. 1990e. Industry Perceptions of the Impact of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Nuclear Power Plant Activities. NUREG-1395. Draft report. March.

NRC. 1990f. Licensed Operating Reactors Status Summary Report (Data as of 12/31/89) NUREG-0020. 14: 1 (February).

NRC, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. 1990g. Letter to Chairman Carr. Subject: Review of NUREG-1150, “Severe Accident Risks: An Assessment for Five U.S. Nuclear Power Plants.” November 15, 1990.

NRC. 1989a. Information Digest, 1989 Edition. NUREG-1350. 1 (March).

NRC. 1989b. Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data. 1989 Annual Report. Power Reactors. NUREG-1272. 4: 1.

NRC. 1989c. Severe Accident Risks: An Assessment for Five U.S. Nuclear Power Plants NUREG-1150. 1 (June).

NRC. 1989d. Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data, 1989 Annual Report Power Reactors. NUREG-1272. 4: 1.

NRC, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. 1988a. Letter to Chairman Kenneth M. Carr, Subject: Program to Implement the Safety Goal Policy -- ACRS Comments. April 12, 1988.

NRC. 1988b. Generic Letter No. 88-20, Individual Plant Examination for Severe Accident Vulnerabilities - 10 CFR 50.54(f) November 23, 1988.

NRC, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. 1987a. Letter to Chairman Kenneth M. Carr, Subject: ACRS Comments on an Implementation Plan for the Safety Goal Policy. May 13, 1987.

NRC. 1982. Nuclear Power Plants Construction Status Report (Data as of 6-30-82) NUREG-0030. 6: 2 (October).

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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Nuclear Power Oversight Committee. 1991. Position Paper on Standardization. JJT/634P. January 9, 1991.

Nuclear Power Oversight Committee. 1986. Leadership in Achieving Operational Excellence--The Challenge for all Nuclear Utilities. Chicago, Illinois. August. Called the “Sillin Report” (Lee Sillin chaired the report committee).

Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. 1990. First Report to the U.S. Congress and the Secretary of Energy. p. 31. March.

OECD Nuclear Energy Agency/International Energy Agency. 1989. Projected Costs of Generating Electricity from Power Stations for Commissioning in the Period 1995-2000. Paris.

Pasternak, A. D. and R.J. Budnitz. 1987. State-Federal Interactions in Nuclear Regulation. UCRL-21090. S/C 5221201. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory December.

Presidential Commission on Catastrophic Nuclear Accidents. 1990. Report to the Congress. Volume One. August.

Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988. Public Law 100-408, 102 Statute 1066. August 20, 1988.

Sagan, C. 1990. Tomorrow's Energy, How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too. Parade Magazine. November 25, 1990.

Seismicity Owners Group and Electric Power Research Institute. 1986. Seismic Hazard Methodology for the Central and Eastern United States EPRI NP-4726. July.

Stello, Jr., V., Executive Director for Operations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissionion. 1989. Memorandum for the Commissioners. Subject: Implementation of Safety Goal Policy SECY-89-102. March 30, 1989.

Union of Concerned Scientists. 1987. Safety Second. The NRC and America's Nuclear Power Plants Indiana University Press.

U.S. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. 1984. Nuclear Power in an Age of Uncertainty. OTA-E-216. February.

Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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U.S. Congress. 1981. Nuclear Regulatory Legislation Through The Ninety Sixth Congress, Second Session. Prepared for the Committee on Environment and Public Works. 97th Congress. 1st Session. Committee Print. Serial Number 97-3. Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Section August.

U.S. Congress. 1978. United States Code, Congressional and Administrative News, 95th Congress - Second Session. Volume 2. Public Law 95-617 (H.R. 4018). November 9, 1978. Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 1990. Opinion on Petition for Review of An Order of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. No. 89-138. Decided November 2, 1990.

U.S. General Accounting Office. 1990. Electricity Supply, The Effects of Competitive Power Purchases Are Not Yet Certain. Report to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives. GAO/RCED-90-182. August.

Weinberg, A. M. 1989. Engineering in an Age of Anxiety: The Search for Inherent Safety Engineering and Human Welfare Symposium Program and Papers. National Academy of Engineering 25th Annual Meeting. October 4, 1989

Willrich, M. 1985. Nuclear Power in a Changing U.S. Electric Utility Industry. Information of Interest from Pacific Gas and Electric Company Corporate Communications.

10 CFR Part 50, Safety Goals for the Operations of Nuclear Power Plants. Policy Statement. Republication in Federal Register, PS-PR-51. November 30, 1988.

NOTE: The following goals, objectives, and proposed guideline are contained in the above reference.

This policy statement contains two qualitative safety goals that are supported by two quantitative objectives. It also contains a general performance guideline.

Qualitative Safety Goals:

Individual members of the public should be provided a level of protection from the consequences of nuclear power plant

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operation such that individuals bear no significant additional risk to life and health.

Societal risks to life and health from nuclear power plant operation should be comparable to or less than the risks of generating electricity by viable competing technologies and should not be a significant addition to other societal risks.

Quantitative Objectives:

The risk to an average individual in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant of prompt fatalities that might result from reactor accidents should not exceed one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) of the sum of prompt fatality risks resulting from other accidents to which members of the U.S. population are generally exposed.

The risk to the population in the area near a nuclear power plant of cancer fatalities that might result from nuclear power plant operation should not exceed one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) of the sum of cancer fatality risks resulting from all other causes.

The Commission proposed for further staff examination the following general performance guideline.

Consistent with the traditional defense-in-depth approach and the accident mitigation philosophy requiring reliable performance of containment systems, the overall mean frequency of a large release of radioactive materials to the environment from a reactor accident should be less than 1 in 1,000,000 per year of reactor operation.

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Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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Suggested Citation:"2 The Institutional Framework." National Research Council. 1992. Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1601.
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Nuclear Power: Technical and Institutional Options for the Future Get This Book
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The construction of nuclear power plants in the United States is stopping, as regulators, reactor manufacturers, and operators sort out a host of technical and institutional problems.

This volume summarizes the status of nuclear power, analyzes the obstacles to resumption of construction of nuclear plants, and describes and evaluates the technological alternatives for safer, more economical reactors. Topics covered include:

  • Institutional issues—including regulatory practices at the federal and state levels, the growing trends toward greater competition in the generation of electricity, and nuclear and nonnuclear generation options.
  • Critical evaluation of advanced reactors—covering attributes such as cost, construction time, safety, development status, and fuel cycles.

Finally, three alternative federal research and development programs are presented.

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