Nuclear Power Regulation: Japan and US compared

From Dickinson College Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Introduction

Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor.

Nuclear Power is the power produced by nuclear fission or fusion. Nuclear fission implies a nucleus splitting and hitting another particle to release energy while nuclear fusion is the practice of fusing two nuclei to form a heavier nucleus capable of releasing energy. The energy produced in nuclear power plants is often used to produce heat and electricity. Nuclear fission is the more useful of the two processes for these methods. According to the World Nuclear Association, nuclear energy provides approximately 14% of the world's electricity [1]. Many scientists hope to increase use of nuclear power in future generations because they emit no carbon dioxide, effectively aiding in the fight against global warming.

Though nuclear energy does have its benefits, there are many drawbacks as well. First, nuclear power plants require massive amounts of metal and concrete, which require large amounts of energy to produce. Secondly, these power plants release radioactive waste that are a danger to both humans and other organisms. Depending on the half life of the radioactive materials, we can be affect for as little as a few minutes to as much as a few billion years. Radioactivity has the ability to spread in many forms including air, water, and even soil. Because of the hazardous health risks, governments need to employ vigorous regulations.

The number of nuclear regulations have only grown since the increase in nuclear accidents including Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and most recently Fukushima. Regulations can cover areas such safety systems, testing and maintenance, training and skills, and waste disposal [2]. The chance of a nuclear power plant meltdown in the United States after 1979 (Three Mile Island) is extremely slim because of the numerous licenses required but the US. Japan on the other hand

United States

Background

Nuclear Power Plant Locations in the US

On March 28, 1979 the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear power plant malfunctioned, leading to the most serious U.S. commercial nuclear operating accident in United States history.There were no deaths or injuries due to the incident; however, there were numerous changes to training, engineering, emergency response, and radiation protection [3].

Ever since the TMI accident in 1979 there has been no newly licensed or built nuclear reactors. The United States government still has 18.5 billion dollars in federal loans guaranteed for additional nuclear power plants. Obama has plans to increase the loans to 54 billion dollars. However, there is a very large fear and uncertainty in the market, preventing people from taking advantage of these loans in addition to a high cost of implementing a nuclear power plant [4].

Currently, there are 104 nuclear power plants in the United States. These plants are governed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission(NRC) which provides legislation laws that nuclear power plants must abide by [5].

Policies

Civilian Use

Atomic Energy Act of 1954

The Atomic Energy Act governs both military and civilian uses of nuclear materials and facilities and gives the NRC the power to enforce and provide standards for these uses. It provides the regulation for these uses and demands a civilian license for them. This policy declares that atomic energy shall only be used to either, improve the general welfare, promote world peace, strengthen competition and private enterprise, or to raise the standard of living. “The Commission may deem necessary or desirable In order to protect health and safety and minimize danger to life or property.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Reorganization Plans of 1970

Established the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and gave it a role in establishing general environmental standards for the protection of the environment from radioactive material. Reorganization Plan No.1 (1980) strengthened the role of the NRC in terms of policy formation and rule making.

Energy Reorganization Act of 1974

The Energy Reorganization Act split the functions of the Atomic Energy Commission into two programs; the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Through this act, the NRC was given responsibility of all regulations while DOE was given oversight for the development of nuclear weapons and promotion of nuclear power.

Nuclear Waste

Uranium Mill Trailings Radiation Control Act of 1978

This Act manages programs for the control and stabilization of both active and inactive uranium mill tailings. This management will prevent or minimize the diffusion of radon into the environment.

Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act states that it is the job and responsibility of the federal government to create a place for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. It also emphasizes that while it is the government’s responsibility to provide a place for the waste, it is the financial responsibility of the generators for this disposal.

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985

This act declares that it’s the State’s responsibility to manage low-level radioactive waste in their states. This must be regulated by the NRC and allows them to form contracts with other states to have one facility for multiple states by which the NRC must also approve. Lastly, it requires the NRC to establish standers for radionuclides present in waste streams within the states.

The NRC mandates the spent nuclear fuel be stored on site in NRC-approved dry storage tanks or water-filled pools. NRC regulation states that facilities must frequently test and monitor the storage and handling of the fuel, to test for radiation and security issues [6].

Non-Proliferation

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act implements standards for the reduction of the amounts of nuclear weapons throughout the nation through licensed NRC exports. This also promotes and strengthens international safety.

Regulatory Agencies of Nuclear Power

Administrative Procedure Act

The Administrative Procedure Act governs the rulemaking processes of the administrative agencies. This act includes:
  1. Requirement of sufficient notice of the rules are given so that a chance to appeal those rules in a professional hearing is provided
  2. The Freedom of Information Act which states that all facets of NRC operations must be public
  3. The Privacy Act which restricts the public from having knowledge regarding specifics of an individual.
  4. The Negotiated Rulemaking Act which permits consensus rulemaking through negotiation to avoid litigation
  5. The Administrative Dispute Resolution Act, which promotes the use of arbitration or mediation in place of enforcement or court litigation.
  6. The Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires the concerns of small groups, be included in the rule making process.
  7. The Congressional Review Act which states that all rules must but approved by Congress sixty days before being put into effect.

