TABLE 6-1 Overnight Capital Cost Components as Shown in the Economics Chapter

NOTES: For contemporary and recent nuclear plant projects, capital cost comprises approximately 80 percent of the life cycle cost. The above breakdown of costs will differ for various advanced reactor configurations as presented to the committee. Overnight costs are the costs of a construction project if no interest is incurred during construction, as if the project were completed “overnight.” The “nuclear island” consists of the reactor and components inside the reactor containment, but does not include the turbine generator,¹ the condenser, the cooling structures, the generator, or the water intake or outflow structures. The “civil work” includes all the structures, including even the foundation for the nuclear island, that constitute the power plant.

SOURCE: J. Buongiorno, M. Corradini, J. Parsons, et al., 2018, “The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World,” Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative, https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Future-of-Nuclear-Energy-in-a-Carbon-Constrained-World.pdf.

pilot project, design of onsite facilities, design of manufacturing facilities, completeness of engineering design, and supply chain issues. The next section addresses the construction phase, also describing the potential role of digital technologies, and ends by discussing the life cycle phases of a nuclear project including commissioning. The section on the life cycle of a nuclear project is followed by a discussion of the product deployment model. The chapter also identifies the limitations in current practice that could potentially hinder the deployment of new NPPs, and each section indicates where owners must develop a robust risk management plan and active mitigation strategies.

UNDERSTANDING THE LIFE CYCLE OF A NUCLEAR PROJECT

An intrinsic component of the life cycle of any fixed facility (i.e., installed or constructed on a fixed site) is what is commonly called the project planning phase, which includes organizational decisions and all aspects of project definition. Once the engineering design is completed and any necessary licenses obtained, the project can start the construction phase. Depending on the licensing scheme used, another license may be needed to progress to the operations phase of the project, when the reactor is started up and begins to produce electric power for commissioning, eventually attaining normal operations producing electricity or a combination of energy sources and outputs, depending on the objectives of the owner. Upon completion of its service life, the plant will reach its decommissioning phase, discussed in Chapter 7.

Current and past NPP projects in Western Europe and the United States have encountered significant cost and schedule impacts which, in the case of the V.C. Summer plant in South Carolina, resulted in the cancellation of the project after an expenditure of roughly $9 billion (Plumer 2017). Past studies have shown that construction activities that were labor intensive and required more engineering and construction supervision to ensure compliance with standards, including safety standards, are the ones where the most cost growth is seen (Eash-Gates et al. 2020). By developing modular technologies such as those under review in the ongoing DOE programs, some of the labor/supervision–intensive activities can be made more efficient, thereby controlling cost. However, problems with either faulty design or quality of delivered components can cause schedule extensions, leading to daily accrual of home office services,² salaried field supervision, and significant costs associated with heavy equipment rentals—for example, cranes (see Figure 6-1).

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¹ In some advanced reactor configurations such as non-water-cooled SMRs, the turbine generator is integrated into the SMR module (Prieto 2022).

² Home office services include engineering design, purchasing and expediting, cost control, and planning and scheduling (Eash-Gates et al. 2020).

Ample research on the challenges and failures of megaprojects exists and the lessons should be applied to future nuclear project planning and construction (Eash-Gates et al. 2020; Flyvbjerg et al. 2003; IAEA 2012; Merrow 2021; NRC 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005; Prieto 2011; Tuohy and Yonemura 2008), although it should be noted that past studies have cited negative learning for nuclear (Grubler 2010; Lester and McCabe 1993).

The Broader Human Capital Challenge

A critical factor in nuclear project management is availability of the talent necessary to successfully execute any new build. The International Energy Agency lists human capital development as one of the key factors to address if nuclear energy is to play a significant role in energy system decarbonization, stating “[m]aintaining human skills and industrial expertise should be a priority for countries that aim to continue relying on nuclear power” (IEA 2019). Utilities have generally not retained the talent on their staff to execute these large projects given the limited deployment of nuclear technology in the past 30 years in the United States. This shortfall in talent could become equally limiting across the supply chain, operations, and regulatory organizations that must support any large-scale growth in nuclear deployment. It should be noted, however, that the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 contains provisions³ that could bolster the nuclear construction workforce.

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³ The CHIPS and Science Act (H.R. 4346), signed by President Biden on August 9, 2022, contains several provisions for training new generations of nuclear engineers and developing the nuclear workforce. The Act establishes a new Advanced Nuclear Research Infrastructure Enhancement Subprogram, which will establish up to four new research reactors. The Act also authorizes additional funding for the University Nuclear Leadership Program (NEUP), increasing its annual funding from $30 million to $45 million from fiscal year 2023 to fiscal year 2025.

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⁴ Delivery method would include such things as contract type, use of factory-manufactured major components or complete reactor, or on-site construction of the plant, as has been the norm to this point in the United States.

TABLE 6-2 Core Owner Team Functions

^a Additions to Merrow’s list from the committee.

SOURCE: Committee generated, modified from E.W. Merrow, 2011, Industrial Megaprojects: Concepts, Strategies, and Practices for Success, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

are not static but will incur adjustments to the skills mix as the project progresses (Merrow 2021). In addition, the total team size could be shared by the owner (or licensee) and a dedicated joint venture partner.

