Why Nuclear Energy Has Been a Flop feat. Jack Devanney

At its birth, nuclear energy entered a highly competitive market
for electricity generation. Oil was so cheap that it was stealing
market share for electricity generation from coal and driving
prices to all-time lows. Despite being a brand new technology
1960s nuclear plants were hitting prices of 3 cents/kWh in
today's dollars. Gaddafi and OPEC then contributed to the price
of oil skyrocketing. All of a sudden, many wanted to build a
nuclear plant and early adopters were reaping huge profits.
Nuclear energy featured prominently in the 1964 US democratic
party platform. Democrats in the USA even threatened private
utilities that if they would not build more nuclear reactors the
government would start public utilities that would. So what
happened? The Rockefeller Foundation was plagued by guilt over
its role in supporting the science that led to the atomic bomb.
In fact Ernest Lawrence the inventor of the cyclotron wrote to
them to tell them that “had it not been for the Rockefeller
Foundation there would be no bomb.” In an attempt to atone for
its pivotal role the Foundation became invested in promoting the
linear no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation-induced harms as a
tool to fight atmospheric weapons testing and try to force the
atomic weapons genie back into the bottle. LNT was accepted by
the nuclear establishment in part because of hubris. The thinking
was that it didn't really matter what radiation model was in
place and how conservative it was since a core meltdown and
radioactive release were thought to be impossible. LNT laid the
groundwork for a regulatory paradigm that has plagued the nuclear
industry since, “ As low as reasonably achievable. (ALARA) What
“reasonably achievable” meant was really “what can you afford?”
Because early on nuclear was very profitable in the context of
the oil crisis and escalating fossil fuel costs there was a lot
of room to maneuver in terms of adding on more and more costly
features to reduce radioactive emissions that had no impact on
health. The regulatory ratchet only tightens one way, so when the
coal industry got its costs under control the inflated costs
imposed by ALARA on nuclear prevented it from becoming
cost-competitive again. ALARA means that nuclear can never be
cheaper than its rivals because it is only reasonable that it
spends any difference on measures to reduce any radioactive
emissions to near zero. As Jack Devanney the principal engineer
and architect of THORCON and author of “Why nuclear energy has
been a flop” explains, the boom of nuclear power in the USA in
particular was short-lived. No new nuclear plant was ordered in
the 20th century after 1974, 5 years before the Three Mile Island
accident. Interestingly the safety performance of the pre-ALARA
early fleet has been exemplary and TMI was the most recent
design. Jack Devanney argues that accidents will happen but
emphasizes that their health consequences will be very minor as
dose rates that the public experiences that are even 10-20x
average background rates are not a health hazard in any
meaningful sense.