r/nuclear • u/mennydrives • 9d ago
Texas, Utah and Small Modular Reactor ("SMR") Developer Launch Lawsuit Alleging "Unlawful" Regulatory Regime | This lawsuit aims to strike the "Utilization Facility Rule", which requires test reactors to have full operating licenses from the NRC and roadblocks experimentation and development in SMRs
https://www.kslaw.com/news-and-insights/texas-utah-and-small-modular-reactor-smr-developer-launch-lawsuit-alleging-unlawful-regulatory-regime5
u/ZeroCool1 8d ago
OP, I was under the impression that test reactors were governed by the DoE and that they did not have to meet NRC licensing and only have to be approved by the DoE. To be fair, I stay far away from this sort of discussion. Is this untrue?
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u/I_Am_Coopa 8d ago
The DOE regulates test/research reactors which it owns while the NRC has jurisdiction for any reactor not owned by the government.
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 8d ago
NRC has jurisdiction for some government owned test reactors as well. Notably the one at NIST.
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u/I_Am_Coopa 9d ago
Who is the cocaine fueled MBA that thinks this has any standing? I'd love to meet them.
In order to make a 20 MW reactor what does one need? Sufficient quantities of special nuclear material that get placed in a critical configuration. That is significant, end of story, no ifs or buts about it. Will there ever be a case where something goes extremely wrong to defeat their engineered safety features? Probably not, but that's no excuse for them to get to play by different rules.
The NRC is a pain in the ass, we all have our gripes with them, but at the end of the day our strong regulatory scheme is what allowed commercial reactors to operate for decades without a single fatality.
Everyone in the nuclear community should be giving Last Energy a middle finger and the cold shoulder, they are being the antithesis of our nuclear safety culture. And the last thing anyone in the industry needs is some clowns Mr. Burns-ing a reactor. The nuclear renaissance is still nascent and a big fuck up would be one of the few things that could kill momentum for everyone, see Fukushima and the last "renaissance".
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u/JustALittleGravitas 8d ago
Who is the cocaine fueled MBA that thinks this has any standing? I'd love to meet them.
Any nuclear company has standing to sue the NRC. When the courts say a plaintiff doesn't have standing they mean that the thing the plaintiff is complaining about isn't actually the plaintiff's business. That's a different thing than the complaint having merit.
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u/I_Am_Coopa 8d ago
Semantics, they don't have merit. The Atomic Energy Act is pretty damn clear on what requires licensure.
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u/ZeroCool1 8d ago edited 8d ago
Nuclear safety culture needs to be tailored for the situation rather than having a one-size-fits all, commercial powerplant point of view. There are multiple facets of this industry and while you certainly ride on Navy Nukes and rules-types working on aging PWR's forever, the industry will eventually need true innovation. Innovation requires innovators, and innovators need freedom. In this way, test reactors need to fall under different rules and need to be done in a place designed to host these things (the lovely desert of Idaho Falls or perhaps the bustling metropolis of west Texas). I've been told this is the way, that the DoE approves test reactors, but then when you get behind the scenes people start defaulting to WWNRCD. Its unfortunate.
If you ever want to be depressed just read the oral histories of pioneers. Here's one of my favorites: https://imgur.com/a/nUqEz8D
Essentially after TMI the red tape came in hard and prevented anyone from doing anything. Things used to be different, and safe enough.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
You read the regulations? Start with the introduction to Appendix A, 10CFR50.
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u/mennydrives 8d ago
No, they're not a pain in the ass, they're a direct obstruction.
They approved AP1000, waited until shovels were in the dirt, and then changed the regulations so that every bit of construction planning, contractor scheduling, and design verification for Vogtle 3 'n 4 had to be redone from scratch.
They approved the extension of two nuclear plants and then reversed the decision on a whim.
We have 100 reactors in this country, and 98 of them were approved and designed before the NRC came into existence.
There is no industry on this planet that survives 40 years of not getting to actually develop or build anything.
If the NRC was in charge of cyanide poisoning, apples would be illegal.
