I
Report Findings and Recommendations
CHAPTER 1
Finding 1-1: The energy system must undergo radical change at unprecedented speed to meet the existential challenge of climate change. Many technologies with a variety of different attributes can and will contribute to the evolution of the energy system, and the barriers to technologies that can contribute to a low-carbon future should be addressed and, if possible, overcome. Nuclear has the benefits of a small land footprint and reliable availability, but historically, it has had drawbacks related to high up-front development and capital costs and fuel-cycle associated risks.
Finding 1-2: The earliest timeframe for U.S. commercialization of some advanced nuclear reactors will be in the mid-2030s, and only if the challenges identified in this report are addressed in this decade. Yet, the race against climate change is both a marathon and a sprint. Growth in electricity demand and the need to achieve economy-wide decarbonization over the coming several decades present important long-term opportunities for advanced nuclear technologies.
Finding 1-3: In order for advanced reactors to contribute significantly to a decarbonized energy system, there are many challenges that must be overcome. Their resolution requires sustained effort and robust financial support by the Congress, various departments of the U.S. government (especially the Department of Energy and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission), the nuclear industry, and the financial community. Given the urgency of the need to respond to climate change, it is important to seek the prompt resolution of issues associated with commercialization of low-carbon technologies.
CHAPTER 2
Finding 2-1: Many advanced reactor designs employ a combination of fuel, coolant, and moderator that result in a set of core components with potentially inherent favorable safety characteristics (e.g., physical stability, high heat capacity, negative reactivity feedbacks). The designs also include engineered passive safety systems that incorporate no active components (e.g., pumps, motor-activated valves) and could require no emergency AC power and fewer external operator actions. These inherent and engineered design attributes, if actualized, have the potential to make fulfilling key safety functions (i.e., reactivity control, heat removal, radioactivity containment) simpler,
more reliable, more cost effective, and more tolerant of human errors. Employing sophisticated sensing and data collection could further improve safety by increasing component and systems reliability.
Finding 2-2: Reactor designers and owners must demonstrate that key safety functions (i.e., reactivity control, heat removal, radioactivity containment) are satisfied during normal operation, transients, and the full range of possible accidents. (The list of possible accidents considered for new and advanced reactor designs could be different from those considered for current light water reactors [LWRs].) This will require collection of integral test data at appropriate scales and operating experience, supplemented by supporting analyses. The safety risks associated with small and advanced reactors differ from those for conventional LWRs and require new testing facilities and demonstration facilities.
Recommendation 2-1: The Department of Energy should evaluate the need for common experimental facilities that would help provide the required testing to support licensing and long-term operations across multiple reactor concepts within a reactor class (e.g., gas-cooled or molten-salt-cooled concepts).
Finding 2-3: For all the non-light water reactors that require higher 235U enrichment beyond current established levels, a new fuel supply chain system must be qualified and commercially developed. Without this fuel supply chain, widespread commercial deployment of these reactor concepts cannot be achieved. This high-assay low-enriched uranium, while one of many new supply chains that need to be established to support advanced reactors, is critical across many of the advanced concepts.
Finding 2-4: Advanced reactor concepts, while innovative in some aspects of their design, are generally based on relatively conventional fuels, materials, and manufacturing methods. Such conventional moderate-performance materials (e.g., currently code-qualified structural steels) are suitable for many non-demanding advanced reactor components, such as primary system piping. However, notable improvements in performance and economics could be achieved by more widespread use of better-performing materials for advanced fuels, high-performance fuel cladding materials, and advanced manufacturing (e.g., additive manufacturing). While many of the current concepts plan to move to commercial reactor demonstration with existing materials, optimization of future generations for further improvements in safety, reliability, and economics will require technology advancements.
