Admiral Rickover on Advanced non-LWR licensing

•March 7, 1957 - Admiral Rickover, testimony to Joint Committee on Atomic Energy 

(In response to Rep. Price's question about having a schedule for civilian atomic power plants)

RICKOVER:  From my experience so far, I would say that all reactors are going to cost considerably more and take considerably more time to design and construct than was originally anticipated.  I am, of course, talking from my own experience, but certainly we are pushing our programs hard and still running into many delays, so I would think other people are going to experience the same thing.  As you know, the costs at Shippingport have gone up.

REP: HOLIFIELD:  How much have they gone up?

RICKOVER:  Congress originally authorized the Shippingport project for a total of $100 million.  We estimated then it would cost $85 million.  The latest cost estimate as of today is about $42 million for research and development and $55 million for construction of the nuclear portion of the plant.  Of this $55 million, $5 million was given to the government by Duquesne Light Co. as part of the contract we made with them when they were selected.  So the government cost is $50 million for construction plus $42 million for research and development, which makes a total of about $92 million.  That will be the cost provided we can finish it in a reasonable time.  If the time is stretched out, the cost will go up.

-----   SIDE NOTE.   Everyone read that paragraph again, and think about the relation to today, to Vogtle, to V.C. Summer, to Olkiluoto and Flamanville.  Cost overruns are not only NOT new, they are so old that Rickover was calling the shot BEFORE the first full scale atomic power station was actually started up.  Think about that for a moment.  -----

(Discussion in chamber off the record, then)..

RICKOVER:  The costs of all reactors are going up, sir.  I would estimate from what I have seen you can expect probably at least a 50 percent increase in all of the large reactor projects.  I am talking from my own experience.  This is what my experience indicates.  

(Representative Price, after this, spends a few minutes trying to get Rickover to commit to a predicted date for wide scale operation of large commercial nuclear reactors in the US.  Rickover reminds Rep. Price that this is not his element, and Price asks just for his personal opinion-- which Rickover was not often shy on presenting.  We pick up the discussion at this point as Rickover observes that "some people working on the program are not entirely realistic" and "do not have enough practical experience.")

Rep Price:  When you say they are not considering all problems, what would you mean by that?

RICKOVER:  For instance, some of these reactor designs, as I see them, do not take into account some of the things that might go wrong, so they do not put into the design enough features, in my opinion, which would take care of them.

Rep. Price:  In other words, you do not feel the reactor is a proven thing until you know what it would do in the event of an accident.

RICKOVER:  This is why we build prototypes and try them out.  

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Several days later during further testimony on Shippingport which involved a number of Westinghouse people, the following interesting exchange occurred when it was asked of Westinghouse and Rickover, somewhat insistently, whether or not, or how soon, a 200,000 KW output nuclear power station could be built given that a 60,000 KW nuclear station was in the final stages of construction.  This relates well to today's "paper" reactors, whether LWR or non-LWR.  Keep in mind that Shippingport had included the very largest reactor vessel that could be manufactured, and in many ways was built at the absolute outer limit of the possible technology, when you read this.

Chairman Durham:  Suppose somebody comes to Westinghouse now and says, "We want a reactor that will produce 200,000 kilowatts of power."  At what point could you tell that person that his plant would operate?

Dr. Krasik (Westinghouse):  If this were the first plant of a type?

Chairman Durham:  You have built a plant here at 60,000 kilowatts.  Then someone comes in and says to Westinghouse, "We want 200,000 kilowatts."

Dr. Krasik:  Having done Shippingport and having operated the Shippingport plant we could probably now give a fairly good estimate back in here of what the feasibility would be of a 200,000 kilowatt plant.

RICKOVER:  He said "feasibility" though.  Be careful.

Chairman Durham:  I am trying to get to the point where we can sell some of these.

Rep. Holifield:  You would be selling "feasibility" then if you actually went into the market to sell it.  You wouldn't be selling "actuality."  

(Yes, this is the legendary Chet Holifield. And he was absolutely correct.)

There is a discussion on the price of power from atomic power plants, and Rickover loosely throws around some numbers and advises that while some estimates were made public early, he was adamantly against releasing any estimates at all.  The following exchange then takes place:

RICKOVER:   ....  Of course, one gets engrossed in his own work and he pretty soon begins to think he is pretty good and no one else knows anything.  In order for somebody to turn out a reactor which will produce at 14 to 20 mills, he is going to have to build one a lot better than we now have or know how to build.

Rep. Price:  You know all of the reactors in this power demonstration program.  Can you think of one right now which in your opinion could accomplish this?

RICKOVER:  I wouldn't buy stock in any company which guarantees to produce power at that rate.  If you have any extra money, I would advise you to invest it somewhere else.

Later, Rickover delivers a version of his oft-quoted "real vs. paper reactors" line when Price asks him whether or not the Shippingport plant is as efficient as some other unbuilt nuclear plant types were claimed to be...

RICKOVER:  Any plant you haven't built yet is always more efficient than the one you have built.  That is obvious.  They are all efficient when you haven't done anything on them.  They are in the talking stage.  Then they are all efficient.  They are all cheap.  They are all easy to build, and none have any problems.  That is quite correct.  They do not have any problems at that stage.

---- There is a LOT more testimony in this volume, but the portions I've typed above for you all indicate that Rickover stayed on message at all times.  He never told people that something was ready now if it wasn't.  He never predicted costs below original estimates - always above.  He ALWAYS said that "future designs" were pushed as better than present designs for any number of reasons.  The lessons here are myriad, but telling the public the RIGHT MESSAGE and then STAYING ON THAT MESSAGE are two of the most significant lessons we can put to work regarding communication about nuclear energy.

 

Will Davis