After years of being a steward for a dying industry, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) has experienced a sea change in the way it sees both its role and the
industry it regulates. That change started in 1999, under former chairman Richard
Meserve, and has only accelerated since he stepped down in 2003, as interest in nuclear
energy has grown. Meserve, who holds a doctorate in applied physics from Stanford
University and a law degree from Harvard University, is still guiding nuclear energy
policy as chairman of the International Nuclear Safety Group (INSAG), an advisory
organization to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Meserve, who is also president of the Carnegie Institution for Science, discussed with
the Bulletin his concern that new countries interested in nuclear
power, those seeking to expand their nuclear fleets, and the international regulatory
establishment need to be prepared for the ramifications of a global nuclear expansion.
BAS: In 2004, INSAG said that it would try to define a global safety regime
and explore means to achieve it. Where are you in this process?
MESERVE: The safety regime is actually a web of relationships that involves
international organizations like the IAEA, the Nuclear Energy Agency, and the World
Association of Nuclear Operators. It involves bilateral relationships among regulators.
It involves vendors and companies that construct and service reactors. It involves
professional associations that have worldwide membership and conferences. It involves a
whole cluster of international agreements, conventions, and protocols defining how one
does business. The most important of these is the Convention on Nuclear Safety and the
convention's periodic review meetings. This is just to give you a sense that
the global regime is intended to be self-reinforcing among regulators, operators,
vendors, the technical community, and governments more broadly in order to enhance
performance around the world on safety issues.
The regime has gotten stronger over time, but INSAG has picked out some areas where we
thought more could be done. One area relates to operational experience feedback, which
is the vehicle by which companies and regulators learn about problems with reactors and
how to respond. Basically, it provides the capacity to learn from others'
experience. The international system for experience feedback is very important for
countries that only have a few reactors, because there's a lot of relevant
outside experience that the national regulator or operator may have no direct knowledge
of. Having the capacity to learn from what others have encountered is important. You
want the smaller countries, and in particular the new entrant countries, to have the
benefit of the 40 years of experience from which other countries have learned, in some
cases the hard way, and to avoid making the same mistakes.
BAS: Have you managed to improve the feedback system?
MESERVE: INSAG did a report on this in 2008, because we thought that the
system for interaction among regulators needed to be strengthened and that participating
countries, the IAEA, and the NEA–which jointly run the international feedback
system–needed to invest further resources. An aggressive upgrade effort is
necessary and has not yet occurred.
There is a lot that can be learned from operating experience, as the record in the United
States has shown. Although U.S. reactors have aged, they are much safer than they were
10–15 years ago. That's due partly to equipment upgrades and
partly to increased technical knowledge–to tools such as probabilistic safety
assessments that have given us a lot of insights into where vulnerabilities might lie. A
lot of this improvement is just from having learned how to run these reactors better.
Companies have developed a much greater awareness than they once had about how safety
and economic performance reinforce each other–to improve economic
performance, you need to stay on top of maintenance, training, and upgrades. You
aren't making money if the reactor is down, and the way to make sure that the
reactor isn't down is to pay very close attention to those things that affect
the safety of the reactors.
The human tendency might be to cut corners, but the good generating companies have
learned that this is an unacceptable approach. Objective safety indicators show that
safety performance has greatly improved. Scrams on reactors, the unavailability of
equipment, radiation doses for workers, and releases of radiation to the
environment–all have steadily improved over the last 10–15 years.
This has happened in large part because a lot of attention has been paid to making sure
challenges to the safety system and possible safety threats are reduced or eliminated.
The U.S. feedback system provided by the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations has
helped by assuring that experiences among U.S. operators are shared. But the existing
international system for operational experience feedback needs to be strengthened.
In 2008, we thought that the system for interaction among regulators needed to be
strengthened and that participating countries, the IAEA, and the
NEA–which jointly run the international feedback system–needed
to invest further resources. An aggressive upgrade effort is necessary and has not
yet occurred.
BAS: Do you think that the existing international nuclear regulatory
organizations, such as the IAEA, are ready for new construction and for new countries to
enter the industry?
MESERVE: No. I think that they're starting to get ready, but a
lot of these countries are starting at ground zero and need significant help. INSAG has
been trying to address this issue. The IAEA also is grappling with the challenge of
making sure that these countries realize the full nature of the bargain that
they've undertaken if they build a nuclear plant. Perhaps the easiest step in
the construction of a new nuclear plant is writing the check to pay for it. You also
need to have an infrastructure in place to assure safety, and that infrastructure has
legal, regulatory, educational, financial, and cultural components. The cultural element
is crucial to instill a safety culture, and many of these countries may not have the
appropriate safety culture in any other industry. These countries need to understand
that part of their obligation if they undertake new nuclear construction includes this
range of capacities.
