Under Construction: Thoughts on New Nuclear Plant Design and Construction, Part I

Under Construction: Thoughts on New Nuclear Plant Design and Construction, Part I

By Mike Walker - Given that I am a journalist with a background in architecture, and given my work on nuclear power, one of the most-fascinating things for me is learning how new nuclear plants are designed and built. This focus is also crucial to understanding nuclear power in the United States because for a very long period of time, from the late 1970s to the middle of the 2000s, new nuclear power plants simply were not being built. Plans were shelved, NRC applications were left in file cabinets and not sent into One White Flint North. In some instances, blueprints were quite literally frozen in time, with some reactor and containment structure designs being hand-draught on paper or mylar in the early 1980s and never converted to a CADD file. Giant Mayline drafting tables saw scores of plans created on their sleek surfaces only to be stored away in some obscure basement as the regulatory—and more importantly—popular climate of opinion shifted from optimism over nuclear towards fear and the unfounded yet common belief that "nuclear isn't safe". Read More
http://nuclearstreet.com/pro_nuclear_power_blogs/b/science-history-nuclear/archive/2014/12/17/under-construction-thoughts-on-new-nuclear-plant-design-and-construction-part-i.aspx