What could go wrong with EO to expedite Nuclear construction?

It’s performance art for MAGA… they have convinced themselves that renewables are woke, DEI, communist plots, so they have make sure the dirtiest forms of energy get priority… it’s how they own the libs.

 

Can you provide a link to specific examples of airline safety actually being affected by Trump’s policies?

I haven’t seen anything showing there have been anymore incidents compared to historic averages.

 

I did some searching and see the numbers all over the place for the true cost of production by source. really hard see what is the cheapest vs most expensive.

 

what copter land mines? You're confusing Dulles with National

 

Gotcha. I'll be sure to post some snarky gripe about housespouses, how USA treats young professionals, or how negative the ROI for SS/Medicare is for single men like me next time I'm summoned from over in GatorGrowl's Diamond Gators.

But while I'm here...

1. Concrete and other commodities.
2. Large steel forgings and other big, discrete pieces of the plant. Westinghouse's modular construction didn't help here as hoped at Vogtle.
3. Delays. Cost is usually reported with financing, so every dollar you've already spent is accumulating interest while you wait, plus you're still paying salaried employees (and maybe hourly, do, lest they move on somewhere else). The lack of places to make large steel forgings is also related to this. So is lack of nuclear-qualified skilled tradespeople -- and, in the case of the EPRs in France and Finland, their powerful unions. Regulatory delays plan a role. My own view is that an under-discussed issue is that every plant is a brand-new logistics supply chain. (You know why your local Publix almost always has your favorite products in stock? It's because they ship them in a couple times every week... they get a lot of practice and they're getting really good at it. Just-in-time logistics works well for most stuff, excluding during the darkest COVID days, but it doesn't work for industrial megaprojects.)
4. Changes in construction plans. Some regulatory issues come in here. Perhaps the biggest of the plan-change issues is because the plant and the site aren't quite as distinct as the regulatory process implies. (Site too wet, too dry... soil too soft, too hard... river used for cooling water too warm, too cold, too fast, too slow, too salty, too acidic, too alkaline, etc., etc.) In fact, unlike most industrial projects (e.g.; every Boeing or Airbus jet gets a bit cheaper to make than the one before it), near-identical nuclear plant costs actually go up. If the industry can't solve this -- whether by regulatory changes, more robust standard designs, small factory-produced reactors, automation, or _something_ -- nuclear construction will remain at the margins.

 

Lol... expediting nuclear construction is a relative phrase that seems to have lost it's meaning. How much time is enough to build a power plant that is soundly designed and has been proven safe for several decades already? And why are different sites a reason to start the environmental protection investigations process all over again? Why can't these plants adhere to one of the many investigations already out there? Does every site need a completely new environmental impact investigation? Or can we, and should we, use them over an over again?

 

This is the idea behind the Standard(-ized) Design Certification and Early Site Permit permitted by the NRC. The first says "Nuclear Plant is this", second says "Site is that", snap them together like Lego bricks. The problems have come from revisions to the SDC (AP1000 at Vogtle was version 15 or so), the "Early" in Early Site Permit (issues are found [edit: once, not once] digging starts) and that little tweaks to the plant -- a degree of temperature here or there -- don't fall well within either half of the process.

 

I fully understand that reasoning, but there has to be a way to mitigate that full process for engineering alterations, deigns, especially if they are superficial, and it does NOT change the main design of the mechanism or the underlying method of fission... nor the actual reactor.

Did you hear about what China is about to do with regard to nuclear power?

 

Thorium? Why did we give up on Thorium nuclear power generation?

 

Standard designs would need to be "the reactor sets temperature between X and Y" rather than "the reactor sets temperature at Z" and similar, many, many times. We call these Tech Specs (Technical Specifications), as defined by 10 CFR 50.36 (§ 50.36 Technical specifications.).