Considering that large EPC companies may not have the financial capacity to accept equity risk, such risk is inevitably borne by the owner or licensee (and its financial backers). However, absent a strong internal staff, the owner typically does not have the capacity to manage or even evaluate the risks. This problem is not unique to the

nuclear industry: generally, all heavy industry in the United States, Europe, and Australia suffers from three sources of flaws. These include substandard technical expertise, which is outsourced and reduced in capacity; substandard communication among contractors and the owner; and lack of financial accountability (Brewer 2021; Merrow 2021). The trend has been to outsource most aspects of large megaprojects in these countries with the result that there is loss of a capacity to oversee the projects by those bearing the financial risk (Brewer 2021; Merrow 2021). Notably, Asian firms generally did not follow this model (Brewer 2021; Merrow 2021).

The committee recognizes that some advanced reactor projects intend to rely on a reactor and associated equipment that could be manufactured entirely in a factory setting. Such reactor installations could eventually include only one reactor on the site or several, depending on demand, economics, and regulatory considerations. Nonetheless, project planning that includes evaluation of risk, economics, alternatives, public engagement, schedule, and quality assurance must still be performed. Supply chains that require materials and parts from external sources will be an important part of the planning. Siting considerations alone include understanding and evaluation of physical considerations (e.g., geologic and soils conditions, elevation of the site above adjacent water bodies, seismic risk, severe weather conditions), as well as community acceptance, workforce availability, and supporting facilities (such as housing and emergency response capability).

In the current environment, utility owners do not have the resources of engineers, planners, and construction professionals to manage large construction projects such as a new nuclear build. The utility owner is more analogous, in organization, to the Department of Veterans Affairs than to the USACE or NAVFAC (see Box 6-1), in that it is unlikely to have an in-house, well-experienced project management team capable of planning and managing a major nuclear project. To circumvent the lack of professional capacity within owner organizations, the committee has considered alternative organizational approaches, and here highlight two such alternative approaches that may merit consideration.

First, those companies that are interested in pursuing new construction may consider forming a consortium or joint venture to undertake the construction. There are 71 companies that operate NPPs currently in the United States (NEI 2020) and it is not plausible that many of those companies that seek to expand their nuclear involvement could justify the development of a permanent project staff to provide the range of skills that are necessary for project success. By joining forces to create a specialized entity to purse construction, the necessary skilled staff could be assembled to pursue numerous projects and could justify and sustain the wide range of skills that are necessary. The pursuit of multiple projects would allow learning to occur and ideally would enable costs to go down over time. Such an entity could undertake responsibility only for construction but perhaps even could evolve into a vehicle by which multiple companies could engage in ownership of projects, reducing the risk to which each is exposed.

Second, an advanced reactor manufacturer or vendor could consider forming an equity joint venture or consortium with the plant owner and an EPC firm with nuclear build experience to thereby develop the in-house capabilities to plan, manage, and construct the new reactor installations. See Box 6-2 for examples of joint ventures and consortia in the private sector.

Optimism Bias

One pernicious source of risk in the planning phase of a nuclear project is optimism bias, a cognitive bias that causes a person or group to believe that the chances of experiencing a positive (or planned) outcome are more likely than a negative outcome regardless of the actual probabilities. This can become a particularly nefarious form of risk in the context of project planning when an (invalid) underestimation becomes a benchmark by which a project’s success is measured. Moreover, optimism bias can result in inadequate planning for and costing of a nuclear project. The committee is concerned about the presence of optimism bias in the planning for advanced reactors, based on the discussions with vendors and promoters.

Optimism bias does not just afflict the nuclear industry, but other large infrastructure projects as well. Flyvbjerg and others (2003) have identified optimism bias in transportation projects that underestimate costs by 50–100 percent, caused largely by unrealistic initial cost estimation. Some large project promoters may also underestimate costs and schedule through “strategic misrepresentation,” a deliberate effort to attract financing from governments or private investors (Flyvbjerg 2006; Flyvbjerg et al. 2003). The resulting cost overruns and schedule impacts may threaten the project’s viability (as happened with the Summer nuclear reactor new build) and impact the overall industry.

Simply stated, optimism bias can present a significant threat to the success of a nuclear project. If unrealistic expectations are established related to cost, risk, and schedule, and the expectations are not realized, the reaction of corporate executives, regulators, and the public could exert pressures that are not successfully overcome. Several methods to reduce optimism bias in large projects include forecast accuracy assessments on a combination

of forecasts from multiple different sources (Kott and Perconti 2018); the development of standard forecasting language guidelines to reduce interpretive error by evaluators in the assessment of forecast accuracy (Fye et al. 2013); use of functional analysis methodologies in combination with expert panels to cross-check and validate projections (Apreda et al. 2019); and an independent review of the project (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003). In the case of nuclear power, the reviewers must be unaffiliated with vendors and government agencies involved with the projects.

The Department of Energy (DOE), through its Office of Project Management, institutes such independent reviews for its own megaprojects, many of which are projects for nuclear facilities that are unique or first of a kind (FOAK) (DOE 2010). DOE instituted a mandatory requirement for Independent Cost Estimates (ICEs) for its megaprojects. A cost/size threshold is set, above which the project must undergo an ICE that includes technical and programmatic risk. Typically, these ICEs are performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or another credible organization.

