Oklo co-founder and COO Caroline Cochran pointed out the stunning fact that no nuclear plant that has submitted an application since the formation of the NRC in 1975 has yet commenced operation.
Assuming accuracy, that's a damning statistic. I don't believe for a minute that every single application that's crossed their desk for nearly half a century was so flawed or unsafe that it was unworkable.
Knowing what I know of governments and bureaucrats, I'd speculate that they're being asked for a bunch of irrelevant or impossible (i.e. doesn't apply to their design) information, and the people in the bureau are being useless and obstructive about it since there's no downsisde for false negatives.
Not really, it is very specifically worded to paint the NRC in bad light. Vogtle, Virgil C. Summer and company have gotten the applications regarding their designs approved. They just haven't managed to bring the construction to a finish yet.
The NRC may be the culprit there also, but that is a completely different question.
None have commenced operation, but NRC has approved applications for new nuclear plants.
It's easy to blame regulators, but a big factor is simply cost. For the last 20-30 years, low fossil fuel costs in the US have meant that the huge investment needed to get a nuclear plant from application to operations didn't make sense. Westinghouse Electric went bankrupt in 2017 because of it. Add in that nuclear has been very out of favor with the public, it makes it really hard to get a reactor built.
It's pretty carefully worded, even if that's true it's possible that NRC has approved lots of applications that haven't commenced operation for other reasons. It's bad regardless, but unclear if NRC is rejecting everything or if projects are failing because of other factors.
It’s not that the applications are denied, it’s that they haven’t started operation. Below that quote it mentions another company that has gotten approval.
Oklo co-founder and COO Caroline Cochran pointed out the stunning fact that no nuclear plant that has submitted an application since the formation of the NRC in 1975 has yet commenced operation.
Assuming accuracy, that's a damning statistic. I don't believe for a minute that every single application that's crossed their desk for nearly half a century was so flawed or unsafe that it was unworkable.
Knowing what I know of governments and bureaucrats, I'd speculate that they're being asked for a bunch of irrelevant or impossible (i.e. doesn't apply to their design) information, and the people in the bureau are being useless and obstructive about it since there's no downsisde for false negatives.