AHC: Three Mile Island (1979) doesn’t lead to decline of U.S. nuclear power industry?

[GeographyDude]

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/NucEne/tmi.html

Notice the part at top. The safety valve did not fully close. And yet it closed enough to flip the indicator saying it had closed. This is a scary type of accident.

And yet . . .

 

[GeographyDude]

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/NucEne/tmi.html

‘ . . . Even though the reactor has "scrammed" and the control rods have stopped the fission chain reaction, . . . ’

So, the system worked?

Yes, it very much looks this way. Even though it’s the scary type of accident in which we are given wrong information, looks like the system works. A small to modest release of radioactive steam, but no real risk of catastrophic failure.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Have the Brown's Ferry fire in 1975 go to a full meltdown, so it's Brown's Ferry that leads to the decline of the nuclear power industry, not Three Mile Island. Ta-daaa.

 

[Electric Monk]

Cost.

New build times were at 44 months in 1976 then 54 months by 1980 (34 in 1972). New build cost was 1.7 billion (1983) versus 170 million in 1972.

Some ~75 cancelled plants IOTL. That's around 90,000 megawatts, or around 18% of OTL generation 2014. Only way to keep that building is a federal intervention in the tens of billions of dollar range to secure loans. No secret deals with Saudi Arabia might help too as it would keep the US much more worried about OPEC weaponization of oil.

 

[History Learner]

Mike McCormack is able to win re-election in 1980 and formalize the Pro-Fusion lobbying force in Congress he was in the process of building IOTL; fusion funding will probably remain strong throughout the 1980s. The Center for Fusion Engineering will be created, while funds will continue to be made available for Princeton’s Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) to operate. Their Compact Ignition Tokamak (CIT) also will likely get built, as will Oak Ridge's Elmo Bumpy Torus preliminary design for a 1200 MW magnetic fusion power plant while Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s Mirror Fusion Test Reactor will actually get a chance to function instead of being shutdown on the day it was supposed to open in 1986. Once you get into the 1990s with all of this funding, sheer bureaucratic inertia will begin to kick in and help carry Fusion over the finish line while continuous successful results will help keep public support for the project. Around 2000 the break-even point will have been surpassed and the first electric generating station should come online as stipulated in the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980 and based on 1976 projections by the ERDA.

 

[GeographyDude]

Have the Brown's Ferry fire in 1975 go to a full meltdown, . . .

I like the creativity, but not this direction!

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . No secret deals with Saudi Arabia might help too as it would keep the US much more worried about OPEC weaponization of oil.

I read the beginning of the article you linked to and do plan to read all of it.

I do think most of our problems are institutional and right in front of us and right in the open, and not secret deals.

 

[unclepatrick]

I recall reading some were that someone had ordered that valves be replaced.
They were worried about a possible problem with the type of valve.
Three Mile Island had not gotten around to replacing the valves yet.

 

[ChadMachine999]

Nuclear energy would remain very strong in the US. This could potentially influence US-allied countries to invest more in nuclear energy. With a greater amount of energy done through Nuclear it’s likely that Global Warming would come around slower than IOTL. Another side effect is that the Gulf States would be less wealth, less stable, and have a lot less influence. This might mean that Sandman Hussain might get away with annexing Kuwait, sense they will be much more unknown and their will be less foreign workers there which means the coalitions nations are less likely to care. Also with poorer gulf state Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen would not happen.

 

[gatordad699]

Copy a lot of the French model. Settle on 1 type of BWR and 1 type of PWR. Reprocess fuel. Don’t be so secretive and teach the public. Much, much simpler designs. Build in factory and ship to site as much as possible. Have NRC much more like Naval Reactors. Not there to stop you from building or running, there to actually help you run better. Better training in the early days. Keep companies from working operators to extreme fatigue. Put in place and enforce fatigue rules. Play better politics. Tell people in that time period how dirty coal and oil plants are.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Don’t be so secretive and teach the public.

This is really the big one to me. Lots of things can be done differently, but the accidents that we had were NOT things that would have destroyed an industry that hadn't managed to attract a hell of a lot of distrust and misunderstanding to begin with.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . No secret deals with Saudi Arabia might help too as it would keep the US much more worried about OPEC weaponization of oil.

Okay, let's take a look.

The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret

Bloomberg, Andrea Wong, May 30, 2016

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...behind-saudi-arabia-s-41-year-u-s-debt-secret

' . . . the appeal of U.S. government debt and how to sell the Saudis on the idea that America was the safest place to park their petrodollars. . . '

' . . . The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending. . . '

Sounds like a reasonable deal. The Saudis did, however, insist on keeping it secret.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...behind-saudi-arabia-s-41-year-u-s-debt-secret

' . . . even after the Government Accountability Office, in a 1979 investigation, found “no statistical or legal basis” for the blackout. The GAO didn’t have power to force the Treasury to turn over the data, . . . '

So just one more thing, seemingly a small thing, which erodes the information our own citizens have.