What's equally important is that these capacities will need to be in place for
a century and, unless some way is found to deal with spent fuel, they'll need
to be in place for much longer than that. They need to be in place 10–15
years before a plant goes online, as well as the period of operation, which these days
might be 60 years, and then the period for decommissioning. Because this infrastructure
to ensure safety needs to be in place over that whole period, these countries face a
real challenge. The IAEA and INSAG are trying to make sure that these countries
understand the full set of skills and capabilities that they need to have if
they're going to go nuclear. The idea is not to discourage them, but rather
to make sure they understand what the bargain involves.
BAS: Is a new international framework needed to handle what
you're talking about?
MESERVE: I'm pragmatic about this. I think that creating a new
organization would take time. I think that the charter of the IAEA allows it to fulfill
this function, and I do see this as something that the IAEA has the capacity, in
principle, to do. I say “in principle” because the IAEA confronts
a financial challenge. Like other U.N. agencies, it has been held to basically a zero
real-growth budget for many years. In that time, its obligations in the nonproliferation
area have grown. About 8 percent of the existing regular budget of the IAEA goes to
safety. The remainder goes to nonproliferation activities and for something called
“technical cooperation,” which is basic aid programs to facilitate
the use of nuclear technology in agriculture, health care, and so on. The allocation to
safety is inadequate. If the IAEA is going to fulfill its safety mission, it has to
build its capacity. That's not to say that nonproliferation and technical
cooperation obligations aren't important. It's just to say that
this imbalance needs to be corrected.
BAS: What will be the top issues facing the new IAEA director-general when
he or she takes office later this year?
MESERVE: Well there are major nonproliferation and safety issues on the
agenda. Mohamed ElBaradei has tried to build IAEA capacities in these areas, but he has
not fully succeeded. He launched one major effort called the 20/20 effort–it
was sort of a clever name in the sense that it looked to the year 2020 with a clear-eyed
vision of the future. It looked at what needed to be in place given the changing world.
El-Baradei laid out an agenda, and his successor has to either accept that vision and
charge forward with it or develop some alternative that addresses these issues. The
20/20 effort did a good job of defining the responsibilities the agency has to
undertake.
BAS: What is the future of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)?
What parts of that program might continue under President Barack Obama?
MESERVE: The noncontroversial things that are hard to do, but which
absolutely need to be pursued, are the international dimensions of GNEP. There is a lot
of interest in finding some way to deal with the problem of assuring fuel supply so that
a whole bunch of new countries don't get into the enrichment business.
Similarly, I think that there has to be an international effort to make sure that
reprocessing capabilities don't get built all around the world. I think
it's also not controversial to undertake sophisticated research and
development related to reprocessing to find more proliferation-resistant approaches.
Other countries that are employing reprocessing use the old PUREX technology, which
produces a separated plutonium stream. We should find a technical means to reduce the
risk of reprocessing. We may eventually need to extend the fuel supply, deal with the
waste problem through reprocessing, and design different types of reactors.
It's premature to go forward with any of that in a commercial way, but the
United States ought to participate in the research. I anticipate that that part of the
program will continue in some form.
BAS: What kind of influence does the United States have regarding the
international expansion of nuclear power?
Perhaps the easiest step in the construction of a new nuclear plant is writing the
check to pay for it. You also need to have an infrastructure in place to assure
safety, and that infrastructure has legal, regulatory, educational, financial, and
cultural components.
MESERVE: In terms of reprocessing, the world has not listened to us. The
Japanese have a new reprocessing plant, at a time when the United State's
position is we don't want countries to reprocess. If we want the world to
listen to us, we need to be knowledgeable. We need to be able to contribute to the
discussion. That's not to say we should be encouraging reprocessing, but we
should have some role in the game. I am hopeful that the Obama administration will
restore our capacity to interact cooperatively with other countries and that an effort
to do that in the nuclear area will be part of the overall change in how we approach
other countries.
BAS: The NRC is often accused of being in the pocket of industry. How can it
be more independent going forward?
MESERVE: One should look at the objective indicators. Just observe how
safety indicators have improved over the period of 10–15 years.