Recommendation 2-2: The Department of Energy (DOE) should initiate a research program that sets aggressive goals for improving fuels and materials performance. This could take the form of a strategic partnership for research and development involving DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and Office of Science, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Electric Power Research Institute, the nuclear industry, national laboratories, and universities. The program should incentivize the use of modern materials science, including access to modern test reactors, to decrease the time to deployment of materials with improved performance and to accelerate the qualification (ASME Section III, Division 5 or equivalent) and understanding of life-limiting degradation processes of a limited number of high-performance structural materials—for example, reactor core materials and cladding.
Finding 2-5: The various advanced reactor systems are at different levels of technical maturity. Each reactor design concept requires the completion of certain key technology development activities. The time and effort needed depends, in part, on the technical readiness of the concept and prior operating experience with the specific reactor technology involved. More mature concepts, such as advanced small modular light water reactors, small modular sodium fast reactors, and small modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, might be technically ready for demonstration by the end of this decade. Less mature reactor concepts require a range of additional development activities before demonstration can occur (such as qualification of fuel or structural materials for prototypic conditions) and would not be ready for demonstration until after 2030. The success in getting concepts ready for regulatory review, building a demonstration plant in a timely and predictable manner, and proving operational excellence with demonstration plants will determine potential broader commercial deployment.
CHAPTER 3
Finding 3-1: Electrification owing to economy-wide decarbonization presents a significant market opportunity for advanced nuclear generation to serve the grid, particularly if its widespread commercial availability occurs when utilities are scaling up infrastructure to respond to this demand. Nuclear’s competitiveness to serve this new demand is sensitive to cost projections. Models suggest that advanced nuclear will likely be competitive if sufficiently low costs are achieved (e.g., $2,000–$4,000/kW) regardless of other conditions. Advanced nuclear could also achieve significant growth at higher cost ranges (e.g., ~$4,000–$6,000/kW) if other power system costs are higher than expected (e.g., owing to limited transmission growth or limited materials) or there is growing demand for non-electricity products (e.g., hydrogen).
Finding 3-2: Grid reliability is paramount in an increasingly electrified economy, and a broad range of low-carbon technologies are currently available—or soon will be—to support reliability, both resource adequacy and operating reliability. On resource adequacy, advanced nuclear power can provide the high-value, low-carbon energy needed when wind, solar, and batteries are unavailable, but its overall economic competitiveness depends on the value of its (grid or non-grid) energy at other times of the year. Regarding operating reliability, advanced nuclear will be competing with many technology types—conventional and inverter-based—to offer grid services such as voltage and frequency stability. While the grid is not yet prepared to operate solely on inverter-based resources today, reliability solutions have the potential to evolve rapidly to match the growing deployment of inverters. These advancements, which could occur before commercial availability of advanced nuclear, could affect the market value for nuclear power to provide essential grid services.
Finding 3-3: At the moment, investors rarely focus on resilience in choosing among generators, except in highly constrained environments, because generators are relatively more resilient components of the grid. When it comes to enhancing power system resilience, utilities focus on the transmission and distribution systems because they are more vulnerable to damage.
Recommendation 3-1: A forum similar to GridEX should be established by vendors, utilities, and industry support organizations, with the active participation of experts from the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, to elaborate any additional risks that emerge owing to novel reactor deployment paradigms—such as placing reactors in industrial parks, underground, at sea, or in close proximity to multiple other modules, or controlling them remotely—and develop rules, guidelines, and standard operating procedures for reactor operators that ensure nuclear power’s continued resilience and that seek to capitalize on the proposed versatility of advanced nuclear reactors.
Finding 3-4: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 2222 opens the door for small and advanced reactors to have their output aggregated to serve evolving electricity markets. These reactors, if located on congested transmission nodes, could alleviate the need for new transmission.
Finding 3-5: Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) want to integrate more low-carbon electricity generation resources. The Inflation Reduction Act adds/modifies various clean energy tax provisions in the Internal Revenue Code, which will expand the participation of clean energy technologies, including existing and advanced new nuclear, in wholesale, bulk power markets and retail electricity markets.
