U.S. nuclear power industry

Theft of fissionable materials from nuclear plants was put forward as a method by which terrorists or rogue nations could obtain materials for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Not only would such a theft be extremely difficult and dangerous to the perpetrators, but such material would be of little use in weapons. A bomb made with plutonium derived from the U.S. nuclear power industry would require a high degree of technical expertise to construct. It would be unreliable and give low explosive yield, and no bomb made from such material has ever been detonated. 

Blomeke, J. O., Kee, C. W., Salmon, R., Projected Shipments of Special Nuclear Material and Wastes by the U.S. Nuclear Power Industry, USAEC Report ORNL-TM-3965, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, August 1974. 

We begin this chapter with a brief overview of the concept of economic deregulation, as implemented both in the U.S. electricity industry and in other industries. We then discuss the approach taken in this book to understanding the effects of deregulation on nuclear power safety. In particular, our approach rests on a detailed review of how economic deregulation has affected safety in three other industries with important similarities to the U.S. nuclear power industry—namely, the U.S. air and rail industries, and the nuclear power industry in the United Kingdom (U.K.). 

It is reasonable to believe that the effects of economic deregulation of electricity generation will be seen across abroad spectrum of safety-related areas in the U.S. nuclear power industry. The objective of this book is to provide a comprehensive overview of those consequences of electricity deregulation in the U.S. that have the potential to affect the risk of nuclear power plants. In particular, we were interested in the effects of deregulation on ... 

RELEVANCE OF CASE STUDIES TO THE U.S. NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY... 

Finally, we discuss the favorable conditions that accompanied deregulation and/or restructuring in the three case study industries, and may have mitigated some adverse safety consequences. We then consider whether similarly favorable circumstances are likely to exist in the U.S. nuclear power industry. 

In each section, we briefly summarize relevant experiences from the three case studies, discuss whether similar developments are taking place in the U.S. nuclear power industry, and evaluate the implications of the case studies with regard to safety in the U.S. nuclear power industry. Thus, this chapter is intended to synthesize the results of the case studies and assess their relevance to the U.S. nuclear power industry, rather than providing a comprehensive summary of all case study results. 

A number of the issues discussed above seem potentially relevant to the U.S. nuclear power industry. In particular, human performance is critical to safety in all three case study industries as well as in the U.S. nuclear power industry. This is partly because the effectiveness of many hardware-based safety features can be compromised or even negated by inappropriate human actions, but also in part because other (e.g., equipment-related) causes of safety problems have often been addressed more successfully than human performance. Therefore, in the remainder of this section, we discuss the experience of the U.S. nuclear power industry with respect to downsizing, use of contractors, and overall human capital (e.g., experience levels and qualifications), in addition to general human performance issues that may be associated with deregulation. Labor relations are discussed in detail in the next subsection. 

Evidence is mixed about the use of contractors in the U.S. nuclear power industry. Some industry observers (e.g., Miller, 1998, pg. 27) recommended that power plant purchasers consider Staffing for baseload operation, using...contractors for peaks and outages, suggesting that outsourcing may increase with deregulation. However, economies of scale associated with... 

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