Part 1 of 4 Parts
President Joe Biden strongly supports nuclear power. Some say he is the most pro-nuclear-energy president to ever hold the office. During his campaign, Biden spoke about the need for nuclear energy as a carbon-free energy source to help fight climate change. After taking office, Biden proposed a budget with a record one hundred eighty-five billion dollars for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE). However, many members of the nuclear industry believe that even though Biden’s proposal exceeds any previous allocation for the ONE, it may not be enough to keep the U.S. fleet of commercial power reactors afloat. Their concerns would still be a problem even if progress in new technologies manage to make nuclear energy both cheaper and safer.
Some of the most prominent new reactor designs require a fuel which currently has no commercial supply chain. Building such a supply chain could take years and enormous political will according to both reactor developers and nuclear fuel supply companies.
The nuclear industry has seen massive cost overruns in the construction of the current generation of reactors as well as long construction delays. This has had a massive negative impact on the construction of and investment in current reactor models to the point where there is currently only one new nuclear power plant under construction in the U.S.
The nuclear industry hopes that salvation lies in a new generation of advanced reactor designs which includes everything from smaller versions of conventional light water reactors to designs that do not use water at all for cooling. These include using such things as helium or molten salts for cooling the reactor cores. This new generation of reactors has the potential to help achieve decarbonization goals by supplanting fossil fuel plants. These new plants could generation clean hydrogen for fuel and provide base load power to support intermittent renewable power. There are a few companies which are developing reactor designs and targeting their deployment of first commercial demonstration projects during the next decade.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have supported research and development of advanced reactors. Congress has passed legislation that is intended to streamline the regulatory path for advanced reactors. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is the primary trade association for the nuclear industry. They argue that if advanced reactors have any hope of succeeding, the federal government needs to do a great deal more to create a domestic market for this advanced reactor fuel.
Maria Korsnick is the NEI President and CEO. She said in a 2020 letter that she sent to the U.S. Secretary of Energy at the time. In the letter, she said that “The commercialization of many advanced nuclear technologies is in jeopardy.” The biggest policy change advocated by the NEI is for the federal government to sign a contract with a nuclear fuel supplier to essentially create a whole new market which will not be a simple proposition. A lot of pieces will have to be put in place to make this possible.
Please read Part 2 next