Recommendation 3-2: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should continue to examine approaches to improve the Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) to better value generation sources, like nuclear, that can provide resilience, reliability, and low-carbon benefits. FERC should conduct additional workshops and technical conferences to discuss the development of clearer rules and price signals for clean generation and the capabilities provided by existing and evolving nuclear plants. In making changes to the MOPR, FERC should consider provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that provide for existing nuclear
to receive credits (Zero Emissions Nuclear Facilities Credit) for electricity produced after 2023 and before 2033 and consider legislation adopted in New York and Illinois that recognizes the value of existing nuclear. Last, FERC should consider the potential future impact of a broad range of new and expanded tax credits that apply to new nuclear, renewables, energy storage, hydrogen, and other clean energy technologies that serve electricity markets.
CHAPTER 4
Finding 4-1: The key economic challenge for advanced nuclear reactors is the need to either be cost competitive with other low-carbon energy systems in providing electricity, expand their use to applications beyond the electricity sector, or have an otherwise strong value proposition that encourages investment. Given anticipated market conditions, and the range of low carbon energy technology options, this will require reductions in capital cost.
Finding 4-2: Nuclear developers face higher financing costs, and thus a greater sunk cost burden, than developers of other energy technologies. These higher costs result from (1) uncertain development and build times and (2) limited financing options and high interest rates that increase the finance burden, partly a result of a poor track record and consistent cost overruns in past construction.
Finding 4-3: Commercialization of multiple designs would logically necessitate the development of a variety of supply chains. For example, there are multiple fuel types proposed for the competing advanced reactor designs. Extended operating cycles with fewer refueling outages may affect demand stability for nuclear fuel. Thus, fuel fabrication may exacerbate the cost challenges for nuclear power.
Finding 4-4: Diseconomies of scale exist in certain nuclear power development and deployment scenarios. The diseconomies of scale may be owing to increased complexity and addition of systems associated with increased plant size, as well as the need for robust supply chains to support additional complexity and size.
Recommendation 4-1: The Department of Energy should continue to support developers in their efforts to design smaller plants and microreactors. This may be an early and low-risk path for nuclear deployments in certain selected applications where reduced scale may enable better control of cost and schedule overruns, potentially creating demand-pull, a larger number of orders, and greater potential for rapid learning.
Finding 4-5: Past studies suggest that for advanced reactors to achieve a strong market demand signal, it is likely that they will need to reach overnight capital costs in the range of ~$4,000–$5,000/kWe. While final costs for planned Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) plants are still quite uncertain, the level of government funding and vendor matching contributions (for the first-of-a-kind [FOAK] demonstrations) implies a cost level of approximately 2–2.5 times the $4,000–$5,000/kWe cost threshold. Significant and rapid learning and cost reductions will be necessary when moving from FOAK to nth-of-a-kind (NOAK) cost levels.
Finding 4-6: The Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy, and Office of Clean Energy Demonstration portfolios support national infrastructure, databases, and human resources; basic discovery research; concept development and improvement; and support for demonstrations. As a means of reducing risk against an uncertain future, the portfolio entertains a diversity of approaches and designs. At the same time, strong evaluation criteria are warranted for deciding on programmatic elements subject to careful consideration of realistic budget constraints. The current DOE portfolio is not structured to continuously move ideas from basic discovery to deployment and has not incorporated independent reviews of Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) project performance nor demonstrated the ability to make funding decisions based on accomplishment of critical development milestones. There is a risk that future funding instability and lack of rigorous oversight may result in a failure to achieve the program goal of demonstrating multiple nuclear technologies that can be commercialized.
Recommendation 4-2: The nuclear industry and the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy should fully develop a structured, ongoing program to ensure the best performing technologies move rapidly to and through demonstration as measured by technical (testing, reliability), financial (cost, schedule), regulatory, and social acceptance milestones. Concepts that do not meet their milestones in the ordinary course should no longer receive support and newer concepts should be allowed to enter the program in their place.