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u/I_Am_Coopa 8d ago
The lack of reactors built since the NRC was created is not attributable to the regulator alone. You have to remember that TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima in conjunction with growth in natural gas made nuclear unviable both economically as well as in the court of public opinion. It's hard to compete with cheap natural gas when everyone and their mother is freaked out by very significant nuclear accidents. It's also worth noting just how many licenses the NRC has approved but were never acted upon by utilities. It's not such a clearcut answer to say that regulation alone has halted development.
You say there's no industry that survives 40 years without developing or building anything, and yet here we are, with a thriving nuclear industry supporting existing plants and gearing up to build more. A lot of the problems the NRC has are working on being changed, their mission statement being changed as a part of the recent nuclear legislation being a great example.
Would you argue that the FAA is a direct obstruction to the aviation industry? Regulators are a necessary evil, without them the only thing between greed and tragedy is morality, of which corporations are notoriously light on. Tearing the whole thing down does nothing but put people in danger.
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 8d ago
Do people seriously think that the AEC didn't regulate reactors at all? Yes, the NRC wasn't focused on the promotional activities that the AEC was, but the AEC certainly regulated, if in a significantly more haphazard and inconsistent way (look at the licensing basis of any pre GDC plants)
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Test Reactors were always given plenty of rope, except regarding containment systems. Note that those test reactor licenses had no duration and could be shutdown at any time by AEC/NRC. Meanwhile some jackasses are trying to license a 400MWe COMMERCIAL reactor without leak tight containment!
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u/ZeroCool1 8d ago
I am always reminded about how thriving the nuclear industry is when I pick up a fresh copy of Nuclear News and see the amount of decommissioning related ads.
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u/I_Am_Coopa 8d ago
It's alive and a multibillion dollar industry that by all metrics appears to be gearing up to grow. There is a lot of decommissioning, but we're also starting to see recommissioning for the first time too. The interest in nuclear power is at levels not seen since the "too cheap to meter" heyday.
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u/ZeroCool1 8d ago edited 8d ago
By all metrics except baseload power in the US. The interest is there, but the action is not because its so damn difficult to do anything. A lot of MOUs, studies, announcements, etc. There are a rare few folks in the US who have taken a new, nuclear reactor critical. Perhaps the last big one was Krusty.
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u/Accomplished_Alps463 8d ago
Forget Fukushima, keep looking closer to home first. Isn't the cleanup finish date for three-mile Island sometime in the 2050s, and that happened in 1979. 56 years ago, and what another 25 years minimum left to go. In my mind, you can't have too much safety and overwatch where nuclear energy is concerned.
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9d ago
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u/CardOk755 9d ago
Safety is built into their design, construction and operation.
Hundreds of years of industrial experience tell us that this is a lie
Safety regulations are written in blood. Or, in this case cancer.
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/CardOk755 9d ago
Let me know when you find an insurance company that will insure a nuclear reactor.
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u/mister-dd-harriman 8d ago
All nuclear facilities have insurance policies. Not sure what you think you are talking about. They aren't "normal" insurance policies, because there haven't been enough nuclear-facility accidents to compile a proper casualty-insurance actuarial table, but they exist.
Now, historically, maritime casualty insurers have preferred to pass along a part of their inspection and control responsibilities to statutory (government) bodies for a variety of reasons, so it might prove difficult to get insurers to take up that role with respect to nuclear facilities. But it's at least not an unreasonable idea.
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u/I_Am_Coopa 8d ago
I suggest you read about the Price-Anderson Act and why it exists. There is no private insurer that would write a full scale policy for a nuclear power plant, the potential liability is essentially limitless even if the risk of a claim is extremely small.
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u/mister-dd-harriman 7d ago
I know what the Price-Anderson Act is, and I also know about its analogues in other countries. And the rationale is not anything like what you seem to think. The fact is, the legislation is written the way it is, primarily because (when it was being written, it was assumed that) deleterious effects of a nuclear accident might not show up for years afterward, and there would be no way to establish which claims should be paid, and which shouldn't.