That's in part because companies have gotten better at doing their jobs, but
it also reflects the NRC's success. In appropriate cases, the NRC has held
industry's feet to the fire. So my sense is that the NRC has been doing its
job. In INSAG and other forums, I have interactions with international regulators in the
nuclear safety arena, and I have always been struck by their respect for the NRC and
their reliance on the NRC to serve as the pathfinder on nuclear safety issues. I
don't think there's a problem with independence.
BAS: Who might be the next NRC chairman? Your name has been thrown out as a
possibility, are you interested?
MESERVE: When people have asked me whether I would go back to the NRC, I
have been hesitant to say that I wouldn't consider it under any circumstance.
If President Obama were to call me and say, “your country needs
you,” it would be very hard to say no to the president. But that call is
highly unlikely to occur. The republic is not going to falter if I don't go
back to the NRC, and I know that there are many other excellent candidates.
BAS: Is the NRC ready for a U.S. nuclear expansion?
MESERVE: When I first came to the NRC, the expectation was that its business
was going to be the decommissioning of reactors–in fact, the decommissioning
of reactors before the end of their 40-year licenses. Over the time I was there, and I
don't claim credit for this, we and the operators recognized that existing
reactors were actually very reliable and very profitable, and that led some companies to
buy up reactors to expand their nuclear business. Today, most operators are seeking life
extensions for their reactors, because the reactors are running well and they provide
the cheapest power on the grid, other than hydro. So there are lots of incentives to
keep the existing nuclear plants in operation.
When we put in place the amended regulatory system for new construction, a few vendors
sought certification of new designs, but the NRC has only started receiving applications
for combined construction and operating licenses in the last year or two. In fact, about
20 such applications have been filed or are anticipated. The world has changed rather
remarkably in 10 years. An agency that, when I came in 1999, envisioned putting itself
out of business, all of a sudden saw that it was going to be in it for a long time.
There are a few problems with this, however. The NRC staff is made up largely of
experienced professionals, and the way the NRC had handled the decline in business in
the 1990s was by not hiring, by letting attrition deal with the problem of a declining
workload. So we started a major effort in my time to rebuild staff, and that effort has
continued in a very major way since I left. But recruitment is occurring at the same
time by the NRC, the vendors, the support organizations, and the operating
companies–everyone wants people. Unfortunately, the educational pipeline
narrowed when people thought nuclear was going to die. That's turned around,
and people are in the pipeline now because they see that good jobs are available. But
there is a time lag between the appearance of the demand and the availability of people.
That's a challenge for everyone right now including the NRC.
The NRC budget has increased during the last several years in preparation for all the new
applications. The NRC is operating on a continuing resolution this year, however, which
holds the budget at last year's level. This could affect the handling of the
applications that are currently pending, let alone new ones that will be coming in.
BAS: With many operators seeking license extensions beyond 40 years, do we
need to be more and more vigilant as the U.S. nuclear fleet ages?
MESERVE: As I understand it, the 40-year term was specified in the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954, and was not based on any technical assessment. It was driven by an
economic evaluation. People thought that nuclear energy was going to be so cheap that
there would be an economic advantage for companies that were running nuclear plants, and
government wanted to make sure the capacity got transferred to others over time, that
the advantage wasn't perpetual. That's where the 40-year life came
from; it reflected a sort of antitrust concern. I don't think people thought
very deeply at that time about what the actual physical life time of reactors should be.
Of course, within the 40-year license these plants are subject to continuing maintenance
obligations. The active components have to be monitored, repaired, or replaced on a
regular basis. In many respects, a nuclear plant is like an old BMW I once had; as the
years went on, it actually was getting younger every year because I had to keep
replacing and rebuilding things. That's what happens with nuclear plants. But
there is an emphasis in the license renewal on the things that are not necessarily
subject to periodic observation, the concrete structures and so forth, and making sure
those retain integrity. There is an obligation to adjust the maintenance and
surveillance obligations to reflect the fact that the equipment is aging–you
pay very close attention to vulnerable components, replace them if you need to, and
increase your surveillance on things that you don't replace, and make sure
you're on top of the aging issues.
When people have asked me whether I would go back to the NRC, I have been hesitant to
say that I wouldn't consider it under any circumstance. If President
Obama were to call me and say, “Your country needs you,” it
would be very hard to say no to the president.
There is talk now about extending the life of reactors to 80 years. I think that presents
some very difficult technical challenges that we have to understand and work on right
now. We need to understand the degradation phenomena well enough that we can state with
confidence that the plants have a sufficient safety margin as to justify extension of
life.