National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act states that every major law regulation that could affect the environment must include an environmental impact assessment to the proposed action.

Nuclear Power Plant Licensing Processes

Two-Step Process

In the United States, all regulatory and licensing permits for nuclear power plants are directed under a two-step process, by the NRC. The first step of the process includes an environmental, antitrust, and safety review conducted by the NRC. Under the safety review, an applicant must submit a Safety Analysis Report, which looks at design information involving the reactor, along with data on the proposed building site. The review also looks at accident situations, and preventative measures surrounding them. Under the environmental review, an impact assessment of the plant, its regulatory processes, and its potential effects are required, while the antitrust review requires basic antitrust information.

In the next step, a public meeting is held, to familiarize the public with the project, along with its safety and environmental reports. An NRC Staff will then review the applications and decide whether the application meets all regulations including environmental discharges, response to accidents, and the design of the plant. Once the committee has made its final choice regarding the application, another public meeting is required, this one being conducted by the Atomic Energy Safety and Licensing Board, who will then listen to public concerns and takes final look at safety and environmental reports, especially radioactive and human health reports. After this hearing the application will then provide a Final Safety Analysis Report to supports its operating license application, showing the final design of the facility, along with safety and accident procedures. The NRC will then publish a Final Safety Evaluation, and if the application is successful, will publish a notice on the Federal Register about the acceptance of the application.

Combined License

A combined license process is almost exactly like that of a construction permit under the two step process. It includes almost all the same information, criteria, reports and inspections in an application, and includes a mandatory hearing. After acceptance of the application, the NRC will grant a combined license after verifying that all required tests, inspections, and analyses were completed, resulting in a published notice of accepted operation by the NRC a least 180 days before the plant is scheduled to load its initial fuel. The NRC will consider petitions against the plant at this time, but only if demonstration of failed acceptance criteria is clearly shown.

Early Site Permits

Early permit applications are accepted if a resolution in environmental protection, emergency preparedness, and site safety, are made independent of a plant design. As long as specific safety and environmental characteristics of the site are evaluated then

An early site permit resolves site safety, environmental protection, and emergency preparedness issues independent of a specific nuclear plant design. The early site permit application must address the safety and environmental characteristics of the site and evaluate potential problems that major occur. The NRC will then produce its own report and findings in regard to safety and emergency preparedness, along with environmental impact in a Safety Evaluation Report, and Final Environmental Impact Statement, before allowing construction. The permit then only authorizes limited work on the plant, before a combined license is later issued after NRC final safety reviews and a mandatory public hearing.

Nuclear Insurance

In 1957, Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, which was created to ensure that sufficient funds would be available to pay for public liability claims. The act stated that in the event of property damage or personal injury due to a nuclear accident, that funds would always be available to pay for the damages. More importantly, it placed a limit on the total amount of liability each holder had in the event a nuclear accident. Under the act, owners from plants are liable to pay a $375 million premium every year, for maximum liability coverage, for every reactor they own. In the event of an accident in which damages are above $375 million, money from a second tier private pool is extracted with each plant being assessed a prorated share of the excess up to $111.9 million in addition to the original $375 million. With 104 reactors in the U.S, the maximum amount in the second tier fund equals around $12.6 billion [6].

Costs of Nuclear Power Plants

Energy markets expose owners of power plants to the risk of cost over-runs and plant unreliability The EPA attempts to protect the owners from any economic crisis that could occur for their company in the future. EPACT of 2005 allows a specific number of new nuclear power plants to have a production tax credit, federal loan guarantees, and risk insurance. Without any of these subsidies US companies are extremely unlikely to put in the effort and money to obtain a nuclear plant. There cannot be any government guarantees to take nuclear plants off the market because that means the people’s tax money of the U.S would be going straight to this cause. There therefore must be cost-effective proof that this subsidy route is a worthwhile way to spend taxpayers’ money.

Projection of Rise in Costs for Future Nuclear Power Plants (NC WARN)

The economic performance of nuclear power is heavily dependent on the construction costs. The longer it takes to build the plant, the more of an impact there is on the economics of the nuclear power plant.

Two thirds of generation costs is accounted for by fixed costs. These fixed costs include: the construction cost, paying back the loans, and reliability costs. It is hard to determine construction costs because the constructors cannot predict the exact amount. The government normally bases this cost off of past costs, however these are not always correct. Products the plant would use for construction always highlight their best qualities, yet if these parts fail, that is not taken into account when a future plant is looking at a past plant. If the parts fail, then a new one has to be bought, increasing the construction costs. The cost of capital depends on the United State’s “country risk” and how the “electricity sector is organized”. The cost of the capital is also affected by the electricity companies by shifting the risk from the consumers to the nuclear plant owners/contractors. There is also a problem of decommissioning costs. No one knows exactly where to put waste. If there is funding, that may not cover the total decommissioning cost, which is where the major problem lies. If this happens, the amount that would need to be paid off would come out of taxpayers’ pockets; something the United States must avoid [7].

