A Good Day for Nuclear Energy
Yes, yes, yes!
You can sum up the actions announced by the White House yesterday in one word: deployment.
In fact, the name of the event was White House Summit on Nuclear Deployment, for good reason.
Deployment is hard where nuclear energy is concerned. But does it have to be? The answer is “no” and the Biden-Harris Administration is banking on the idea that if you bring the right people to the table, problems can find solutions.
To that end, the Administration announced the formation of a Nuclear Power Project Management and Delivery working group. While led by key federal government players essential to the process (such as the Department of Energy), it will engage those stakeholders who are designing, developing and (eventually) constructing our new nuclear energy facilities. There are many lessons-learned from the recent Vogtle project, for instance, that could benefit future nuclear energy construction projects. Sharing that information (similar to what INPO does for plant operations and with adequate IP protections) could make future projects run smoother and more efficiently, even with diverse technologies.
Having utilities, investors (energy intensive industries), labor and others involved, as planned, is vital to making this process more inclusive and, frankly, more destined to succeed in “delivering an efficient and cost-effective deployment of clean, reliable nuclear energy and ensuring that learnings translate to cost savings for future construction and deployment,” as the official Fact Sheet states.
The Military Role
The U.S. Army will soon release a Request for Information to help develop a deployment program for SMRs and microreactors at U.S. Army sites. There are roughly more than 400 of those of various sizes across the U.S. with the larger ones ideal for smaller advanced nuclear technology.
The U.S. Air Force and, separately Project Pele, are already making progress that will help inform the Army initiative. The military will be a strong partner in developing technology that can most certainly fit civilian applications (data centers and manufacturing centers), and in doing so make them available to utilities and industry much faster.
Department of Energy
The DOE is our nuclear energy NASA of the space race days. Yesterday’s announcement came with two important links: a “primer” on advanced reactors and a “capital cost reduction pathway tool” to “assess cost drivers for new projects” prepared by a team from Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The “primer” is notable for including the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor in the “advanced” category. As a Gen III+ design with passive safety systems and modular construction it certainly qualifies. Two AP1000s just made Plant Vogtle in Georgia America’s single largest carbon-free energy generation source.
It’s also important as an educational tool for new generations of nuclear energy supporters to show that nuclear technology is evolving, just as the technology they use in their everyday lives continues to evolve.
And it speaks truths. Nuclear energy is carbon-free. I once recall being asked at an event to take down a stand-up banner that proclaimed nuclear as clean energy because some in attendance found it offensive. Nuclear is clean energy. Always has been. The safety of the current fleet and a strong nuclear regulator go hand-in-hand. The NRC is working to adapt its best-in-class processes to the licensing of non-light-water reactors while continuing to fulfill its mission.
The Bottom Line
It’s all coming together, but there is much work left to do this decade to achieve greatness in the next.
This event was needed. We must maintain the visibility of the effort. And the momentum.