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NRC Expects Applications To Operate Reactors Beyond 60 Years
mdsolar writes with news that the aging reactor fleet in the U.S. will likely see units hitting 80 or more years of use before being decommissioned. From the article: "Officials of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear power industry expect the first application to be filed with the agency in 2018 or 2019 for a license renewal to operate a power reactor or reactors beyond 60 years. At a Nuclear Energy Institute forum in Washington Tuesday, neither NRC nor industry officials named specific plants considered likely to apply, and it was not clear from their remarks if any nuclear operator has yet volunteered to be the first to apply."
Also see the staff report on preparing for the first applications. The proposed operating license changes would place no limit on the number of 20 year extensions, so perhaps a few reactors will end up in operation for a full century (if there's anyone left who can remember how to operate them then).
Legendary Slashdot editing.
You don't talk about a "fleet" of reactors unless you mean a nuclear-powered Navy. And, as far as I can tell, the US Navy doesn't have to ask "Mother May I" to the NRC.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The existing nuclear plants are definitely approaching end of life. New nuclear plants and technologies are pretty damned far away. The NRC definitely needs to shut down some of the older plants. What's more, the NRC definitely needs to start approving new plants and nuclear technologies more quickly. The licensing process is amazingly expensive. We're quickly going to arrive at an energy crisis due to lack of action.
You are allowed to train people how to operate machines even when the machine is old. I'm pretty sure people will still understand buttons and knobs even in a future where everything else is touchscreens and direct neural interfaces or whatever.
I read the internet for the articles.
Extending the lifespan of a reactor beyond its designed lifetime is one thing, but allowing reactors to operate that are fundamentally obsolete and unsafe is quite another.
The real issue here is that these reactors should be replaced, but the process of approving new reactors is such a quagmire of red tape that it is no longer economically feasible to do so. Unfortunately this is actually in the best financial interests of the power companies. About 5 or 6 years ago, I spoke with a guy who worked for my local power conglomerate...he said that the nuclear reactor they operate (a dinosaur) is bar none the *cheapest* form of electricity they generate...wholesale was something around $0.007 (yes, 7/10 of a cent) per kwh. You can't beat that price with *anything*. If you got rid of that reactor (cheap power) and replaced it with a new one (very expensive power) they'd take a beating, and might have to raise their prices. But that would make renewables cheaper relatively speaking, which they don't like, because they are largely decentralized and would take the power company out of the equation.
It is really sad how the US cannot come with a good strong Nuclear Energy Policy and rules and regulations.
Being that voters on both sides a full of complete ignorance that they just make it worse.
The Democrats who support environmentalists (Scientists) and "environmentalists" (Tree Huggers) often get them confused and will be happy to believe that nuclear energy is like a controlled atomic bomb, thus must be decommissioned at all cost.
The Republicans who are in bed with the Oil industry will sometimes tolerate nuclear energy, however do not have the guts to push for it as it will step on the Oil Industry.
So what happens, we get regulations that are overly strict in the wrong areas and have gaping problems in the other.
Is nuclear energy a Clean Safe and Too cheap to meter? No, not by a long shot. However we have a trade off of saving CO2 output (our current big problem) with Storing and keeping safe hazardous waste for a thousands of years (a future problem, which could get better over time). There are a lot of safety protocols in place and newer designs get safer, I doubt we will see a nuclear explosion, however accidents could create nuclear radiation leaked which are toxic, that said coal spews out a lot of toxic stuff already. These safety protocols comes at a cost, so yes you will still need to meter to pay for the upkeep and running. However it is a source of energy that can be produces without killing the budget.
Nuclear along with Wind, Solar, Hydropower should all be added to the American clean energy strategies.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Nuclear reactors follow a "bathtub curve" - with higher incident rates just after they're built and when they're quite old. Hopefully the NRC is strongly enforcing strict maintenance requirements. I'm all for nukes, but for intelligent application of them: running them till they bust doesn't seem like the best approach.