Japan

History of Nuclear Power in Japan

Nuclear Power Plant Locations in Japan

A research program into nuclear power was established in 1954 when 230 million yen were budgeted to fund the energy and can partly be attributed to Japan’s dependence on imports for over 50% of its energy. This funding was not without stipulation, and the Atomic Energy Basic Law (1955) introduced a year later introduced 3 goals for nuclear research: democratic methods, independent management, and transparency. This law limited the harnessing of nuclear power to times of peace.

The Atomic Energy Commission and two lesser groups, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI), Atomic Fuel Corporation, and Science & Technology Agency, (1956) were founded to promote development and use of nuclear power around the country. The first reactor was a boiling water reactor (BWR) built by GEC and imported from the United Kingdom in 1966. It remained in use until 1998. In 1970, the country built 3 more reactors: pressurized water reactors (PWR’s) and light water reactors (LWR’s). Next, Japan began importing designs from the United States which were in part constructed by Japanese companies.

A strong native base for nuclear construction was built throughout the 1970s as a few Japanese companies, including the well-known Mitsubishi, Toshiba, and Hitachi, became capable of constructing reactors without imported designs or parts. However, there were no standard designs of LWR’s, and so the successful LWR Improvement & Standardization Program was established in 1975 by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to regulate design and improve average capacity, which hovered around 46% from the 1950s-70s, by 1985. A three-phase program was implemented:

  1. Modification of BWR to improve operation
  2. Modification of PWR to improve operation
  3. BWR and PWR designs changed and size of reactors increased to Advanced BWR and PWR’s.

Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) was begun in the late-90s to explore new uranium sources (because while nuclear reactor construction is a domestic industry, uranium fuel remains, like much of Japan’s energy, an import) as well as methods for high-level waste disposal, among other responsibilities. However, PNC did not fulfill government expectations after two accidents, and in 1998 was re-fabricated as the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC). JNC was put in charge of the present day’s hotly contested fast-breeder reactor program (FBR).

JNC and JAERI became one unit, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in 2005 [8].

As of early March 2011, Japan has 54 functioning nuclear power plants. 30 more were in the works for completion by 2030.

Reason for strong nuclear power support: can be traced back to World War II. To compete with other developing nations, necessary for Japan to break its import-energy dependence. The economy was rapidly changing, and domestic and imported coal and oil could not keep up.Corporations like Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Toshiba, backed government nuclear policy and programs because it offered the chance for business expansion through construction [9].

References

  1. "World Energy Needs and Nuclear Power," World Nuclear Association, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf16.html (Accessed April 28, 2011).
  2. "Nuclear Power Explained: Nuclear Power and the Environment," U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=nuclear_environment (Accessed April 28, 2011).
  3. "Accident at Three Mile Island," Almanac of Policy Issues, http://www.policyalmanac.org/environment/archive/three_mile_island.shtml (Accessed April 25, 2011).
  4. "US Nuclear Power Policy," World Nuclear Association, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41_US_nuclear_power_policy.html (Accessed April 24, 2011).
  5. "Our Governing Legislation," U.S. NRC, http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws.html (Accessed April 24, 2011).
  6. "The Economics of Nuclear Power," Greenpeace, http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/report/2007/9/the-economics-of-nuclear-power.pdf (Accessed May 1, 2011).
  7. "Operator Licensing," U.S. NRC, http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operator-licensing.html (Accessed May 2, 2011).
  8. "Nuclear Power in Japan," World Nuclear Association, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html (Accessed April 28, 2011).
  9. Drash, Wayne, "Why Japan Relies on Nuclear Power - CNN," CNN World, http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-14/world/japan.nuclear.history.qa_1_nuclear-power-power-plants-reactor?_s=PM:WORLD (Accessed April 28, 2011).
  10. "Are you Prepared for a Nuclear Reaction," NuclearHealth.org, http://www.nuclearhealth.org/
  11. "Is the NRC Abandoning California," California, http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/03/24/18675478.php
  12. "Map Showing Location of Japan's Nuclear Power Plant," The Rumor Mill, http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes%3Bread=198887
  13. "Where are all the Nuclear Power Plants in the US," Argonne National Labratory, http://crasstalk.com/2011/03/where-are-all-the-nuclear-power-plants-in-the-us/
  14. Solar and Nuclear COsts, the Historic Crossover," NC WARN, http://www.ncwarn.org/2010/07/solar-and-nuclear-costs-the-historic-crossover/