D
The Current Role of Government in Demonstrations, with a Focus on the Department of Energy
A key Department of Energy (DOE) mission is to support the development of advanced energy technologies that address major energy challenges, such as bringing to market low-carbon alternatives. As Appendix C discussed, one key example of this for nuclear energy was the Nuclear Power 2010 Program (NP 2010), which resulted in the design and certification of the AP1000 and ESBWR (National Research Council 2008). The Gen IV Roadmap (U.S. DOE Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee and Gen IV International Forum 2002) also sparked concepts of small modular reactor (SMR) designs for many of the advanced reactors that are now being supported by DOE. This section reviews the current role of government in reactor demonstrations.
SMALL MODULAR REACTOR TECHNOLOGY AWARD AND CARBON-FREE POWER PROJECT AWARD
The first of the DOE programs in support of SMR technology development focused on light water reactor (LWR) technology (DOE 2023a). In 2013, NuScale Power was selected as the winner of the DOE competitively bid, $226 million, 5-year, financial assistance award to develop this SMR LWR technology. In 2015, DOE awarded $16.6 million to NuScale Power for the preparation of a combined Construction and Operating License Application (COLA) with its first customer, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems’ (UAMPS1) for the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) (DOE 2020a). UAMPS plans to site a NuScale reference plant in Idaho and is expected to be operational by the end of this decade.
In 2018, in a sign of continued support, DOE awarded NuScale $40 million in cost-sharing financial assistance under its “U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development” funding opportunity. This federal research and development (R&D) award objective is to support industry’s acceleration of these technologies to promote U.S. energy independence, energy dominance, electricity grid resiliency, national security, and clean baseload power. Since 2013, DOE has provided more than $600 million in cost-share awards for development (NuScale 2023b). This has resulted in a complete NuScale standard plant design that was approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2020 and certified in 2023.
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1 UAMPS is a subdivision of the State of Utah that provides wholesale electric-energy, transmission, and other energy services, on a non-profit basis, to community-owned power systems throughout the Intermountain West. Its 50 members include public power utilities in seven states: Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
UAMPS formally launched the CFPP in 2015. In 2016, DOE issued a site use permit to UAMPS for the CFPP, which permitted UAMPS to identify and characterize potential locations for licensing and constructing a NuScale plant within the 890-square mile Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls. The preferred INL site was selected in July 2019. In October 2020, DOE approved a $1.355 billion multi-year cost-share award to CFPP LLC, a single-purpose, non-profit organization wholly owned by UAMPS, to cost-share the development and construction of the CFPP.
In January 2021, UAMPS and NuScale executed agreements to help manage and derisk the development of the CFPP. Based on initial orders from UAMPS, Fluor Corporation and NuScale are to develop more precise cost estimates and initial project planning work for the licensing, manufacturing, and construction of the CFPP. On March 9, 2023, NuScale announced that it had signed a contract with Doosan Enerbility to order long lead materials for six upper reactor pressure vessels. The order includes heavy forgings, steam generator tubes, and weld materials (NuScale 2023a).
ADVANCED REACTOR TECHNOLOGY R&D PROGRAM
Currently, DOE has a dual track approach to the development of advanced non-LWR reactors. This dual track approach is a result of ongoing DOE advanced reactor programs and a new initiative mandated by Congress in the 2020 Appropriations Act (U.S. Congress 2020), so-called Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) (DOE 2023b). Based on this approach, it appears that any future advanced reactor R&D program will need to fit within, or emerge from, this DOE organization.
