In 1992 the British essay-documentarian Adam Curtis made the fascinating and revealing film A is for Atom, a history of civil nuclear energy in the US, the UK and the USSR.

This hour-long film can be viewed in its entirety via the Internet and, in light of Fukushima, it is essential viewing. Most relevant to the ongoing disaster in Japan is the film’s illuminating account of GE’s Mark I boiling water reactor (BWR) - the same design as used at the ill-fated Fukushima Daiichi facility.

In the early 1960s, GE took a gamble by offering utilities BWRs as loss leaders with the aim of building a nuclear bandwagon that in time would become a profitable business. It paid off in spades. By the end of the decade GE had sold dozens of BWRs at home and abroad.

GE’s Mark I BWR was derived from a nuclear submarine reactor and this design was pursued in part because it used a smaller containment structure. In order to be competitive with fossil fuels the BWRs had to become ever larger: 600 MWe - 1000+ MWe, rather than the initial 100 - 200 MWe reactors.

At these enlarged capacities, however, it was found that the Mark I containment vessel and pressure suppression system were unlikely to prevent a core meltdown and subsequent containment breach following a loss of reactor coolant.

Early on, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), now known as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, knew the Mark I containment vessel to be potentially dangerous. In 1966 the ARC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) met with GE to force them to redesign the containment structures of the BWR. In A is for Atom, the then chairman of the ARCS, Dr. David Okrent, claims GE refused as it would have been uneconomic to do so.

Concerned about increasingly large reactors planned for major cities like Chicago and New York City, the ACRS drafted a letter to the AEC chairman Glenn Seaborg. The letter, which had to published by law, said the ACRS would only agree to Indian Point 2, a 1020 MWe Westinghouse pressurized water reactor (PWR) 24 miles from New York City, if Westinghouse and GE agreed to make all future reactors safer.

Seaborg asked for the letter not to be published for fear of public alarm about the safety of nuclear power and subsequent damage to the nuclear industry. Instead, Seaborg dealt with the problem behind closed doors. Asked why the AEC did not refuse to license such nuclear power plants and demand safer reactors, Seaborg said that this was not a “feasible approach.”

As the plants ordered in the 1960s neared completion, nuclear engineers discovered for themselves the dangers of building large reactors with potentially inadequate safety measures. In 1971, the year that the first BWR was commissioned at Fukushima Daiichi, AEC conducted tests on emergency cooling systems by simulating accidents, such as pipe breaks.

In each case the systems worked but the water failed to fill the core, often being forced out under pressure. Robert Pollard, an AEC reactor engineer at the time, said: “We discovered that our theoretical calculations didn’t have a strong correlation with reality.

“We had no basis for knowing that the emergency cooling systems’ pumps and valves would actually prevent a reactor meltdown. But we just couldn’t admit to the public these safety systems might not do any good - it would probably have been the end of nuclear technology.”

The warnings were ignored and it was only after cooling system failure and partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 that the existing Mark I BWR plants in the US were modified to meet newly-introduced Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards.

A is for Atom does not condemn nuclear power. Rather, it highlights the potential for a compromised safety culture arising from economic expediency and a cosy relationship between manufacturers, regulators and politicians.

Adam Curtis’ film ends with a quote from Valery Legasov, who led the investigation into the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. Legasov committed suicide two years after the explosion at Unit 4. “It is easy to imagine the enemy is the nuclear reactor, but the enemy is not technology,” he said. “I have come to the paradoxical conclusion that technology must be protected from man.”

Much has been learned about nuclear reactor design since the 1960s. Many nuclear engineers still contend that the Mark I BWR was an excellent reactor design. Indisputably, GE’s pioneering technology safely generated countless trillions of kilowatt-hours around the world and continues to do so.

The current Generation III reactors promise enhanced safety systems, but in the drive to be more competitive they are growing ever larger. Areva’s 1650 MWe EPR, able to function with 100 per cent MOx fuel, is the largest reactor ever built. Having been criticized in some quarters for designing an over-engineered, overly-complex PWR, Areva now feels vindicated and sees an excellent business opportunity to sell EPRs around the world.

Areva is convinced that Fukushima would not have happened had the plant been an EPR. That is mere speculation. Larger, more efficient reactors with enhanced safety systems have greater advantages than older reactors, but in a major accident the potential downsides are greater still.

