Waves of Uncertainty: The Demise of the Floating Reactor Concept (Part II)
Thomas Wellock
NRC Historian
Offshore Power Systems, apparently, did not appreciate that putting
land-based reactors out to sea was bound to raise new safety,
environmental and regulatory questions. Concerns about ship collisions,
off-shore fishing grounds, barge sinking and the challenge of creating a
new regulatory process for floating reactors were just some of the
unique issues facing regulators.
Even the trade press raised concerns. Nuclear News worried about the
“incredibly tangled mass of overlapping jurisdictions, state, national,
and international law, inter-agency authority” that included new players
such as the U.S. Coast Guard.
Drawing from a 1978 GAO report.
Events conspired to worsen OPS’s prospects. The oil crisis that began
in 1973 made construction financing expensive and slowed electricity
consumption. Facing slack demand, PSEG postponed delivery of the first
floating plant from 1981 to 1985 and later to 1988. Tenneco backed out
of the OPS partnership in 1975. With the entire enterprise threatened,
Westinghouse and the Florida Congressional delegation asked the federal
government to purchase four plants. But, the prospect of “bailing out”
OPS did not appeal to officials in the Ford Administration. The purchase
proposal died.
Floating reactors did not solve regulatory or political problems. The
production facility in Jacksonville needed an NRC manufacturing
license. There were so many technical and regulatory uncertainties that
the licensing review ran three years behind schedule. A 1978 report from
the U.S. General Accounting Office criticized the NRC for what it
believed was an incomplete safety review, particularly for not
accounting for impacts on the ocean ecosystem during an accident where a
melting reactor core broke through the bottom of the barge.
Local and state opposition to the plant was intense. Nearby counties
voted in non-binding referendums 2 to 1 against the Atlantic Generating
Station, and the New Jersey legislature refused to introduce a bill to
turn the offshore site over to PSEG.
Westinghouse held out hope for a brighter future; PSEG didn’t. In
late 1978, the utility announced it canceled its orders for all four of
its floating plants. Slack demand, it noted, was “the only reason” for
the cancellations. “We simply will not need these units” in the
foreseeable future, a utility official admitted.
Others blamed excessive regulation. In March 1979, John O’Leary, a
Department of Energy deputy secretary, provided to the White House a
“grim—even alarming report,” as one staffer said, that the NRC delays
with the OPS license were symptomatic of a larger problem. “It has
become impossible to build energy plants in America” O’Leary said, due
to excessive environmental regulations and an indecisive bureaucracy.
Environmental laws, O’Leary complained, had created “a chain of hurdles
which effectively kill energy projects” and damage to the nation’s
economy. He wanted presidential action.
Drawing from a 1978 GAO report.
Events rendered O’Leary’s plea for action moot. Two and a half weeks
later the Three Mile Island accident occurred, ending any hope of an
imminent industry rebound. The accident raised anew questions about a
core melt accident and further delayed the manufacturing license. The
NRC did not issue a license until 1982. In 1984, Westinghouse formally
abandoned the OPS enterprise, dismantled the Jacksonville facility, and
sold its huge crane to China.
Going to sea, OPS discovered, did not allow it to escape the problems
that beset nuclear power. A novel technological solution could not
overcome public distrust and economic, technical and regulatory
uncertainty. We shall see how Russia handles the challenges.
