I have often blogged about the high cost of constructing nuclear power plants. Not one nuclear power plant built in the U.S. has ever been completed within the original cost estimate and within the original schedule. After decades, the U.S. started constructing four new commercial nuclear power reactors, two in South Carolina and two in Georgia. One pair was abandoned recently because of incompetence and rising costs. The other pair is in serious trouble because of rising costs.
       David Petti is a fellow at the Idaho National Laboratory. He contributed to a report on nuclear plant construction that was recently released by MIT. He said, “interviewed both the failed projects and the successful projects, and our recommendation was that we need an increased focus on using proven construction-management practices to increase the probability of success in the execution and delivery of new nuclear plants.”
       Cost overruns and scheduling delays are often blamed on what supporters of nuclear power call burdensome government regulation. There are many factors that contribute to expense of constructing nuclear power reactors but here are three major reasons aside from regulation mentioned in the MIT report.
       One big problem in the construction of a nuclear power plant has to do with the design. Nuclear contractors in the U.S. have often started construction before the design is complete. This is backward from best construction practices which say that a design should be finalized before any construction begins. A project for a vitrification plant at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was halted for years because construction began before the design was finished. This cost millions of extra dollars.
       Petti said, “Making sure that the design is complete, making sure that you have fabricators and constructors on your design team early so that you know that what you design can be built. This was not done for certain projects.”
       Obviously, it is important to have competent management of construction projects. If the people managing the project are not capable of handling the complexity, there are unanticipated cost increases and schedule delays. Construction of the two nuclear power reactors in South Carolina was stopped because the contractors were not capable of handling the management of the project.
       Petti said that nuclear construction can be improved by “making sure everyone has skin in the game, making sure the process can deal with and adapt quickly to change, because change is inevitable in something as complex as this. As construction schedules drag out you’re paying interest and you’ve got a lot of people on the site that are not being productive.”
       Reactor construction has basically halted in the U.S. and Western Europe. Because of this, the required network of trained workers and spare parts suppliers has been withering away. Without a readily available supply of workers and parts, construction and operation of nuclear power plants becomes much more difficult. Petti says, “There have been problems, there’s been an atrophy in the West because we haven’t built a plant, whether it be in Europe or the United States, in 30 years. The successful vendors have really strong supply chains, like South Korea.”

Ambient office  = 117 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Carrot from Central Market = 151 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 75 nanosieverts per hour

       The Trump administration does not like government regulations. For the past two years, many different federal regulations have been eliminated by the Executive Branch. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been removing important regulations that have to do with the health of the public and the environment. Just recently, regulations on shipment of shale oil in trains and emission of mercury by power plants are being relaxed. Now the EPA is talking about relaxing regulations that have to do with exposure to radiation.
        Current government guidelines follow the linear no-threshold model for radiation exposure. This model says that NO amount of radiation exposure is without risk and as the amount of radiation goes up, the amount of risk goes up at the same rate. Quite often, it will be argued by organizations which generate radiation that the amount they are responsible for is smaller than natural background radiation and, therefore, no threat to health. But by the linear no-threshold model, this is just wrong. ANY radiation from human sources adds to the risk of the natural background radiation.
        Supporters of new EPA proposals with respect to radiation say that the current government rules of no-tolerance for radiation damage forces companies that handle radioactive materials to spend unnecessary money to deal with possible radiation exposure resulting from accidents at nuclear power plants, industrial facilities and medical facilities.
       EPA guidelines online from this March with respect to radiation effects state, “Current science suggests there is some cancer risk from any exposure to radiation. Even exposures below 100 millisieverts” — an amount roughly equivalent to 25 chest X-rays or about 14 CT chest scans — slightly increase the risk of getting cancer in the future.” That online information was edited last July. A section was added that said that the odds of getting cancer from a small dose of radiation were very low. The new section said, “According to radiation safety experts, radiation exposures of …100 millisieverts usually result in no harmful health effects, because radiation below these levels is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk.”
        Edward Calabrese is a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts. He is going to be a lead witness at a Congressional hearing scheduled for next Wednesday to consider the new EPA proposal.
       Calabrese and other supporters of new EPA guidelines for radiation exposure claim that small exposure to cell-damaging radiation could act as stressors that activate the repair mechanisms of the human body. This would result in making people healthier. They say that it is comparable to physical exercise or exposure to sunlight. Calabrese has suggested that the mainstream scientific consensus on radiation exposure is based on deceptive science and needs to be corrected.
       A spokesperson for the EPA produced an email that said that the proposed rule changes were in the interest of “increasing transparency on assumptions” about the impact of different doses of dangerous substances on human health. The email also said that it “acknowledges uncertainty regarding health effects at low doses.” The EPA supports further research on this subject.
       Jan Beyea is a physicist with the National Academies of Science who has researched the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March of 2011. He said that the position that the EPA is now taking on radiation exposure represents ideas “generally dismissed by the great bulk of scientists.” He also said that the new EPA proposal would result in “increases in chemical and radiation exposures in the workplace, home and outdoor environment, including the vicinity of Superfund sites.”
       The EPA has been drifting away from using respected science to guide their regulatory activities. It needs to go back to being science-based before U.S. citizens are harmed by the relaxation of important limits on exposure to radiation.