It is imperative that manufacturers, regulators and utilities get the EPR and other new generation reactors right. If there is a repeat of Fukushima with a Generation III reactor, the nuclear power industry will suffer a blow from which it may never recover.

No amount of public relations spin can alter the fact: the disaster which struck the Fukushima Daiichi plant following an earthquake and subsequent tsunami was an absolute catastrophe for Japan and the nuclear power industry.

The knives are now being sharpened for the nuclear power industry. After Fukushima, public approval for nuclear power has reached a low not seen since 1986 and short-term prospects appear bleak.

Environmentalists were out in force to call for nuclear plants to be shut down. Politicians were quick to see the votes to be gained from being tough on nuclear power. Almost instantly, Switzerland placed a moratorium on plans to replace its fleet of reactors.

Chancellor Angela Merkel firstly delayed plans to extend the lifetimes of Germany’s reactors and then closed seven reactors built prior to 1980. Any dim flickers of hope that Germany would ever commence a programme of new build nuclear have surely now been extinguished.

Italy voted to close down its nuclear plants in 1987 following the Chernobyl incident. Ironically there is another nuclear referendum scheduled in June, planned well before Fukushima, and the accident seems certain to boost voter turnout for a national poll on Enel’s plans to build four of Areva’s EPR reactors.

The US nuclear industry, home to several boiling water reactors of similar design to the ill-fated Fukushima Daiichi plant, will be under pressure to fortify its aging fleet, particularly on the West Coast. The stuttering new build programme, which even before Fukushima had been rather half-hearted, may now grind to a halt due to a lack of political will to support it.

Southeast Asia, like Japan, is a region prone to geological instability where environmentalism is strong. Politicians in ecologically sensitive nations like Malaysia, which has plans to build two 1000 MW reactors by 2021, may now stand to gain greatly by opposing nuclear power in general elections, thus killing off new build plans.

Even authoritarian China, which tends to mould public opinion rather than follow it, announced that it would suspend approving new nuclear projects until new safety rules are ready. These measures may be mere politicking: many governments see the value of nuclear power and are playing for time while the understandable ‘moral panic’ subsides.

Reactor vendors will be under pressure to re-evaluate their latest, Generation III designs. Some of these reactors promise passive safety systems in the event of a reactor shutdown to keep the cooling system pumps operating. In reality, however, these reactors will still require back-up power to avoid the potential for core failure.

For utilities seeking to invest in nuclear there will, no doubt, be second thoughts. US utilities often talk about “betting the firm” to build nuclear plants. Costs for nuclear now seem certain to rise. The risks of a catastrophe which writes off valuable assets will have to be reconsidered, and the industry will watch with interest for any potential liability claims from irradiated persons in Japan.

Nuclear power stakeholders I spoke to immediately after the event were pretty angry that media coverage of Japan’s largest on-record earthquake initially focused on the Fukushima crisis and not the far greater death and devastation caused by the tsunami.

This point of view is understandable, but it is easy to see why television news, radio bulletins and newspapers chose to lead with the Fukushima incident. As horrific and deadly as they are, humans find it easier to comprehend the destructive waves of a tsunami than malfunctioning nuclear reactors.

Nuclear physics is complex. Radiation is invisible. Sensational headlines about ‘meltdowns’ and ‘fallout’ play to the layman’s deep, almost irrational fears about nuclear plants going south.

Coal plants, for example, throw far more radiation into the air than nuclear reactors, and coal mining kills and injures thousands every year. The 1984 explosion of the Union Carbide chemical works in Bhopal, India was more hazardous to human health and killed several thousands more than the Chernobyl accident two years later, yet it is the latter which no one forgets.

Nuclear power remains a mystery to most people. Despite its many advantages, poor PR has always blighted the nuclear power industry. Perhaps it always will. Nevertheless, the industry has done too little to put across the meticulously high safety standards to which nuclear plants adhere and the strong record of recent years.

Too late now. Just as the talk of a global nuclear renaissance was rapidly becoming reality, the industry has taken a huge blow that could set it back by several years. There can be no worse PR for nuclear power than live television images of not one, not two, but three reactor buildings exploding and mushroom clouds of smoke billowing into a clear blue Japanese sky.