BAS: What happens if Congress kills Yucca Mountain or its application is
delayed to such an extent that it is for all intents and purposes killed?
MESERVE: It's an interesting challenge for the Obama
administration. I understand Obama has declared that he does not believe that we should
pursue Yucca Mountain. Yet there is an application pending before the NRC that the
Energy Department was obliged by statute to submit, and which the NRC is obliged by
statute to review. Until Congress changes the law, I don't believe the
administration would find it very comfortable to just say that it's going to
cancel Yucca Mountain. Congress has passed a statute that says how to proceed. The
administration conceivably has the power to withdraw the application on the basis that
it needs to reevaluate it and perhaps make some changes or to suspend it, but I
don't know how Obama is going to fulfill the campaign pledge on Yucca
Mountain. It's clear that Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada has a great
interest in making sure that Obama takes some action to curtail Yucca Mountain, but it
will be quite interesting to see how it unfolds.
That being said, we need to recognize that Yucca Mountain would not be available until
after 2020, if it is available at all. This situation is not a crisis. We can store
waste safely and securely in dry cask storage for many, many decades. The volume is not
large, and the cost is not substantial. We need to deal with the waste problem, but we
don't need to rush to solve it. I do not believe that the status of Yucca
Mountain should affect new construction.
BAS: How is the current economic environment impacting the likelihood of a
nuclear revival in the United States?
MESERVE: Let me say that the term “nuclear
renaissance” usually reflects a worldwide change in attitudes toward nuclear
power. The renaissance is well underway, in the sense that there's
construction underway or planned in a variety of places and a whole bunch of new entrant
states that don't have nuclear power plants have evidenced an intention to
build one. So there's a lot going on outside the United States. Inside the
United States, it is clear that the economic issues associated with new construction are
by far the most significant barrier that has to be overcome if we're going to
have much in the way of new nuclear construction.
President Obama has always placed a particular emphasis on renewable energy, by which the
president clearly means solar, biofuels, and things of that ilk. But he has been very
careful to always acknowledge that there is a role for nuclear power. My personal belief
is that if we're going to be serious about addressing climate change in the
way the president has indicated, then almost inevitably there has to be a nuclear
component as part of a sweeping change in our whole energy system. So I would anticipate
that we will see efforts by the administration to encourage nuclear construction as part
of a more comprehensive approach to dealing with climate change issues.
BAS: Why are the financial issues so hard to resolve?
MESERVE: The fundamental economic problem, at least as I see it, is that new
construction presents a huge financial burden and risk for a company to accept at a time
when companies are trying to cut costs and improve their balance sheets. You have
generating companies that have market capitalizations from $20 to
$30 billion contemplating launching projects that, when you include
financing, run from $7 to $10 billion. Investing in a nuclear
power plant would be a bet-your-company proposition. There's a huge risk if
there were cost overruns or delays. So there is a justification–if one wants
to kick start nuclear–for the government to help the companies deal with this
financial challenge. It would have to be justified based on the social advantages of
promoting an energy source that can provide a lot of energy without emitting carbon
dioxide.
Of the existing incentives, the loan guarantees are probably most important. Currently
about $18.5 billion has been appropriated for nuclear power loan guarantees,
which is enough for maybe two or three plants. If we're going to have a lot
of nuclear construction, then that amount has to be increased significantly. I think
that the initial applications for loan guarantees for nuclear power totaled about
$122 billion. So there's a lot more demand than there is available
capacity. Let me say that it's not just nuclear that may need financial
incentives. Loan guarantees may be necessary–may be essential–for
carbon capture and sequestration and building the transmission lines that facilitate
wind power. Incentives will be necessary for solar as well, because the cost per unit
energy is greater than for other technologies. So you need a whole package of incentives
to bring about a change in the energy economy. And of course that is going to be a real
challenge at a time when there are such great pressures on the federal budget.
BAS: Has the economic downturn affected the likelihood of a global nuclear
expansion?
MESERVE: I'm sure it has. The economic malaise that
we're dealing with in the United States is a worldwide phenomenon, and it
will have an impact on projects in other countries. I have not read very much in the
press about how other countries are adapting their spending priorities, but
I'm sure it is happening. The implications for new construction are unclear
to me at this point. I would expect things to change in some of the new entrant
countries, which in many cases are in the developing world. Many of those economies are
being hit very hard right now, and they are going to be challenged to finance major
projects.