More info on bathtub curves & nuclear reactors: http://db.world-nuclear.org/reference/nucleartide.html
Looks like they want the closing of a nuclear power plant to happen on the Fukushima model. Run them till they are overwhelmed by circumstance.
mdsolar nuclear FUD
Hey, mdsolar, the ecotards don't like your solar systems either.
once the shooting & bleeding stops we can move on, butt we'll be at least 600 years cleaning up the poisoned planet/population mess left as our heritage & legacy for our kids? http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nuke%20waste%20cleanup&sm=3
Slashdot only allows....... what the traffic & advertisers will bear & it's not you
If those plants are shut down, what replaces their generating capacity?
Fossil fuel-fired generators, that's what.
One wonders what your position is on AGW.
This is happen when you go 40 years with no core research in an anti nuclear environment.
if there's anyone left who can remember how to operate them then.
Seven years ago I met a former chief operator for Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant no.2; he had just been let go from the governing body at Stanford responsible for setting curriculum for nuclear plant operators, due to cutbacks in (federal) funding.
We speculated then that the U.S. would someday see the need for building new or updating existing nuclear power plants. So, what was obvious to us then, seems to be the future.
And, yes, finding qualified engineers to run the plants will be very, very difficult.
The risk of an overwhelming seismic event striking a power plant is proportional to the length of time it is exposed to the risk. This policy doubles the risk. There should be upgrades in survivability requirements to manage this and keep risk constant. Events with recurrence intervals four times longer than the present design basis should become the new design basis to account for the already suffered exposure.
I used to really love nuclear power. I believed that a safe plant was simply a matter of good design and good regulatory structure.
Then came the safety shutdown of the medical isotope reactor at Chalk River. "Good!" I thought. "The system works just like it should." The pressure started mounting because of the shortage. The safety commissioner refused to reopen the plant, and the pressure got worse. Then the government fired her and ordered the plant open again.
Nuclear plants are great, until the time comes when closing them is just too expensive. Then the government changes from engineering them to be safe to legislating them to be safe. Because nature is bound to follow legislation /s
The NRC's job is safety. That's it. They have people stationed at power plants, and their only job is to ask questions and enforce policies such that the plant operates safely. With that beaten home, let's get to some specifics.
The biggest concern for the current fleet of U.S. reactors (mostly all Generation II designs) in terms of long operation is embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) due to radiation damage (mostly neutronic). Embrittlement of the RPV comes into play when severe accident responses (for either Design Basis Accidents (DBAs) or Beyond Design Basis Accidents (BDBAs)) dictate fast, extreme cooling of the RPV that can lead to pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events. The biggest hurdle toward getting approval is proving which-and-every way to a high confidence level that a PTS breach of the RPV will not occur from this embrittlement. If plants cannot do this, the NRC will not issue a license extension because the plant cannot prove its safety. If you care to read more on it, consult 10 CFR 50.61 for details (or the whole thing at the10 CFR 50 Part Index.
Are there other requirements? Yes (see the 10 CFR 50 index above). However, this is the one aspect I wanted to expound upon since turbomachinery has been replaced/upgrade, fuel is refreshed every 18 months or so, and piping is constantly checked. But I wanted to stress the safety issue. The NRC has 100% no qualms about telling a plant "no" if that plant cannot prove it is safe to operate.
Is obviously the solution to the problem of having nobody that knows how to run them, I mean, look at how many surgeons we have now.
But apparently it's thought to be a better idea to destroy the entire stock of precious hydrocarbons that took Nature a hundred million years to lay down in the next century by burning them instead.
That's not how pig latin works.
Yes it is.
The message says "Buck Feta.".
I feel that the correct strategy at this point is to allow the building of plants to replace aging Nuclear plants on a case by case bases. First the suitability of the plant location should be reevaluated, if it is still a good location the new plant should be built next door to the existing plant. This will lower security costs, and NIMBY related costs. If it is not a suitable location a new location should be found but of course you'll run into a huge NIMBY coalition.
Why would you want to reject a cheese? This makes no sense.
Not even going to bother reading the comments. It's a given. They will be full of comments from people who speak as if they have any knowledge about the matter at hand. As if Slashdot magically has a user base consisted of primarily Linux geeks with a background in Nuclear Physics.