It is during the planning phase that major decisions are made, including decisions on financing, siting, technology, planned construction or installation methodology, and eventually a go/no-go decision. Recent research by Budzier and others (2018) suggests that a process be employed to minimize optimism bias, and thus result in decisions that are more fact and experience based. They suggest comparing with past similar projects, considering the risk involved in those projects, and accordingly adjusting the cost estimate. Such a methodology could be incorporated into an independent peer review, including an independent cost estimate, to assist with the major decisions, as illustrated in Box 6-3. Of course, to incorporate this methodology, there must be a set of FOAK projects upon which to refer, including the factory fabrication portion and the on-site construction elements.

Organizational Learning

To improve cost and schedule performance on nuclear power projects, there is a need to ensure that experience from current and prior projects can be effectively carried forward for future projects. A 2015 study by Talabi and Fischbeck found evidence of learning in NPP operation and maintenance, but not in NPP construction. The study assessed the performance of constructors of U.S. plants, which include General Electric, Babcock and Wilcox, Combustion Engineering, and Westinghouse. To explore the effect of constructor experience, the relationship between experience and both cost and schedule overruns was assessed. Figures 6-2 and 6-3 respectively show the relationship for percentage cost overruns and schedule delays relative to constructor experience. The results show that there is no appreciable relationship, suggesting that level of constructor experience is not an explanatory variable for cost and schedule overruns.

The study showed that after the establishment of the Institute for Nuclear Power Operators (INPO) in December 1979 as a response to the Three-Mile Island accident, there was a marked decrease in the yearly O&M cost trend

and improvement in O&M performance citing the NRC’s safety improvement observations for nuclear power (Talabi and Fischbeck 2015; USNRC 2009). INPO, a not-for-profit that promotes O&M organizational learning,⁵ demonstrated how this type of learning can improve O&M cost and performance for power plants. For nuclear construction cost, there is no dedicated organization or vehicle for sharing the knowledge gained across projects and over construction periods. Thus, a similar program for the planning and construction phase of advanced reactors could add value.

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⁵ Organizational learning is the process by which an organization improves itself over time through gaining experience and using that experience to create knowledge. The knowledge created is then transferred and preserved within the organization.

Design of Onsite Facilities

Advanced reactor developers are planning to use several different configurations for deployment. While it may be possible to factory fabricate some portions of buildings/facilities, all new configurations will still require some level of on-site construction. In one example, the design requires placing nuclear components 90 feet below grade; in others, non-nuclear equipment such as steam turbine generators and ancillary equipment will require site preparation, foundations, and other typical civil, electrical, and mechanical work requiring traditional engineering design for on-site construction.

The challenges with the non-factory fabricated on-site construction are viewed in a similar way as other contemporary large construction projects. The design team must consider a host of environmental and site-specific factors, such as the flood zone, severe weather threats and impacts, seismic zone, groundwater and surface water environmental considerations, how the local construction environment could affect cost and schedule, and similar factors. While the reactor fabricator may specify the parameters for on-site non-nuclear supporting facilities and infrastructure, typically the owner of the site, along with the design team, would be the responsible and accountable entity to provide the engineering design for the overall site.

The committee views the factory fabrication of the nuclear reactor and other nuclear island components as a potentially positive evolution in the nuclear industry. But engineering and construction will still need to consider specific site characteristics and location. In other words, notwithstanding the standardization of the reactor itself and related nuclear components, the remainder of the engineering work could be susceptible to inadequate risk identification and mitigation, challenges posed by individual site conditions, and other requirements that negate the practicality of a standardized design for multiple sites. Given that there are multiple configurations of advanced reactors, and each one may require civil work installations that differ from others, it is recognized that the challenges will vary from reactor design to design.

Design of Manufacturing Facilities

Many of the new reactor designers plan to use a factory-built modular design model for the vast majority of major component construction. Not only will the factory require good engineering design, but owners will also have to ensure that nuclear quality materials and workmanship are available and planned. The experience in the factory construction of modules in the U.S. AP1000 new build for the Summer and Vogtle plants was fair warning of what can go wrong and result in large cost overruns and schedule impacts. The modular construction for GW-scale reactors provides valuable lessons to be learned that bear on the factory manufacturing approach which is envisioned by SMR developers. In the following subsections, the committee discusses on- and off-site manufacturing challenges and common cause manufacturing issues. The shipyard manufacturing approach, proposed in a 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study by Buongiorno et al., is discussed in the next section on Product Deployment Models.

Recent experience with power reactor construction in the United States and Europe offers significant lessons for potential new reactor vendors. Plants under construction in these countries have all suffered from being over time and over budget. Every example outlined below is a near-FOAK plant (near, because similar models of both were constructed and brought online in China). These recent experiences highlight significant quality control challenges that await new and advanced reactor designs—challenges that need to be carefully thought through ahead of time.

