I’m an engineer. That means I was put here to design and build things. The last thing I want to do is harp about a misguided regulatory system, which has turned a providential gift which should lift humanity to new heights into a drag on ratepayers and taxpayers and a haven for parasites and grifters. I need a break. A chorister has asked me if we could build a conventional big PWR in a shipyard. This would combine the low technical risk of a 75 year old technology with the amazing productivity of a world class shipyard. This question gives me a chance to go back to what I should be doing instead of moonlighting as an ineffective JV Jeremiah. //

But we are still below a 100 million dollars for steel and ballast. According to KHNP numbers, all the stuff inside the turbine hall will cost about 400 million. and the the Nuclear Steam Supply System will cost 1.5 billion.\cite{choi-2017} (Both numbers are far higher than they should be.) We are talking about 2 billion dollars for a 1.4 GW plant.

This is all back of the envelope. It will have to be confirmed by doing the actual design. But thanks to recent advances in heavy lift capability, if and only if we go to all steel construction, I’m confident that technically we could build a 1 GW+ Pressurized Water Reactor in a shipyard, and gain the astounding productivity that the world class yards have had to develop in the fiercely competitive environment that they face. We could quickly get back to $2000/kW and less using the same basic technology that the late 1960’s plants used. Build times will start out at around two years and quickly come down to one year. The TG will be the long lead time component.

But this is all dreaming. Shipyard productivity depends on three basics:

1) No one can unilaterally dictate the rules. Everybody involved knows the rules and the rules can’t change in the middle of the game.

2) Total freedom to build the ships the way the yard wants to and change that process as it sees fit, as long as the ships perform to spec. This includes freedom to buy equipment and material from anybody willing to provide it. And freedom to decide on its own quality enforcement system.

3) Intense competition over an extended period, not just between the yards, not just between the yards’ vendors and the vendors’ vendors, but also between the Classification Societies.

We have chosen to not allow these three basics to exist for nuclear power.

Until we build nuclear plants like the Koreans build commercial vessels, attempting to build plants, big or small, in a yard, will accomplish nothing but screw up the yard. Pass the Nuclear Reorganization Act.