 

[GeographyDude]

The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret

Bloomberg, Andrea Wong, May 30, 2016

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...behind-saudi-arabia-s-41-year-u-s-debt-secret

' . . . In April [2016], Saudi Arabia warned it would start selling as much as $750 billion in Treasuries and other assets if Congress passes a bill allowing the kingdom to be held liable in U.S. courts for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the New York Times. The threat comes amid a renewed push by presidential candidates and legislators from both the Democratic and Republican parties to declassify a 28-page section . . . '

Okay, 15 out of the 19 Sept. 11th terrorists were Saudi citizens. Osama bid Laden himself was a Saudi citizen. I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

It's a possibility some Saudi officials probably mid-level were involved, either crimes of omission or commission. And we could probably push them to turn over a couple of officials. They might even turn over a mid-level official who had nothing to do with it, just someone on the outs, and that doesn't help us.

Or, we could use this as a bargaining chip to get some reforms which might really make a difference.

And oh yes, the money. Shit, it occurs to me that one option is to just not pay it back, especially if they're going to be like that. Kind of like the old joke, you owe the bank ten thousand dollars due Monday, you have real problems, if you owe the bank 10 million dollars, the bank has real problems. Or, pay them back very slowly if it comes to it.

 

[Drizzt]

Well speaking of the Sauds, perhaps some scandal involving anti-nuclear activists being revealed to be on the Saudi payroll might do the trick.

 

[Electric Monk]

The Saudi deal I brought up for exactly the reason I said I did, it allowed the USA to be confident that OPEC wouldn’t assault them with oil pricing. Without that nuclear power would be more important for national security reasons.

I dunno how you skipped the important part of my post: A plant cost ten times as much and took nearly twice as long to build going from 1972 to 1983.

Edit: data!
historical costs

Between 1967 and 1972, the 48 reactors that were completed before the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 began construction. Their OCC rise from a range of $600–$900/kW to approximately $1800–$2500/kW. These reactors follow a trend of increasing costs by 187%, or an annualized rate of 23%.

…

As shown in Fig. 3 in blue, reactors that received their operating licenses before the TMI accident experience mild cost escalation. But for reactors that were under construction during Three Mile Island and eventually completed afterwards, shown in red, median costs are 2.8 times higher than pre-TMI costs and median durations are 2.2 times higher than pre-TMI durations. Post-TMI, overnight costs rise with construction duration, even though OCC excludes the costs of interest during construction. This suggests that other duration-related issues such as licensing, regulatory delays, or back-fit requirements are a significant contributor to the rising OCC trend.

It looks like TMI screwed up the regulatory environment and retrofitting during construction crippled the US nuclear industry. Note however the rest of the western world (presumably) increased safety without increasing costs the same way.

Man I hate being wrong. Oh well. Anyway that means the solution is political: an entirely different set of safety standards based on other countries could well have avoided the problem.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . I dunno how you skipped the important part of my post: A plant cost ten times as much and took nearly twice as long to build going from 1972 to 1983. . .

I went with the colorful part first, as we humans often do. In this case, the article which you recommended.

I do agree that money determines what happens, at least 80% of the time.

 

[History Learner]

I wonder if a turn to Thorium Reactors could be made. It'd certainly do wonders for Appalachia once coal starts to decline, due to the Thorium deposits there that can be mined instead.

 

[GeographyDude]

Well speaking of the Sauds, perhaps some scandal involving anti-nuclear activists being revealed to be on the Saudi payroll might do the trick.

And often it’s the thing not true which gets people rolling! Or, the thing which is partially true and more serves as metaphor which really gets under people’s skin.

Okay, what if a medium rift develops between us and the Saudis . . .

Next question, when did construction get rolling on the Alaskan pipeline, and when did the oil actually start flowing?

 

[GeographyDude]

Trans-Alaska Pipeline

http://historythings.com/on-this-day-june-20th/

Oil started flowing on June 20, 1977.

And even if we have a medium rift with Saudi Arabia, they’re still selling on the world market and we’re still buying on the world market.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

Trans-Alaska Pipeline

http://historythings.com/on-this-day-june-20th/

Oil started flowing on June 20, 1977.

And even if we have a medium rift with Saudi Arabia, they’re still selling on the world market and we’re still buying on the world market.

Well... when they can pump oil out of the ground and ship it at a production cost of barely over 10bucks a barrel, it's hard to say no. Especially while shale is still tuning up in terms of getting the initial infastructure up and running.

Be that as it may, alot does depend on just how much the increased use of nuclear power speeds up technology and the political arguement on rod management. The plant in my hometown has spent fuel in cooling pools that were scheduled to be shipped out over a decade ago but are still there because we have nowhere to send them. I imagine more prolific use of plants might make the search a bit more pressing, but will it ever overcome fierce local resistance?