On-Site Manufacturing Challenges

Framatome’s European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR), for instance, began construction at the Olkiluoto plant in Finland in 2005. Original plans suggested the plant would be commissioned in 2009. By 2006, problems with the concrete basement, the steel liner, the welding, and the safety culture had all surfaced. By 2015, AREVA,

the reactor designer and constructor, had technically gone bankrupt. In 2019, a vibration issue emerged, and the startup of the plant was delayed by the regulator. The Olkiluoto plant connected to the Finnish power grid in March 2022 but is not scheduled to start regular electricity production until March 2023 as a result of impeller cracks identified in October 2022 (TVO 2022). The original cost estimate for the plant was €3 billion; now costs are estimated at €11 billion (Schneider and Froggatt 2021).

Off-Site Manufacturing Challenges

Framatome’s EPR in France, under construction in Flamanville, began construction in 2007, with a projected end of construction in 2012. By 2015, it was revealed to the regulator that substandard carbon steel had been used in the reactor pressure vessel head, which, finally, was determined to be acceptable after extensive analysis by the regulator. In 2018, 53 welds on safety systems had to be redone. As of the writing of this report, the plant has yet to start up. Cost overruns in Flamanville are worse than for the Finnish plant: originally estimated to cost €3.3 billion, the current cost estimate is €12.7 billion (Mallet 2022).

A similar story exists for the new builds of Westinghouse’s AP1000 design, currently under construction at the Vogtle plant near Augusta, Georgia. Similar to the EPR plants, costs have ballooned from $14 billion for two reactors to over $30 billion (ANS 2022). Two additional AP1000 reactors were partially constructed at the VC Summer plant in South Carolina before being abandoned in July 2017 by the utility owing to skyrocketing costs and significant delays.

The appeal of the AP1000 design was its increased passive safety features and modular design elements, which led Westinghouse to believe that factory-produced modules would be more economical than previous construction. Westinghouse claimed, “plant costs and construction schedules benefit directly from the great simplifications provided by the design and [because of] modular construction techniques” (World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2017). The idea was that by having most of the fabrication done in factories, the quality and schedule flexibility associated with reactor construction would be improved, and it would be cheaper to use highly skilled labor in a factory setting instead of in the field, as was done with the previous generation of reactors.

The Shaw Modular Solutions factory in Lake Charles, Louisiana, won the contract and skilled labor for the plant was sourced from the nearby offshore oil platforms. Almost immediately, problems appeared when Shaw issued a stop-work order in 2010 after an in-house inspection found inferior welds and welders accepting welds that they had not made. By 2013, ownership of the Lake Charles plant was transferred to Chicago Bridge & Iron, but the problems with the welds persisted. In 2015, Westinghouse acquired the Lake Charles plant, but the welding problems continued and by 2017, Westinghouse itself declared bankruptcy, and VC Summer abandoned its AP1000 new builds.

The problems at the Lake Charles plant meant that many of the welds done on the modules that were delivered to the Vogtle plant for installation had to be completely redone. Poor welds occurred so frequently that the Vogtle plant set up its own welding building to reweld the factory welds. All of this contributed to cost overruns and time delays. Additionally, the AP1000’s problems were not limited to the United States: the two Chinese plants had problems with their squib valves (pyrotechnically activated valves in a safety system) and reactor coolant pumps, the latter of which had to be rebuilt because the impeller cracked. A contractor, Curtis-Wright, made the pumps, but Westinghouse found itself on the hook to fix the pumps.

The experience of building new reactors in the United States, Europe, and China suggests that it is difficult to ensure that the project goes right, and that nuclear-quality work is done during manufacture and construction. Furthermore, factory-fabricated modularization does not necessarily solve problems; it may in fact introduce generic (and therefore widespread) problems that lead to delays and increased costs. However, these issues can be anticipated, and the risk can be mitigated, as described below.

Common Cause Manufacturing Issues

The production of several reactors or reactor components from the same facility creates a coupling mechanism that allows a root cause deficiency to propagate through multiple products that are produced at the facility. These deficiencies may be owing to intrinsic issues within the facility, or extrinsic issues such as supplier quality

deficiencies. Intrinsic deficiencies may be in the form of human factors, processes, or tools. Manufacturing related coupling mechanisms may be observed where a one-to-many relationship exists between software and hardware used in production, as well as errors by manufacturing staff and procedures.

Manufactured nuclear systems may also experience cascading failures, where the issue is not observed at the component level, but rather at the integrated system level. Examples include fit-up issues where individual components may appear to be correctly built, but do not fit together or work properly as a system. Other manifestations of cascading failures include system level performance outside of target values or failed system level qualification, where individual components within the system may perform and be qualified within target values but fail at the system level. Although these failures are seen at the system level, they may be caused by component level manufacturing issues.

A specific example of this issue occurred with the reactor vessel head assemblies of a major reactor vendor, where manufactured components were inspected and qualified prior to shipping, but the components did not fit correctly when integrated at the construction site.⁶

Mitigation of this risk can be especially challenging for first-of-a-kind designs as there is a lack of experience as to where and when these manufacturing risks may be observed. Historically, some common cause failures have not been observed until several years after a fleet of reactors is in operation, as was seen with the light water reactor alloy 600 issues. Hence, there is some uncertainty about the manifestation and consequences of these manufacturing risks, and vendors could consider the following mitigation strategies:

• Provision of additional safety and system margins for manufacturing related unknown risks that may affect system level performance and reliability.
• Design for installation flexibility which includes applicable relaxation of tolerances, and maneuverability of components during system level integration. An example of maneuverability is loose flanges between duct sections to allow for site adjustment prior to final tack welding on site.
• Employment of digital technology and use of the digital twin to provide greater assurance at point of manufacture/fabrication so that required design tolerances are complied with (or being met).
• Use of Common Cause Failure (CCF) analysis as a predictive tool rather than just an investigative tool. This is similar to the use of probabilistic risk analysis to identify limiting elements in a system from a safety standpoint. Similarly, the CCF can be used to identify potential manufacturing-based issues that may manifest at a system integration or operational level.

