The US nuclear industry has decided that it’s time to take aggressive action to improve its operational efficiency. Leaders have looked hard at the competitive landscape. They’ve clearly recognized that while they produce a valuable, desirable commodity, their production costs are not competitive.

Many of them aren’t willing to give up their markets and valuable assets without a fight. In the fall of 2015, they decided to focus on eliminating wasteful efforts and begin prioritizing efficiency alongside their traditionally strong core competencies of safety and reliability.

Note: The CO2 emission-free nature of atomic fission is an inherent attribute that comes with the technology choice. So is the elimination of other noxious air and water pollutants. End Note.

On April 22, I spoke with two senior executives from the Nuclear Energy Institute about their efficiency program. My guests were Maria Korsnick, the Chief Operating Officer, and Tony Pietrangelo, senior Vice-President and Chief Nuclear Officer.

No one is more knowledgable about the high priority initiative, which has been named, “Delivering the Nuclear Promise.” It’s an industry-wide effort that is scheduled to last for three years with expected effects that will live for many productive years.

In preparation for the discussion I had read the strategic plan issued in February. I also sampled the program’s early products, which are being delivered the form of “Efficiency Bulletins.”

Here is how Ms. Korsnick began our discussion.

I’ll start with the name, Delivering the Nuclear Promise. Why did we name it that and what does it mean? We stepped back and looked at the value proposition for nuclear. We said nuclear was always intended to be very safe, it was always intended to be very reliable and, if you can remember way back when, it was going to be “too cheap to meter.”

So our challenge is that we’ve delivered on the promise of being very safe, we have a very strong safety record. We delivered on the reliability. Last year, as a US fleet we were at about 92% from a reliability perspective. We took a hard look at the cost side and said, not so much.

The idea of delivering the nuclear promise was essentially that we would continue our focus on safety and continue our focus on reliability but really sharpen our pencils from an efficiency perspective and better understand how we can do a better job on the efficiency side.

It’s a cost as well as revenue piece. We want to be as efficient as we can at running the plants and also make sure that the product we’re producing, that carbon free product, is valued in the market place.

It would be difficult for anyone who has ever worked in the commercial nuclear industry, looked at a typical plant organizational chart, or observed the way that the plant is administered and guarded to fail to notice that there are many inefficiencies that can be addressed.

The industry has a long tradition of complying with requirements; which may be part of its Nuclear Navy roots. Unfortunately, the commercial users of the technology and operating modes invented and refined by ADM Rickover haven’t always applied the “questioning attitude” that his program also demanded of all participants.

Now that they’ve realized that cost is an object and that excessive costs can destroy valuable plants almost as easily as improperly operating them, leaders have decided it’s a good time to ask “Why are we doing things this way...