SS: recently this thread discussed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's changes to safety standards in response to a Trump executive order.
The claim was that a key radiation exposure standard known as ALARA- as low as reasonably achievable- was being cut back. Given how many believe that overly burdensome, unscientific safety standards have been the driving force for rising nuclear cause, this is a big deal.
Jack Devanney is a nuclear entrepreneur who literally wrote the book on why the safety standards are disastrous for nuclear cost. So it's interesting to note that he disagrees: JD believes the new NRC standards do not alter exposure regulations in a meaningful way. At the heart of the debate is linear no threshold: the concept that there is no safe threshold for radiation exposure. If you accept the concept of no threshold, then it follows that there are always benefits to lowering exposure. ALARA is the natural conclusion.
Devanney picks apart the new regs and notes that because LNT is affirmed, there is no meaningful change to safety standards. He believes that to unambiguously change the regs, LNT must be explicitly rejected for a threshold model where all exposure below a given dose is treated as safe.
Relevance: regulations as they relate to the cost of nuclear energy.
Opinion: whichever view is right, I'm not sure it matters but I would curious for experts to weigh in. I've never seen a comparison of US radiation standards to countries with successful nuclear programs that conclusively shows that these standards are the reason for our lack of success. My thesis continues to be that nuclear fails in the United States because of institutional design: merchant markets that don't incentivize investment in 60-year assets, and an inability / unwillingness for federal intervention on a decade long timescale to help guide and de-risk both individual projects as well an entire series of repeat projects.
Posted by HD_Thoreau_aweigh