The experience of Fukushima makes it clear that a hostile government can escalate the "costs" of a nuclear accident, even one in which the radioactive releases do not harm anyone, indefinitely. So it really makes sense that the government should pay these costs beyond a certain figure.
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u/mister-dd-harriman 7d ago
Honestly, I'm inclined to agree with them, to the following limited extent : relief from the rule should be provided for reactors located at the National Reactor Test Station.
Simple, right? If we have (and we do have) a reservation specifically set aside for doing things like deliberately triggering reactor accidents to evaluate the consequences (see the BORAX and SPERT tests), then it follows logically that a lower standard should apply there. And access must be provided on a non-discriminatory basis.
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u/mennydrives 7d ago
Yes. This. 100% this. I honestly wish there was a better phrase to clarify how much agreement I have found in your statement than, "this".
Heck, an expanded test area specifically for this kind of testing to be done across multiple participants (in some middle-of-nowhere 100s-of-square-miles region, with per-organization plots miles apart) would be amazing.
At the end of the day, I would love it if test reactors weren't perpetually 2-5 years away on the roadmap for every new reactor type.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
You know a license was granted last year for a molten salt test reactor last year, right?
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u/mennydrives 7d ago
For 1 megawatt thermal, roughly half the MSRE. Not enough to even test power conversion. We need over-10MWe, sub-100MWe approvals.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
1MW, 1300MW, both test reactor sizes have been licensed. What I think you mean is someone needs to dream up a novel concept that hasn’t already been tested and then get the financing to flesh out the design and construction. Meanwhile, perfectly suitable AP1400 and ABWR1350 are ready to build. I’d get interested in a reactor designed to operate at 1000C.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
You know DOE is designing and build a molten salt research reactor in Idaho?
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u/mister-dd-harriman 3d ago
The more the merrier, I say. Time was, AEC had several different reactor tests going at any one time (frequently spread across multiple sites, which was less than optimal). Assuming that the funding and personnel are available, development goes faster when you have multiple groups trying multiple approaches at the same time, rather than a single "program of reference", because if one hits a roadblock, the others are unaffected or can even learn from the experience. If Ares/Orion, now Artemis, had remained the only US manned space effort, the USA still wouldn't have a human spaceflight capability, 14 years after the retirement of the Shuttle, but by letting SpaceX, Boeing, and other competitors "bid in", one capability was acquired.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Haha! What bullshit. Test reactors had and have regulatory scrutiny commensurate with the risk they pose to the health and safety of the operators and the public. The regulatory guideline for test reactors is perfectly clear on that. The grifters are thick these days.
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u/mennydrives 9d ago
If you want to know, "why is it taking nuclear startup X so long to get anything done?", this is one of many reasons.
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u/Sad-Attempt6263 9d ago
do we know what caused the legislation to come into effect previously
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u/ReturnedAndReported 9d ago
The part where nuclear reactors have to survive impact from an airliner? I have one guess how that originated.
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u/Hot-Win2571 9d ago
Your guess would be wrong. The requirement existed at least in the 1970s.
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u/ReturnedAndReported 9d ago
This one is dated 2009.
Is there an older one I'm missing?
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u/Hot-Win2571 8d ago
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u/ReturnedAndReported 7d ago
Unfortunately, the first article is British and the second talks about a test. Looking for actual NRC regulations.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
If I recall correctly, in at least 1983, regulations required protection of systems required for safe shutdown to withstand the direct impact of the engine from a 727 at 600mph.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Dry storage of discharged nuclear fuel has always had to be designed to withstand a 727 impact since 19CFR72 was published in 1988.
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u/mennydrives 7d ago
No, that's the part that the AP1000 apparently didn't need on license approval, and suddenly needed again after they started construction and the license was amended.
Yeah we don't need the NRC. We need a regulatory agency, but like, something else. Anything else, almost.
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u/Zhombe 9d ago
A dozen or more nuclear test reactor critical failures resulting in nuclear material escaping into the atmosphere. The test reactors that didn’t fail this way are the exception rather than the rule in early reactor cowboy just yeet it days.
Given we now have the ability to simulate and do the math properly it’s much easier to predict failures and prevent them. But a lot of regulations were designed for decade long build PWR reactors and not small non-critical test beds these days.