Recommendation 4-3: Congress and the Department of Energy (DOE) should maintain the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) concept. DOE should develop a coordinated plan among owner/operators, industry vendors, and the DOE laboratories that supports needed development efforts. The ARDP plan needs to include long-range funding linked to staged milestones; ongoing design, cost, and schedule reviews; and siting and community acceptance reviews. This plan will help DOE downselect among concepts for continued support toward demonstration. A modification in the demonstration schedule that takes a phased (versus concurrent) approach to reactor demonstration may be required. For example, funding would be continued for the first two demonstrations under the ARDP. A second round of demonstrations of designs expected to mature from the current ARDP Risk Reduction for Future Demonstrations award recipients could be funded for demonstration under an “ARDP 2.0” starting thereafter and going into the future.
Recommendation 4-4: To enable a cost-competitive market environment for nuclear energy, federal and state governments should provide appropriately tailored financial incentives (extending and perhaps enhancing those provided recently in the Inflation Reduction Act) that industry can use as part of a commercialization plan, consistent with the successful incentives provided to renewables. These tools may vary by state, locality, and market type. Continued evaluation of the recently passed incentives will need assessment to determine their adequacy. The scale of these incentives needs to be sufficient not only to encourage nuclear projects but also the vendors and the supporting supply chains.
CHAPTER 5
Finding 5-1: In principle, nuclear power has the versatility to provide a range of non-electric services to the whole energy system. These services themselves need to be decarbonized, and the emissions of some could prove hard to abate without a high-temperature, zero-carbon energy source, such as nuclear power. Moreover, experience exists and is growing that some of these services can be provided with nuclear power.
Recommendation 5-1: Industrial applications using thermal energy present an important new mission for advanced reactors. Key research and development needs for industrial applications include assessing system integration, operations, safety, community acceptance, market size as a function of varying levels of implicit or explicit carbon price, and regulatory risks, with hydrogen production as a top priority. The Department of Energy, with the support of industry support groups such as the Electric Power Research Institute and the nuclear vendors, should conduct a systematic analysis of system integration, operation, and safety risks to provide investors with realistic models of deployment to inform business cases and work with potential host communities.
Finding 5-2: Process heat applications exist at a variety of temperature ranges. Higher-temperature applications are likely going to be more difficult to electrify, because there are fewer available low-carbon heat options. Reactor systems with higher outlet temperatures could conceivably serve processes requiring temperatures between 300°C and 800°C. These reactors would need to demonstrate a high degree of safety with minimal reactivity feedbacks between the reactor and the process heat application. These are necessary attributes for siting a nuclear plant near a facility for industrial heat applications.
Finding 5-3: Several proposed non-electric services, such as low-temperature heat and desalination, currently cost very little and likely would not be compensated at a level that encourages new nuclear deployment. Hydrogen provides perhaps the most credible non-electric revenue stream for nuclear reactors, because it is likely that hydrogen will have value across the industrial, power, and transportation sectors for deep decarbonization.
CHAPTER 6
Finding 6-1: Significant expansion in the deployment of advanced reactor technologies to achieve decarbonization goals will require concomitant growth in the labor force to support not only the construction and operation of these systems, but also to enable the necessary expansion of supporting fuel and supply chains and regulatory and training networks. Development of a wide range of unique technologies may exacerbate this challenge.
Recommendation 6-1: In anticipation of the necessary expansion in workforce to support more widespread deployment of nuclear technologies, the Department of Energy should form a cross-department (whole of government) partnership to address workforce needs (spanning the workforce from technician through PhD) that is comparable to initiatives like the multi-agency National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. The program would include the Departments of Labor, Education, Commerce, and State, and would team with labor organizations, industry, regulatory agencies, and other support organizations to identify gaps in critical skills and then fund training and development solutions that will close these gaps in time to support more rapid deployment. In carrying out these efforts, it will be important to take full advantage of existing efforts at commercial nuclear facilities and national laboratories that already have well-established training and workforce development infrastructure in place.
Finding 6-2: The typical U.S. utility company is not adequately equipped with skilled technical and engineering personnel to plan and manage its own major nuclear construction project. Historical evidence suggests that severe cost and schedule overruns are the result of a lack of these in-house capabilities by the primary owner and operator of challenging projects.