It would be easy to abandon nuclear power. For most countries, however, that would be a mistake. Most nations do not suffer earthquakes and tsunamis on the scale of Japan and modern reactor technology promises greater safety. Nuclear power remains the most credible source of low-carbon generation offering baseload power and energy security.

His initiative should start and end with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its rules related to clean air and clean water and electric power generation.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of clean air and clean water and believe regulations are necessary to safeguard these vital natural resources. But rulemaking in recent years has led to confusion and conflict over compliance schedules. The EPA would do well to review its rules and compliance timelines.

Environmental rules can and do have an appropriate place. Randy Rawson, head of the American Boiler Manufacturers Association, writes in the February issue of Power Engineering magazine that a lot of his industry’s growth stems from environmental rules. Rather than killing jobs, Rawson argues that rules often help stimulate new equipment orders.

At the same time, I am always amused to hear our Clearing the Air columnist Robynn Andracsek say that if you are confused after reading the Clean Air Act Amendments then you are reading them correctly. She has pointed out more than once some of the incongruities of federal environmental regulation. She has made a strong case, for example, that New Source Review actually works against clean-environment goals by discouraging new investment in equipment.

By David Wagman, Chief Editor, Power Engineering magazine

Earlier this month, Ameren was sued by the Justice Department and EPA for alleged Clean Air Act violations. In a press release responding to the lawsuit, Ameren claimed improvements it made to its power plants were “routine maintenance,” which is generally exempt from New Source Review. Trouble is, EPA and the courts have never clearly defined the term “routine maintenance,” a failure which leads to a substantial gray area for power generators. Years of litigation no doubt will ensue between Ameren and EPA over this standard. Lawyers will be enriched. The environment will grow no cleaner.

Regulatory uncertainty can be a business and investment killer. A review of the rules at the U.S. EPA could lead to greater clarity and an enhanced willingness to invest.

Britain’s electricity market is an ‘energy-only’ market: generators are paid only for the electricity generated rather than for also making generating capacity available to the market as in other nations, including Ireland’s and Northern Ireland’s Single Electricity Market.

This free market model was designed to increase competition between generators to drive power prices down. To this end it had some success, but it has offered the dominant ‘Big Six’ utilities (British Gas, Scottish Power, E.ON, RWE, EDF and Scottish & Southern Energy) with insufficient incentive to invest in new capacity to replace Britain’s aged fleet of power stations.

Left to its own devices, the industry will, and is, building only a few CCGTs. Fair enough, they are quick, easy, relatively cheap to build and rising fuel costs can be easily passed on to the consumer.

But as intermittent sources of generation of wind are ramped up, even the building of gas plant is under threat. An increasing volume of wind will push real-time power prices negative at times of high output/low demand and the inherent uncertainty with volatile power prices has made the existing ‘energy only’ model untenable.

Under the new proposals, Britain will return to a capacity payment mechanism to incentivize the building of back-up plant such as gas fired power stations in order to handle surges in demand and intermittent supply from wind and other renewable sources.

The capacity payments would also pay to import electricity from European countries whose peaks differ from ours, thus saving on the need for new plant. Companies could also contract to provide reductions in demand at peak times (for example by temporary switching off of appliances such as fridges or the suspension of industrial processes). Payments would also support off-peak storage schemes.

Even more radical is the proposal to rip up the existing Renewables Obligation subsidy scheme with a feed-in tariff with long-term contracts to give low-carbon investors, including in nuclear power, a guaranteed power price. The investor building plant at the lowest cost could win the contract, says the government.

Needless to say, this is far removed from the current ultra-liberalized model where the market is left to decide what power plants are built. These measures in effect comprise a state subsidy programme for the construction of a new fleet of nuclear power plants.

Time will tell whether or not Britain will witness construction of the 8-10 nuclear plants it wants to see. While the measures negate power price risk, there continue to be major doubts over the construction risk of new build nuclear, as the commercial disasters at Flamanville 3 and Olkiluoto 3 testify.

However, these radical changes should attract new investors in the power industry, increasing competition and loosening the stranglehold on generation and therefore supply that the Big Six have enjoyed for too long in Britain. This may be the most radical change of all.

