Intellectual capital
The brain drain of nuclear engineers, which affects both builders and regulators, is well known. Baby boomers are retiring. The nuclear engineering departments at major universities have become backwaters as the industry has stagnated. Many of the world's best and brightest youngsters, who once flocked to nuclear engineering, have instead pursued careers in electronics, telecom, and other high-tech industries.
Anticipating the burdens of a licensing a raft of new nuclear plants, Congress authorized the NRC to increase its staff considerably. Klein told the Washington conference that the NRC has upped its staffing levels by 371 positions (that doesn't yet mean live bodies) in fiscal 2006, with another 600 positions to follow. Will the agency be able to fill those slots with well-qualified folks? That remains to be seen.
Klein noted that the NRC will be competing with the private sector and the Department of Energy and its 10 national labs, and even with the armed forces, state and local governments, and health care professions for nuclear science and engineering graduates. In economic terms, that means the price of talent will go up significantly.
During a Q&A session, Klein highlighted another human resource hurdle that hasn't gotten as much attention: skilled trades. It's not possible to build a nuclear plant to the strict quality requirements of the industry and its regulators without highly qualified welders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, concrete finishers, and the like. Klein noted that he made a recent visit to Alabama to check on the progress of TVA's restart of its Browns Ferry Unit 1 (Figure 2). The day he was there, Klein said, TVA was 50 welders short of what it needed on the job.
Another looming problem, said Klein, sending a shiver through many in the audience, is workers' immigration status. "We also have to have a process to assure that we have no undocumented workers" at nuclear construction sites, he said. That's not going to be easy, as major contractors will have "subs of subs of subs" working on the projects. Klein suggested that the builders work with the trade unions on worker documentation. But that adds another layer of costs and another political dimension to the nuclear renaissance. Imagine the headlines when Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Reform and Oversight Committee, announces his hearings on the use of undocumented and illegal workers on the construction of the nation's new nuclear plants.
Politics
The nuclear industry is joyous about the goodies it won in the 2005 Energy Policy Act: a production tax credit (PTC), standby support in the case of delays, and loan guarantees. All may prove illusory, however.
The PTC, the same subsidy enjoyed by renewables, only kicks in when a generating plant is running and generating power and income. FPL's Dewhurst says the standby support is "not much help." What the loan guarantee authority really means isn't yet known (is it an insurance policy or an actual loan?), and it's capped at $2 billion.
What's more, the nuclear industry bet its future on the Republican Party in 2005 and 2006, and it bet wrong. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the industry's trade association, hired a new chief executive and a new chief lobbyist, both Republicans, with ties to then–Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). "They drank Karl Rove's ‘permanent Republican majority' KoolAid," a nuclear utility lobbyist told me recently.
The Democrats ending up winning both the House and the Senate in the November 2006 midterm elections. Karl Rove was discredited. Domenici is now merely a minority member of the energy committee.
Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, a dedicated opponent of burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in his state, became Senate majority leader. Nancy Pelosi of California, never a fan of the nukes, became speaker of the House. Democrats with known anti-nuclear tendencies moved into chairmanships of major committees and subcommittees (although the Senate Energy Committee stayed in New Mexican hands as Jeff Bingaman once again took the controls). The NEI appears politically damaged.
If a Democrat wins the White House in 2008, the NEI will be completely isolated, making life for would-be nuke builders difficult indeed. A Democratic president, most pundits say today, is likely. The president names the NRC chairman and will have at least one vacancy to fill at the NRC. A Democratic president also is likely to make DOE appointments that will provide new interpretations and decisions on the 2005 energy law's provisions.
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