•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.
---------
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
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