Through a collection of individual efforts, DOE supports private companies to develop and demonstrate small modular non-LWR advanced reactors—that is, beyond current GWe-scale LWRs. These efforts include the following:
- ARDP has three parts (DOE 2020b). The first part provides for DOE to demonstrate two advanced reactors. Based on an industry solicitation, DOE has chosen two SMRs for reactor demonstration. One SMR is a fast spectrum sodium-cooled design (345 MWe) under development by Terrapower and GE-Hitachi (TerraPower 2020). The other SMR is a thermal spectrum gas-cooled design (80 MWe) under development by X-Energy (X-energy 2023). Both demonstration projects are currently planned to be functional by the end of the decade (DOE 2020c). This is an extremely aggressive schedule, which many judge to be unrealistic. This program considers these reactor designs to be technically mature enough from past R&D accomplishments that there is little need for additional R&D. These plant designs are to proceed directly to demonstration. The implicit assumption is that (1) the technology base is adequate to complete the design, license, build and operate; and (2) that the plants will demonstrate that these advanced designs can be competitive with LWRs. The eventual demonstration of these two advanced reactors would establish the cost of each FOAK plant and provide companies with the information necessary to bring their cost into a range that will be competitive.
- The second part of the ARDP program provides funds for “risk reduction” for five industry teams. Each team is expected to address key aspects of their design that require R&D to reduce the technical and regulatory risks for their design. The goal of the risk reduction program is to design and develop safe and affordable reactor technologies that can be licensed and deployed by 2035 (DOE 2020d).
- The third part, “Advanced Reactor Concepts—20” (ARC-20), funded through the Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART) program, provides support for three teams in order to assist the progression of advanced reactor designs in their earliest phases of their design concept. The goal of this program is to help solidify these design concepts toward a mature technology for potential demonstration after the mid-2030s (DOE 2020e).
Taken together, DOE is now funding a large development and demonstration program that is meant to provide eventual demonstrations of at least two and possibly more of these diverse advanced reactors designs. Over the
course of the ARDP program, DOE would need to invest almost $4 billion2 ($220 million in 20213), subject to the availability of future congressional appropriations. Industry teams would provide matching funds for the two demonstrations. ARC-20 projects are not a 50-50 cost share.
The second approach is the ongoing R&D program managed by DOE and funded through annual appropriations to the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE NE). It focuses on more basic applied technology reactor development. As described in DOE budget documents the broad program is:
- The Advanced Small Modular Reactor subprogram: This program has an emphasis on cost-shared R&D. These research activities focus on cross-cutting engineering technologies that are relevant to a broad spectrum of advanced SMR designs, while minimizing potential duplication of effort with the ART subprogram.
- The ART subprogram: This program focuses on research for long-term reactor concepts. It also emphasizes early-stage R&D needs of promising mid-range concepts as well as development of innovative technologies that benefit multiple advanced reactor concepts. This specifically includes emerging microreactor design concepts, as well as stimulation of new ideas for transformational engineering concepts.4 As discussed later, this does not seem to be coordinated with the transformational research objectives organized and funded by the ARPA-E.
These are DOE base technology R&D programs and they do not have any schedule requirements that are an integral part of the ARDP congressionally mandated demonstration programs.
VERSATILE TEST REACTOR AT IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY
There is an ongoing need to provide national R&D test beds in support of advanced reactor R&D. These test beds involve cutting-edge experimental capabilities, computational capabilities, and databases, and staffing those activities with qualified people. Current experimental test beds include the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT), and the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), and require appropriate federal and industry support to maintain their capabilities.
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) is a fast-spectrum neutron source that can add to the suite of U.S. nuclear technology test beds to provide needed data for technology developers and scientists from all over the nation (INL 2023). The VTR objective is to reestablish U.S. global leadership in nuclear energy R&D, while attracting potential collaborations, investments, and personnel from international research partners. The fast-neutron VTR was planned to be constructed by 2030 to accelerate testing of advanced nuclear fuels, materials, and components. DOE launched the VTR program following studies that analyzed the need for a research reactor that could test materials, fuels and other components at higher neutron energies and neutron fluxes than what is available today. Several advanced reactor developers have voiced support for a fast neutron irradiation capability in the United States to enable next-generation technology development. An INL-led team (including Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Savannah River National Laboratory, and universities and industry) was collaborating on the program.
In fiscal year (FY) 2018, Congress allocated $35 million to the DOE NE to explore what it would take to build a fast spectrum test reactor to support advanced nuclear reactor R&D in the United States. Subsequently, $65 million was set aside in FY 2019. In February 2019, VTR cleared Critical Decision (CD)-0, the first in a series of project approvals required by DOE Order 413.3B. To pass CD-0, a project must demonstrate that a mission
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2 ARDP program total funding about $3.2 billion for Demo projects, $600 million for Risk Reduction and $50 million for ARC-20.