Speaking to Power Engineering International, Kidd said: “Warren Buffett’s nuclear fuel bank is irrelevant. It’s a solution looking for a problem. There is a certain amount of paranoia in the United States about the potential for nuclear proliferation coming from Iran and North Korea. The fuel bank is not necessary and it’s not relevant to the future of nuclear.”

Speaking at a conference in Hong Kong, Kidd said most Asian nations don’t need or want a domestic uranium enrichment programme to develop civil nuclear power.

“Lack of uranium didn’t stop Japan. It very rapidly built a large nuclear programme without its own uranium. It wasn’t a barrier for them and I don’t think it need be a barrier in Asia. Countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia won’t have any problem in sourcing uranium and enrichment from the world market.

“Hardly any of the South East Asian nations will be tempted to develop their own enrichment programme and so this provision of a fuel bank is largely unnecessary. The market works very efficiently and is very competitive and there shouldn’t be a problem in these countries sourcing uranium.”

It was suggested that countries like Malaysia and Thailand could be tempted to follow the path chosen by Vietnam, which agreed with Russia’s Rosatom to build two 1200 MW VVER reactors at Phuoc Dinh, in the southern Ninh Thuan province. In line with its agreements with Iran and Turkey, Russia will supply nuclear fuel for Ninh Thuan I, as well as removing spent fuel for reprocessing, thus largely solving the problem of high level waste disposal.

French utility EDF, owner of former state-owned nuclear utility British Energy, wants to build four of Areva’s EPRs (European Pressurized Reactors), with the first due online at Hinkley Point C in 2018. But issues over planning, financing, licensing and construction delays have put that deadline in doubt, said Hergen Haye.

Speaking at the European Nuclear Supply Chain conference in London, Haye said DECC is concerned that EDF could repeat the mistakes seen at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, where the construction of an EPR has been delayed by four years and is 50 per cent over budget.

Haye told Power Engineering International: “Is the 2018 deadline very challenging? Yes. The UK is in a better position as the EPR won’t be a first-of-a-kind project, but we are worried about the Finland example being repeated in terms of delays and cost-overruns. There is a monumental challenge ahead of us.”

Haye said DECC was facing down opposition from local residents near Hinkley Point. “We must never take the local community for granted or there will be an uprising. When we tell local people that Hinkley Point C will take seven years to build and will be operating for 40 years, they have concerns over their quality of life.”

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace could still scupper plans for a new fleet, admitted the DECC official, but he was confident the UK nuclear regulator’s Generic Design Assessment of the EPR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors was robust.

“The HSE [Health and Safety Executive] is making real progress,” he said. “But it looks like the June 2011 deadline for the GDA may not be met and interim DACs [Design Acceptance Confirmation] will be issued. It’s tough, but it shouldn’t delay the licensing process.”

According to Kevin Allars, head of the HSE’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, EDF has a self-imposed deadline of December 2012 for the first pouring of nuclear safety-related concrete. Professor Stephen Thomas of Greenwich University said, however, the interim DACs “wouldn’t be worth the paper they are printed on” to potential investors in nuclear power.

To assure investors in nuclear power, DECC and energy markets regulator Ofgem will announce before the end of the year the “biggest electricity market reform package since privatization of the industry,” said Haye. 

Government policy rules out direct subsidy for nuclear power plants, but there are plans afoot to introduce support mechanisms for low-carbon power generation such as a guaranteed minimum price for carbon permits traded under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, the expansion of the existing Renewables Obligation to cover all low-carbon generation and possibly capacity payments, which would reward generators for availability of power plants.

Haye appeared to rule out a feed-in tariff for nuclear power, as that would be perceived as a specific instrument to support nuclear rather than a range of low-carbon technologies. “Nuclear power is a mature technology and it shouldn’t receive direct payment, ” he said. “A low carbon obligation would benefit all low-carbon sources, including nuclear.”

Professor Thomas predicted the UK reforms would be significantly watered down and argued that nuclear power was a non-starter in Britain’s liberalized electricity market. “Turnkey, fixed price contracts are not credible after Olkiluoto 3. Unless the UK returns to a more regulated electricity market and utilities can assume full cost-recovery then banks are not willing to take the risk.”

But Haye remains convinced the 2018 deadline for Hinkley Point C would be met. “There is a lot to be done and it is very important that all the participants work to the same timetable,” he said. “But I believe 2018 will definitely be achieved. Famous last words!”

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