Completeness of Engineering Design

Chapter 4 describes the economic challenge facing advanced reactor developers in making initial entry to energy markets, noting that a significant factor that may limit market entry is the anticipated front-end “sunk cost” for nuclear. Capital costs for nuclear have historically been quite high and schedule duration (and risk of schedule extension) can add significant financing costs to the capital cost bottom line. The necessity for production stoppage to address incomplete design or incorporate late design/performance changes has often contributed to schedule slips. For example, design change had a significant impact on cost growth and schedule slip for the Vogtle AP1000 development (Ingersoll et al. 2020a). Although the initial design had been approved by the NRC after a 4-year review period, construction at Vogtle was delayed by almost a year as Westinghouse incorporated design updates based on experience from AP1000 builds that had begun in China. There was also an externally driven update in 2009 as the NRC changed aircraft protection requirements for new developments, again delaying construction (Ingersoll et al. 2020a).

Completeness of engineering design has been a recurring issue for project cost and schedule execution across multiple industries, from civil construction to shipbuilding to defense weapons systems development (Shamsudeen and Biodun 2016; Blickstein et al. 2011). Often, design completeness rests on a full accounting for the parameters

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⁶ This observation is based on committee member Sola Talabi’s first-hand experience as a risk manager at Westinghouse from 2001 to 2014.

that govern the design or the “basic data.” One analysis of industrial megaprojects found that roughly 90 percent of projects that failed to appropriately scope the basic data and finalize the design at the appropriate stage of the development process suffered from cost growth versus 20 percent of projects with few basic data errors (Merrow 2011). If advanced nuclear developers are to keep capital costs in control, designs must be as complete as possible prior to commencement of construction. A recommended rule of thumb is that engineering detailed design should be 95 percent complete before moving to project execution (Merrow 2011).

AACE International is the generally accepted cost engineering organization, developing and issuing best practices and other materials to assist with development of accurate cost estimates in the construction field. AACE International has issued a series of Recommended Practices (e.g., No. 17R-97 and 18R-97) which include “classes” of cost estimates. A summary table is provided in Table 6-3.

In comments provided to the committee, former associate administrator for acquisition and Project Management at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)⁷ Robert Raines states that NNSA “does not authorize construction on the nuclear portion of the work until the design is considered 100 percent⁸ complete [by the designer

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⁷ NNSA, the DOE agency responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science, likely has the largest ongoing nuclear construction program in the United States.

⁸ 100 percent design requires that all engineering calculations and engineering drawings for the entire installation be complete and ready to issue to the constructor. Because the owner will likely have comments, some modifications may be necessary, with the result that the design is likely to be closer to 90 percent complete.

and can then be] turned over to the owner for review.”⁹ The evaluation is guided by a sweeping set of Final Design Review Requirements.¹⁰ Raines added, “if there are new technologies, [NNSA] also requires a [technology readiness level] (TRL)¹¹ of 7 [before granting a design credit in order to minimize uncertainty]. For the non-nuclear components associated with the project, [NNSA] allows work to proceed in accordance with best practices.”¹² It should be noted that even when designs/drawings are considered complete by the originator and have passed through a final design review, evaluating complexity in manufacture, fabrication, and constructability is often neglected, leading to rework and reevaluation of the design.

Raines’s evaluation of NNSA policy reveals that “[NNSA] has completed over $2 billion in work [over] the past 8 years at $200 million under budget. These statistics are much better than any other nuclear work ongoing—that is, Vogtle, Summer [at the time], Olkiluoto, Flamanville. Before DOE implemented these policies . . . WTP, SWPF, IWTU, MOX¹³ were all estimated and authorized for construction at what was considered ‘appropriate’ design levels.” The former qualitative evaluation undertaken by NNSA proved to be problematic because there was no benchmark to guide the evaluation, with the result that authorization was often driven by policy or political considerations. As a result, the projects that used the qualitative language are delivering at 2–4 times over original budget. After the policy change to require careful evaluation of the Final Design Requirements (DOE O 413.3B Change 6, 2021), NNSA nuclear and high hazard projects have been delivered on budget.

Supply Chain Issues

A significant part of project planning will include ensuring that supply chains for major reactor components and fuel supply are available at a reasonable cost and appropriate schedule. There are significant challenges in the supply chain, according to the vendors interviewed by the committee (Cirtain et al. 2022).

A recent DOE report titled Nuclear Energy Supply Chain Deep Dive Assessment indicates that the enhancement of the nuclear industry supply chain would have significant positive benefit to the cost of electrical energy production:

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⁹ Information related to NNSA’s projects and design review requirements were provided to the committee in an email from Robert Raines, Associate Administrator for Acquisition and Project Management, National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Energy, on March 31, 2022.

