ADVANCED REACTOR STRATEGY | POLICY & REGULATION
Above: The NIA says the US Department of Energy (DOE) should develop an Advanced Nuclear Energy Strategic Plan Photo credit: JHVEPhoto/
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Earthshot would help identify and assess key supply chain projects for loan guarantees, for example. Advanced reactors also need specialised fuels that must be produced by private enterprise, and DOE has programmes that can support those efforts too, the report says, adding that an Earthshot approach would focus and better coordinate DOE innovation and development efforts for the complete Advanced Reactor Demonstration Programme (ARDP), which was authorized by the Energy Act of 2020 and is the main vehicle for funding commercial advanced reactor demonstrations. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act added a six-year, $2.5 billion appropriation while the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 established a production tax credit and an investment tax credit for any zero-emissions electricity producer that enters service after 2024. The Inflation Reduction Act also established a DOE programme to catalyze domestic HALEU production. This combination, coming at a time of a national push for decarbonization, creates an opportunity for nuclear innovation that the technology has not seen in decades, the report states. DOE plans to announce “six to eight” Earthshots and to date it has unveiled the Hydrogen Shot which includes nuclear as a carbon-free source. Regarding the Earthshot, the report argues that of all the
DOE efforts that it needs to fully integrate, none may be as important as the National Labs which each have remarkable technical capabilities and tend to have strong support in Congress. The NIA analysis notes that to fully integrate DOE’s nuclear energy programmes across the National Labs, DOE could benefit from consolidating the oversight of the National Lab nuclear energy work under a single manager to ensure they are coordinated. Through GAIN, DOE already provides a single point of entry that helps companies navigate the bureaucracy of DOE and National Labs but internal coordination of the labs is also important for executing programmes that support cross-cutting efforts, like hydrogen, which need to integrate advanced reactor technology with other forms of clean energy.
DOE headquarters and the National Labs already place a strong focus on the ARDP’s demonstration projects, which
are public-private partnerships. These partnerships are key for timely and successful commercialization of new designs but some DOE grant recipients report that they find it hard to navigate and access all of the technical expertise within the various DOE labs. According to the report, another feature of the
“Earthshots” is that they are aiming for clean energy generators and components that will be a success in the global market. Certainly, that should be a goal for an Advanced Nuclear Energy Earthshot. The authors argue that the US should be aiming to lead in that arena, rather than leaving the opportunity to a commercial or geo-political rival. Additionally, they note, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has refocused attention on the importance of energy security and adds urgency to the need to transform DOE to develop new reactor types and their domestic supply chains. The authors note this will also enable the American nuclear energy sector to enter the vacuum created by a new reluctance by some countries to do business with Russia. Nuclear energy designs and hardware were once a major American export, and they can be again, they say. A key recommendation is that the DOE should establish
an Advanced Nuclear Energy Earthshot that would integrate national capabilities to support an integrated fuel cycle, advanced reactor and supply chain innovation, and to establish the United States as a global leader in advanced nuclear energy.
Focus on cost Cost is integral to the ability of advanced reactors to succeed in the world market, not to mention in the domestic commercial market, the authors observe, but add that nuclear energy can be priced higher than energy dependent on weather conditions because dispatchable energy is a higher-value energy product. Nonetheless, the report says, the size of the market share that nuclear energy occupies will depend in part on a reactor’s cost to build and operate. An Advanced Nuclear Energy Earthshot should focus on reducing the cost, to make successful commercial deployment more easily achievable.
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