3 Note: An additional $30 million was provided for Regulatory Development, Advanced Reactor Safeguards and National Reactor Innovation Center.
4 Department of Energy, 2021, “Congressional Budget Justification,” vol. 3, part 2, p. 34.
need requiring investment exists such as meeting a scientific goal or establishing a new research capability. For FY 2020 and FY 2021, the project received $90 million to complete the analysis of alternatives, the conceptual design of the preferred alternative and a specific cost/schedule estimate. Detailed cost estimates are not yet publicly available. DOE NE subsequently received approval for CD-1, “Approve Alternative Selection and Cost Range,” in September 2020. Other significant project milestones included the December 2020 Secretarial approval, with concurrence through the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security Administration and the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, to use a uranium/plutonium/zirconium metal alloy driver fuel and the publication of the VTR Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision in 2022. Congress did not fund the VTR project in FY 2022 or FY 2023. The project is in standby status.
Timely decisions are needed to move the project forward or to transition to another approach to obtain the needed R&D capabilities.
ARPA-E PROGRAMS IN SUPPORT OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
The Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) is an agency within DOE. It was created in 2007 by the America COMPETES Act and is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Department of Defense. Its focus is to advance high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. ARPA-E programs support energy projects that can be substantively advanced with a small amount of funding ($2 million–$10 million) over a defined period of time (2–3 years). The ARPA-E program opportunities are normally focused on a particular energy specific topical area. Any one ARPA-E topical area aims to promote innovation in engineering science that then leads to an increased technical readiness for the targeted application (technology readiness levels 3–5—beyond basic science but before a pilot project). Each ARPA-E program topic centers on a particular question, with the objective being to remove what is seen as a key barrier in an area that would not be addressed otherwise (or addressed with less focus). All ARPA-E projects have a custom technology to market component.
There are currently two major programs in nuclear energy, Modeling-Enhanced Innovations Trailblazing Nuclear Energy Reinvigoration (MEITNER) (ARPA-E 2018) and Generating Electricity Managed by Intelligent Nuclear Assets (GEMINA) (ARPA-E 2020). The MEITNER program was created to develop innovative technologies that can enable advanced reactor designs for lower cost and safer operation. These enabling technologies could establish the basis for a modern, domestic supply chain supporting nuclear technology. The MEITNER program encourages a rethinking of how systems of the nuclear plant fit together when developing the technologies that will make these plants safer, cost competitive and technically viable. In addition, specific projects may be improved and validated using advanced modeling and simulation tools. ARPA-E also provided a resource team to help coordinate team activities for modeling and simulation, techno-economic analysis, and subject-matter expertise. The MEITNER program began in summer of 2018 and made 10 awards totaling $24 million.
The GEMINA program seeks to develop digital twin (DT) technology for advanced nuclear reactors and transform operations and maintenance (O&M) systems for advanced nuclear plants. The goal is for interdisciplinary teams to design tools that introduce greater flexibility in reactor systems, increased autonomy in operations, and faster design iteration, with a goal is to enact a 10-times reduction in O&M costs for advanced reactor plants, thereby improving their economic competitiveness. Teams are expected to apply diverse technologies that are driving efficiencies in other industries, such as artificial intelligence, advanced control systems, predictive maintenance, and model-based fault detection. Because advanced reactors are still in design phase, teams will develop surrogate systems that simulate advanced reactor core operating dynamics using both non-nuclear test facilities and DT simulations. They will use these systems to test their DT platforms. The GEMINA program began in the summer of 2019 and made 10 awards totaling $27 million.
In May 2021, ARPA-E announced a new research funding opportunity, ONWARDS, of $40 million to reduce the disposal impact of spent fuel waste from advanced nuclear reactors (ARPA-E 2023b). In 2022, the CURIE program was announced to provide $48 million in competitive funding in support of reprocessing R&D (ARPA-E 2023a).
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