¹⁰ Final design review (FDR) requirements: (1) Verify that the final design satisfies the established requirements and is ready for implementation. (2) Ensure that detailed analyses, calculations, and tests to validate the design are complete and documented. (3) Verify, as appropriate, that the final product can be manufactured, inspected, assembled, stored, delivered, and installed reliably, safely, and cost effectively. (4) Verify that human performance and human factors considerations are appropriately addressed in the design. (5) Verify that procurement issues have been identified and resolved. (6) Verify that appropriate documentation is available for producing the final product (e.g., drawings, installation procedures). (7) Verify that appropriate test plans for the final product have been established. (8) Ensure the appropriate incorporation of recommendations from previous design reviews (DOE 2010; Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory n.d.).

¹¹ TRL is a type of measurement system used to assess the maturity level of a particular technology (NASA 2021).

¹² Construction on site can start with design at 35 to 50 percent maturity for more standard site support buildings such as the non-nuclear office, warehousing, and other general infrastructure (Raines 2022).

¹³ Nuclear Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) (at the Hanford site, Washington State), Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) (at Savannah River site, South Carolina), Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) (at INL), and Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MOX) (at Savannah River site, South Carolina).

The challenges to development of this supply chain for advanced reactors are multiple. The vendor base for the manufacture of components to a nuclear quality standard is currently sized to produce replacement components for the existing fleet of operational reactor power plants. The manufacturing base for such components will need to expand. Another aspect of the challenges faced is the potential for counterfeit parts, where parts do not meet the certification standards. In one specific instance, it was discovered that prime contractors performing and managing the construction of a multi-billion-dollar nuclear facility were accused of making false claims involving the procurement, fabrication, and installation of vessels and piping to be installed at a nuclear waste processing plant at DOE’s Hanford Site (DOJ 2016). In effect, the government contended that subcontractor-supplied components did not meet NQA-1 standards and that false claims were submitted regarding this issue. This issue was resolved by a settlement agreement between the Department of Justice and the prime contractors. There have been other well-publicized examples of similar issues among them a currently released report by the NRC’s Inspector General on February 10, 2022 (Feitel 2022; Gardner 2022).

Prior studies on risk management of nuclear EPC projects have indicated inadequate identification of supply chain risks and inaccurate assessment of the identified risks (Talabi and Fischbeck 2015), as indicated in Figures 6-4 and 6-5. The study suggests that supply chain risks were the least identified, but most frequently

occurring risks, and also had the highest cost impacts. Part of the reason is apparently that EPC teams tend to over-identify risks associated with the in-house scope of work, but under-identify external risks associated with their external suppliers.

The Construction Phase

Although this chapter focuses on nuclear-specific projects, the recommendations are expected to be robust enough to transcend nuclear power construction and apply to other large energy infrastructure projects. This is justified by the fact that nuclear power ranks in the top 25th percentile of overnight capital cost (Figure 6-6) and represents some of the most significant construction cost and schedule performance challenges.

During the construction phase of a project, the term “Project Controls” is particularly significant. A project controls team effectively receives inputs on progress using a standardized methodology, such as the Earned Value

Management System (EVMS) or an alternate system to evaluate trends, identify schedule delays that could impact the critical path and increase costs, and determine appropriate corrective or mitigating measures.

Potential for Employment of New Technologies

Management of a project life cycle includes a multitude of moving pieces, contractors, and other stakeholders. Poor project management integration, specifically lack of real-time oversight and communication between groups of collaborators, has been cited as one of the main reasons for the failure of the VC Summer NPP (Beck et al. 2016). In an effort to streamline parts of this process and minimize errors imparted by miscommunication, significant federal funds are currently going into various digital engineering (DE) concepts.¹⁴ DE is a systems design approach to use computer technology to integrate the management of a project life cycle. Research at INL has shown that new DE platforms can produce significant impacts in various construction projects, including schedule reductions, productivity increases, and cost avoidance. Benefits of utilizing DE include reduction of data errors that go undetected by the larger system as information flows through the project life cycle, better predictive capabilities, better communication between engineers and on-site personnel, and improvements in future maintenance once a project is complete (Ritter 2021).

Of particular interest in DE research is the idea of a digital twin, whereby on-site construction and installation could be compared to the three-dimensional design by dedicated software (Han and Gupta 2021). In some cases,

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¹⁴ Entities currently developing these technologies include PowerN, Inc. (ARPA-E spinoff co-founded by Gupta and Han), Reconstruct, OpenSpace, IQSite, Autodesk, Bentley System, and many others working in BIM/reality capture software. There are university researchers who also focus on workflow of how these technologies can be used with different approaches to project delivery (e.g., lean construction and Advanced Work Packaging [AWP]). that are actively studied by institutes like Lean Construction Institute and Construction Industry Institute. This information was provided to the committee in an email from Kevin Han on April 27, 2022.

digital twins are being incorporated into model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approaches to allow an integrated approach to product development that more readily tracks changes across a full product life cycle. Digital twins of Gen III NPPs have been developed in recent years—work by GE has demonstrated up to $1.05 billion in cost avoidance thanks to the predictive capabilities of their digital twin systems (Miller and Ritter 2021). The Versatile Test Reactor planned for INL is being designed to support the progress of multiple new technologies, and digital twinning capabilities are being incorporated to validate advanced modeling tools with real-time operational data.