"Insurance Companies in the United States have begun notifying customers they will no longer have ANY coverage whatsoever for anything relating to nuclear energy claims. Fallout, radiation sickness, property damage from radiation - all EXCLUDED" http://www.turnerradionetwork.... http://www.dailypaul.com/31155...
But apparently it's thought to be a better idea to destroy the entire stock of precious hydrocarbons that took Nature a hundred million years to lay down in the next century by burning them instead.
Seriously, what's the better use of those hydrocarbons? I get the feeling people are treating it like a bank. But a bank takes savings deposits and loans them to someone else. So that money never just sits around. OTOH, if you don't pull oil out of the ground and do something with it, then you're doing nothing with it. Hydrocarbons sitting in the ground aren't at all precious.
So what are we going to be doing with those hydrocarbons in the future that is so precious?
My friendly neighborhood nuke plant, Vermont Yankee, is shutting down just a couple of years after renewing its license. I have heard of another plant in upstate NY closing as well. The problem is the glut of shale gas has made these older plants uneconomical to operate. At least, that's what Entergy tells the press.
I guess market forces can work even when the nuclear power industry is relieved of any requirement to insure themselves fully. Just imagine how unaffordable nuclear electricity would be if operators had to pay market rates for insurance. The Price-Anderson Act seems to be the elephant in the room for those rabidly pro-nuke. Personally, I deplore the concept of socializing the risks while privatizing the profits. Will the nuclear power industry ever be able to cover its costs without suckling on the government teat?
NRC, I live 40 miles away from a pile of unsecured spent uranium sitting next to Lake Michigan. I and my neighbors are not happy that your agency is allowing this spent fuel to sit there until 2080 next to the Point Beach nuclear reactor. How many accidents is it going to take for us to wake up? Your policies & lack of proper oversight at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New Jersey & the Indian Point plant in New York are deplorable. This nation cannot afford any more nuclear pollution. There is no reason to put our USN personel at risk either. I trust that the USN can do good maintenance but even that causes problems. Someone I know really well was responsible for pulling a reactor head & the technicians made a mistake by not fully draining the CORE WATER. It ended up flooding the damned lot and destroyed crane mats, rig tires, equipment tires, and many tons of aggregate right next to the lake. Not cool & he got a good dose of radiation too. STOP this!
+1 would read comment again.
where are my mod points.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
What is really needed is to replace these first and second gen reactors with smaller ones that can burn up their old fuel. Ideally, the thorium reactors would make good sense.
In addition, we need to replace the coal plants with say 2 small nuke reactors (B&W's mPower would be a good one, perhaps combined with a thorium ), combined with energy storage. One good energy storage would be EOS Energy.
Regardless, the reason why America, in fact the west, is in trouble with our electricity is that we have far too much from single sources. Far better to have a diversified energy matrix. And this idea that it should be all wind and solar has to be the WORST idea going.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually, accurate documents seem to be rare. It was very hard to find out if Vermont Yankee had pipes running under it. Entergy told the State no until they started to leak. And, the military nuclear culture seems to be turning to falsified documents such as test cheating so the future work force for nuclear power is becoming more corrupt. Probably those documents will become completely useless in another generation.
All the NRC needs to do is define 100% leakage as acceptable and nuclear reactors can be kept in operation for thousands of years. They have been loosening the standards of acceptable valve leakage for some time, this is simply one more step.
The nuclear power plant engineers mentioned in the great-grandparent are operators. Either way, I'm just pointing out there's a steady pool of trained and experienced people who would likely go to college and become full fledged engineer operators if the demand was there. (Many already do.) The OP considerably overestimates the difficulty of finding them.
If a nuclear reactor expected to operate for 40 years could last 80 years, then it has just become half as expensive to build per GWh of electricity produced over its lifetime.
And they keep saying nuclear is too expensive.
And the same guys saying nuclear is too expensive keep on fueling all anti nuclear intervention to make nuclear even more expensive.
Nuclear is cheaper than coal in countries that are serious about doing nuclear.
China, South Korea and India are doing it at a modest cost due to standardization, and a concerted effort to build lots of reactors.
If only USA, Germany, Italy and a few other delusional countries would accept that.