Ambient office  = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 118 nanosieverts per hour

Beefsteak tomato from Central Market = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

       Spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors is a global problem. None of the countries that host nuclear power reactors have a good permanent solution for disposal of spent nuclear fuel. There are test projects to build permanent geological repositories for such nuclear waste, but the U.S. canceled its work on a repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada in 2009 and there won’t be any such repository until at least 2050 in the U.S. Then there is nuclear waste left over from nuclear weapons development. The U.S. does have such a repository in New Mexico. Other countries are still trying to find ways to deal with nuclear waste.
       Last January, the U.K. government worked to restart its efforts to find a community that was willing to accept the siting of a nuclear waste dump in their area. They attempted to locate a willing community five years ago, but the effort failed. Now members of the U.K. Parliament are saying that they won’t rule out siting a nuclear waste dump under a national park. Critics of that possibility say that such a move could seriously impact the eight-billion-dollar income from use of national parks by the public.
       The National Trust and eighteen other conservations groups in the UK have sent an open letter to the nuclear energy minister opposing suggestions that the Lake District be considered for a nuclear waste dump. The Lake District is the biggest national park in England and a World Heritage site. It is also located near Sellafield which currently contains most of the nuclear waste in the U.K.
       In the open letter, groups such as the Woodland Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England said that the nuclear energy minister could risk damaging “long-established protections” that are given to national parks.
       The minister has said that a deep geological nuclear waste facility would be similar to a potash mine that is being planned for a national park in North Yorkshire. He said that the nuclear waste facility like the planned potash mine would “leave very little blot on the landscape”.
       The open letter from the conservation groups also said, “We recognize that safe disposal of nuclear waste is one of the key challenges our society currently faces but this should not be used as an excuse to put at risk the huge range of benefits these areas deliver for society, the environment and the economy.”
       When asked, the nuclear energy minister stated that he would not exclude national parks as possible locations for a deep geological facility for the disposal of nuclear waste. He said, “I am not saying we should have them on national parks, but it would be very wrong to exclude them at the moment in this big policy statement.” Other members of parliament have said that “we cannot afford to restrict the siting process” and “most of the facility will be underground.”
        Members of Parliament on the business, energy, and industrial strategy select committee said that national parks should not be excluded when considering siting for a national nuclear waste dump. A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesperson said, “Legislation already ensures developments in national parks can only proceed in exceptional circumstances and must be appropriate and proportionate.”
        The GDF Watch is monitoring the process for siting a facility. The Director of the GDF Watch said that there was zero chance of a nuclear waste dump being sited under a national park because local communities which have the final say would never approve.

Ambient office  = 121 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Bartlett pear from Central Market = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 88 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 75 nanosieverts per hour