By such application, design tolerances could be compared to actual dimensions of items while still in the fabrication plant, and the digital twin model can be “moved” virtually to the current as-built condition on-site and “installed” to verify installation dimensional compatibility; thus, more timely decisions could be made concerning the evaluation of any risk owing to non-conformance. Such applications would enable decisions concerning either correction or removal, or possibly acceptance of the feature examined, in near real-time.

Given the recurring challenges nuclear developers have faced in controlling cost and schedule during site development, DOE has funded efforts in development of “Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT)” as part of the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies Program. This effort funds R&D to accelerate technologies that may “reduce the cost and schedule of constructing new nuclear plants, and to make fabrication of NPP components faster, cheaper, and more reliable.” (DOE NE n.d.). Efforts include research into new welding and joining technologies, additive manufacturing, and modular fabrication. For fiscal year (FY) 2023, DOE requested $7 million in addition to an already insufficient FY 2022 base of ~$25 million for this effort as part of the crosscutting technologies program, reflecting an understanding of the importance of improved construction and deployment technologies.

DOE also recently funded a new initiative called the Advanced Construction Technology (ACT) Initiative funded in FY 2021 for $5.8 million, which aims to

The ACT Initiative is structured as a public/private partnership between DOE and GE Hitachi and will be managed by the Nuclear Reactor Innovation Center. The three programs funded by the initiative are:

1. Vertical shaft construction, a best practice from the tunneling industry that could reduce construction schedules by more than a year.
2. Steel Bricks™, modular steel-concrete composite structures, much like high-tech LEGO^® pieces, which could significantly reduce the labor required on site.
3. Advanced monitoring, coupled with digital twin technology, which can create a digital replica of the NPP structure.

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¹⁵ Entities involved in the DOE ACT Initiative include GE Hitachi, Black & Veatch, EPRI, Purdue University, Caunton Engineering, Modular Walling Systems Limited, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, and Tennessee Valley Authority.

The Operations Phase

The operations phase requires the early development of a management control system that can cover all facets of testing, data collection, certification, and licensing/transition for operations. The commissioning portion of the operations phase has two significant subphases, non-nuclear testing and nuclear testing.

Non-nuclear testing includes

• Individual preoperational tests of structures, systems, and components.
• Overall preoperational systems tests/cold testing; this cold system testing nominally takes ~8 months for a large scale LWR (Fisher and Moutenot 2020).
• Structural integrity tests, integrated leakage rate tests of the containment and the primary system and secondary system.¹⁶
• Hot functional testing. Tests at higher temperatures may take as long as 18 months for a large LWR.

Non-nuclear testing is followed by nuclear testing, which includes

• Initial fuel loading;
• Subcritical tests;
• Initial criticality tests;
• Low power tests; and
• Power ascension tests.

The final milestone for this phase is first grid connection. The timeline from initial fuel loading to first grid connection would nominally be six months for a large LWR.

Following these critical test periods, there is a transition to licensed operations. This typically includes a warranty outage where confirmation of all safety and operational systems is given a final validation. See Box 6-4 for a list of critical issues related to the commissioning process.

While the development schedule for many advanced reactor designs is yet to be determined, the historical schedule and timelines for light water development efforts are instructive and provide a point of departure when considering schedule and potential for contribution of nuclear to decarbonization efforts. A summary schedule, developed by the World Association of Nuclear Operators to aid in readiness for development of new units is shown in Figure 6-7 (Fisher and Moutenot 2020).

PRODUCT DEPLOYMENT MODELS

As stated in the introductory section of this chapter, most reactor vendors or developers are planning to employ a product-based approach, that is, the major components, possibly the entire nuclear island, would be fabricated in a factory and delivered to a site, ready to install. The preparatory work on the plant site would be similar to that of any major project, starting with planning, then into engineering design specific to the site, and then construction on site of supporting facilities. Various potential advantages and concerns exist for such an approach:

• Potential advantages of product-based deployment:
  • Standardized design for manufacturing can reduce cost and schedule overruns that would otherwise arise from incomplete or late designs
  • Opportunity for improved quality through manufacture in a controlled factory setting

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¹⁶ Note: These containment checks apply to those technologies that may follow containment designs similar to the existing fleet of light water reactors.

• Potential for reduced licensing effort and cost
• Rapid deployment of many reactors at a time, assuming there is a sufficiently strong order book
• Scale—benefit of multiples, workforce opportunities
• Possible reduction in site costs owing to standardized site preparation and seismic isolation
• Improved workforce optimization and cost assuming there is continuity of operations
• Concerns with product-based deployment:¹⁷
  • Unavailability of parts or components*
  • Lack of sufficient N-Stamp companies, manufacturing capacity*
  • Inadequately sized workforce (size and characteristics)*
  • Site-specific design and construction considerations such as geotechnical and seismic conditions, ground water, and elevation of the site from bodies of water, despite standardized design for manufacturing will still be required*
  • Facility licensing (addressed in Chapter 7) will still be required*
  • Infrastructure to transport the reactor to the site will need to be established
  • Order book issues
    • Need sufficient orders to justify building a factory and/or modify existing factories up and down the supply chain
    • Backlog of orders is essential for workforce and production line continuity
  • Optimism bias (which applies to any major project or product)*
  • Common cause failure across entire product output
  • New risks that come with scaling up quickly could compromise quality of components

For context in considering these potential benefits and concerns, the committee examines the manufacturing approach to product-based deployment currently under consideration by reactor vendors.

