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Atoms For Peace: the US Nuclear Fleet Build-Out and Modern-Day Revival
- US President Dwight D. Eisenhower held his ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech, during which he would not only promote the peaceful use of nuclear technologies but also lay the groundwork for what would become the International Atomic Energy Agency.
- Today the US operates 94 reactors, which generate nearly 20% of the country’s electricity.
- Canadian engineers, in their Generation II reactor designs, went with heavy water in the pressurized heavy water CANDU reactor (PHWR), as this allowed for the use of unenriched uranium as its fuel.
- The two basic types of LWR that still form the backbone of the US nuclear fleet today are BWRs and PWRs.
- Much as we can see today with the nuclear fleet build-out in China with the Westinghouse AP1000 and derived designs (CAP1000 and Hualong One), strong political and financial backing combined with a mature nuclear power supply chain means that the time from first concrete to grid connection can be as little as four to five years.
- When the US began building its nuclear fleet last century, this knowledge was strong and supply chains robust. During the 1980s and until recently, both were allowed to degrade.
- As the economics of the energy market change, and financing options become available with the scrapping of various anti-nuclear power regulations, there’s now a surge in interest among companies and investors in not only new builds, but also in reviving units that were already turned off and put into decommissioning status.
- Returning a nuclear reactor from a decommissioning state back to an operational one is pretty much an abbreviated case of constructing one: every component has to be inspected, with missing, damaged or otherwise unsuitable components replaced.
- Although the US has in the past demonstrated that it can build many nuclear reactors fast and safely, it would appear that the biggest obstacles are primarily a lack of political willpower, an atrophied nuclear industry and an abundance of red tape.
- The successfully running AP1000 GenIII+ PWRs in China, South Korea, and the US demonstrate that the problem never was US engineering chops.
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