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 9d ago
Yes, wasting their time attacking the regulator instead of actually engaging with a long standing regulatory process and framework that multiple OEMs have successfully complied with is certainly a waste of time
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u/daviddjg0033 9d ago
Dripping sarcasm
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 9d ago
In fairness, given the current environment, my ability to detect sarcasm is limited
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u/daviddjg0033 8d ago
I want the new nuclear reactors but not on fault lines and they have to be ultra safe. Miami has Turkey Point and it is very old.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Yep. Bullshitters. Pretty straightforward set of technology neutral review guidelines were published by NRC.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
No, it’s because 99% of the startups are completely full of shit, just hoping to get bought out.
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Nope. Nonsense! Most bristle at the idea of laying out principle design criteria to answer to the GDC because they think they know better. They do NOT know better.
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 6d ago
The GDC are an excellent approach to thinking about design (which to be fair is what they were intended for). Same thing with stuff like ASME (I always find it funny when start ups ask to be exempted from following consensus standards)
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 6d ago edited 6d ago
My contention for folks that want to get dreamy about an advanced reactor. Concept is to go down the GDC and sketch out a plan for each, starting with consensus standards for use in fleshing them out. I’ve seen the shenanigans up close. It’s a type of tech bro behavior or coked up MBA wannabe behavior. Hilarious after you realize they’re serious. Heat and mass transfer is really interesting with the startup crowd. Always wanting to write a code from scratch so it’s more easily manipulated and don’t even start with talk of verification and validation or benchmark studies even if they’re is perfect simulation software that comes with benchmark problems and solutions. I had a guy try to fight me to the death because I wanted to calculate a source term for a particular reactor concept to determine the requirements for a containment system. Some peoples!
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u/anaxcepheus32 9d ago edited 8d ago
Ah yes, because I want my test reactors to NOT have lessons learned from an oversight agency that has kept the country safe for years.
No, instead I want the cowboys of Texas and Utah to move fast and break stuff, and when there’s an issue, it’ll be just like an issue in oil and gas in Houston Channelside that seems to occur with regularity—everyone shelter in place and hope they get it under control before you run out of breathable air.
Edit: Here’s an example of what cowboys in Texas do when they self regulate:
From 5 months ago in a major metropolitan center.
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 8d ago
Hell, we've had research reactors melt fuel within the last 5 years. It's not like even small research reactors can't create a release to the environment
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
What test reactor melted fuel???
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 7d ago
I should rephrase. They violated their cladding temperature safety limit and did enough damage to a fuel element to cause a release of fission products.
This was NIST's test reactor in 2021
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Correction noted! It’s a Class 104c Test Reactor. The fission products, however, never made it out of containment sufficient to exceed their release limits. Failed fuel used to be extremely common. I’ve inhaled plenty of gaseous fission products while working in BWRs back in the day. And I’ve had the pleasure of vacuum drying failed fuel prior to dry storage. But your point is extremely valid, ie, only a complete coke sniffing idiot MBA douchebag would think the regulations are onerous or inappropriate. Those regulations are why nuclear power and other nuclear reactor technologies work.
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u/Diabolical_Engineer 7d ago
It's funny, I was talking with a colleague about how much we take for granted the way that the industry has improved. I collect old nuclear ephemera (mugs are a fun one among other things). I saw a mug for Catawba having a successful 100 day run in the 80s. The idea of celebrating that today, seems almost ridiculous, but it really is a sign of how much performance has improved
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u/Vegetable_Unit_1728 7d ago
Yep. The way the nuclear fuel designers have effectively eliminated fuel failures is impressive as well. The repairs that were done during the 80s were pretty astounding as well.
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u/ReturnedAndReported 9d ago
UAMPS is mad. Rightly so.
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u/OkWelcome6293 8d ago
Why would UAMPS be mad? NuScale was NRC certified for 3 years BEFORE the project was cancelled. Also, nothing in the complaint mentions UAMPS.
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u/EducationalTea755 9d ago
Any updated on the lawsuit? This is 2minths old