The Manufacturing Approach

A primary hypothesis for the vendors of advanced reactors is that they will take advantage of a modular manufacturing approach for development that will help reduce unit cost once market volume supports development at NOAK quantities. This is a reasonable assumption based on historical “product” approaches as seen in the world’s shipbuilding, automotive or aircraft industries. The challenge, however, is that this theory has not been tested in the context of complex nuclear energy system development except perhaps in the case of naval nuclear shipbuilding. While the evidence points to success in developing end products for the world’s nuclear navies, in

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¹⁷ Items with an asterisk apply to both product and project deployment models. Because the benefits of a product-based approach are premised on the fabrication of multiple units, the items with an asterisk may present particular challenges.

many cases there were significant cost and schedule challenges that shipbuilders had to address to better control cost and ensure a consistently high-quality product. Lessons learned from one U.S. Navy program, the Virginia Class Submarine Program, are provided in Box 6-5 (Johnson et al. 2009).

After making adjustments to the program to address many of these issues, the Navy was ultimately able to deliver multiple Virginia Class submarine units with reasonable cost and schedule control. Despite the lessons learned from the Virginia Class program, cost and schedule control for other U.S. Navy nuclear platforms has proven more difficult and many have dramatically exceeded their initial estimated costs. While the Virginia Class program demonstrated that targeted program performance efforts could lead to learning and cost stability, more recent shipbuilding programs such as the Ford Class Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Program have seen ~18 percent rise in procurement costs and a 48 percent increase in acquisition cycle (schedule) (GAO 2020). In the case of this nuclear carrier program, many of the program structures that allowed for cost savings in the case of the Virginia Class were not possible for the Ford Class. The scale and complexity of that platform did not allow multiples to be procured and built simultaneously. Many aspects of the design were of low technical maturity (e.g., a new electromagnetic catapulting system) and in many cases had not even gone through a systems level preliminary design review at contract award. Three obvious takeaways for the advanced reactor community related to these cost and schedule challenges in a “manufacturing approach” are (1) the increased risk of cost/schedule growth tied to project scale and complexity, (2) the risk of incorporating multiple less mature technologies into a single design, and (3) the benefit that comes from the simultaneous build of multiple units.

Beyond naval nuclear development, an analysis of shipyard productivity and costs reflects a significant difference in cost tied to platform complexity that should be considered in development of “manufacturing” business models for advanced reactor development. The OECD does comparative benchmarking analysis of shipbuilding costs that uses a “compensated gross tonnage” (CGT) factor to examine cost versus complexity in shipyard production cycles. As discussed in Ford et al. (2017), a very simple commercial hull form has

a CGT factor as low as 0.3, while the most complex naval platform, a nuclear submarine, can be as high as 80. Understanding how this may influence “shipyard” versus site development cost factors would be critical in deciding to take this manufactured approach. Advanced reactor modules built to nuclear specifications would require far more stringent controls than those found in most commercial shipbuilding so it is unclear whether the savings anticipated by vendors touting this “shipyard” approach would materialize. There is also a significant “locational” difference in productivity and cost control that is driven by workforce considerations and production volume. For example, the highest producing shipyards in the world are in South Korea, China, and Japan while other nations lag significantly in terms of productivity and total gross tonnage. It has taken decades and a consistently strong order book for these yards to develop this superior benchmark of productivity. Thus, for each reactor developer to benefit from a “shipyard” approach to manufacturing, advances in productivity, quality and cost reduction will be dependent on steady production so that the manufacturing line equipment and the workforce are steadily used. So, while use of this type of production approach for nuclear reactors may lead to better cost control and savings in some locations and for some vendors, this may not be universally true and the timeline to achieve an order book that would support the type of learning necessary is quite uncertain.

Last, a key assumption by most vendors advocating a manufacturing approach is that by following a centralized “shipyard” approach there will be significant learning and savings. While this may be true, it does not necessarily address what has historically been the largest cost driver for nuclear development—site preparation and civil work. While it may be possible to develop a modular design that can be delivered to the site leading to savings for the components of the nuclear island or balance of plant,¹⁸ this typically accounts for only ~30 percent of the overnight cost for a typical development (Black and Veatch 2012). As addressed in this chapter and Chapter 4, the majority of costs for light water reactor deployment has been from the civil work to include cooling systems, buildings, foundations, seismic isolation, and so on. This work will still be required to some extent, even for factory-produced systems. Until the cost drivers associated with this portion of development are addressed it is unclear how the cost benefit analysis will play out for this revised deployment model. Clearly scale and design of the new systems can help in this regard if the design is standardized and perhaps does not require significant cooling or support facilities development (e.g., facilities to house emergency power, cooling water, etc.).

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¹⁸ Balance of plant is a term often used to describe the components of the installations on the site that are not part of the nuclear island and containment structure.

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