There's an argument to be made the the standard design should be the most conservative possible tech specs for a specific reactor and if, for example, its cooling water source is a little colder, less saline, and higher-flow than nominal, the plant than ticks up the power a few percent. That makes sense to the layman (I hope), to me as an engineering prof., but not to the MBA who can only include the original power on their spreadsheet.

Thorium is a great technology if (1) you are a big believer in molten salt reactors... which are so radically different than what we have now, our licensing process would have to reboot or (2) you're India (crapload of Thorium, little Uranium) or in some future edge-cases. Here's an outline: Thorium - World Nuclear Association

(I recommend the whole WNA Information Library as a source for anything nuclear -- admittedly a bit pro-nuke biased and not always kept up to date-- but a good starting point: Information Library - World Nuclear Association)

 

I cannot speak to the other points you made but #3 & #4, I have some knowledge of.

#3. When it comes to making nuclear power ships, having the skill trades is incredible important and Congress does a poor job of budgeting when it comes maintaining a steady work flow for the people in these trades. I sat next a Navy Captain in my JPME II class two years ago, who just picked up a star, and this was one of his issues. The example he gave was that if you cannot promise a twenty something nuclear welder that he will have steady work for the next 20 years, you cannot count on them staying in the industry. There are too many other opportunities that they will be offered and they will leave and there is no one else to fill in since the requirements for the job are so technical. You do not want an apprentice level person doing this level of work.

#4. The federal government is not set up properly to compete with the private industry for highly technical positions where the private sector pays significantly more. Parts of the DoD Cyber workforce is made of junior to mid level enlisted service members that have gone through a very difficult training pipeline that takes years. For the ones that make it, they have technical skills that Google, Amazon, and other Silicon Valley firms will pay well over $400k at a starting level. These service members maybe able to make mid $100k to low $200k but to pay above the POTUS salary of $400k requires a waiver. So those people would be topped out at that level while working for the government where it would be their starting salary with private industry and that is not taking any bonuses or stock options into account.

 

From your username, I'm going to assume that you're a Marine who retired at O-3 rank. I'm normally really impressed by how well the Navy handles the Human Resources aspect of NR (especially as compared to us nuclear civilians), but skilled trades is tough. Here in the civilian world, we're less interested in full-time "nuclear welders" than Master Welders who can come in, absorb their 5 rem legal dose in a couple days or a couple weeks, and walk away with a couple months salary. It's probably not ideal that these two workforces are separate groups. This also would change if we built more new reactors -- new steel won't burn through one's radiation dose so fast.

I can't speak for every 42-year-old with a nuclear engineering PhD, but "live wherever you want, as long as you can get to HQ within 36 hours and we'll give you up to 250k, 6 weeks vacation, 100% paid really good health care, 10% 401k contribution, and 12-months shared for both parents parental leave" would get the feds well over half my generation. Not immediately, but be the employer of choice for next job change. As above, nuclear civilian HR is not good. Also: NucE salaries are great with 5-10 years experience, but don't get much better after that.

 

No I’m not kidding.

Show me accurate data supporting there are more midair issues than the historical average.

A military pilot was told to course correct more than once and caused a crash. That appears to be fully pilot error.
Unclear how any alleged FAA changes caused that.
Happy to hear an explanation if I’ve got the details wrong.



From ABC news:”But while these incidents have raised concerns about aviation safety, data from the NTSB -- the agency tasked with investigating all civil aviation accidents and major incidents -- shows that the number of aviation accidents is down nearly 10% so far this year compared to the same period last year: From Jan. 1 through April 20, 2024, the NTSB investigated 275 aviation accidents in the United States. During the same period this year, that number is 250.”

Are there more plane incidents recently or does it just seem that way?

FWIW there has been a huge shortage of Air traffic controllers for years now.

 

GC doesn’t let you change your username easily and I do not want to bother the Admins to do it, not to mention Captain is the best rank in the Marine Corps. So I have not bothered to try and update my rank since ‘06.

Thank you for your posts on this topic, they are extremely enlightening on this topic.