Finding 6-3: Irrespective of deployment model and reactor technology, installation at a specific site will require planning, compliance with environmental regulations and security requirements, consideration of societal concerns, and adaptation to site-specific conditions such as seismic, geologic, groundwater, elevation of the site with respect to adjacent bodies of water, and severe weather considerations.
Recommendation 6-2: Nuclear owner/operators pursuing new nuclear construction should consider the creation of a consortium or joint venture to pursue the construction on behalf of the group, thereby enabling the creation and maintenance of the necessary skilled technical engineering personnel to pursue projects successfully. Alternatively, advanced reactor developers operating within the traditional project delivery model should consider implementing a long-term business relationship, preferably an equity partnership such as a joint venture, or a consortium, with a qualified engineering, procurement, and construction firm experienced in the nuclear industry.
Recommendation 6-3: Department of Energy programs such as the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program should develop criteria that encourage and incentivize all major government-funded nuclear power projects to include a formal collaborative agreement between the reactor vendor and an experienced development firm to ensure that there is management capacity to complete nuclear construction projects successfully, on budget, and on schedule.
Finding 6-4: Underestimation of cost, schedules, and risk during the project planning and execution stages can set unrealistic expectations, potentially damaging future prospects for the technology. If risk is ignored or undervalued, the cost and schedule expectations may not be founded in sound engineering and project delivery expertise.
Recommendation 6-4: The plant owner should mandate an independent peer review involving both a quantitative risk assessment and a qualitative review as part of the plant construction project planning process, especially during a first-of-a-kind new build or first building of an existing design that has had significant changes since it was last built. These could fall under the auspices of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the National Reactor Innovation Center, respectively, with assistance from academia and other research organizations (e.g., the Electric Power Research Institute) in the development of the tools and
methods. The qualitative independent review should include technical and programmatic risk (to include quality of vendor-fabricated components), the validity of cost estimation elements, schedule realism, and the impact of these on cost; the quantitative risk assessment should include stochastic modeling for schedule and cost estimates. Similar reviews should be conducted when the cost and schedule estimates are more mature, at both 35 percent and 95 percent design completion.
Finding 6-5: Although cost and schedule overruns tend to manifest in the construction phase, the causes are often created during the prior planning engineering and procurement phases based on issues such as inadequate design review, component qualification issues, and inadequate installation instructions. This issue is compounded by the fact that there is no readily accessible evidence (e.g., lessons-learned data) that would support and enhance the industry-wide learning that can lead to improved cost and schedule performance over time for nuclear projects in the United States.
Recommendation 6-5: The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Project Management should partner with an appropriate organization such as the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to build on their lessons-learned repository to provide reactor developers with guidance for risk identification, assessment, and mitigation based on historical occurrences and industry-wide experience. The repository should include a Standard Risk Register for DOE’s recent nuclear facilities projects and for nuclear power plant construction (to be developed by the National Reactor Innovation Center), and a standard of practice for nuclear power engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) projects (perhaps developed by EPRI and Nuclear Energy Institute). The American Nuclear Society should be encouraged to provide development of a nuclear EPC learning and engagement track.
Finding 6-6: Incomplete design or late design changes can lead to significant schedule and cost growth.
Recommendation 6-6: Advanced nuclear developers should follow a criteria-based approach to ensure that detailed designs are >95 percent complete before transitioning to full project execution. This approach can be made actionable by the owner through insistence on a more comprehensive assessment of design readiness, including manufacturability of components and adequacy of build materials like concrete and rebar.
Finding 6-7: The supply chain supporting the current fleet of operational nuclear power plants in the United States does not currently have the capacity to provide the unique components necessary for different reactor designs while maintaining sufficient quality, considering the number of builds envisioned by reactor developers. The lack of sufficient manufacturing capacity with strict quality assurance programs poses challenges for both product- and project-based deployment models. Expansion of the supply chain would necessitate implementation of Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA-1) requirements across an enlarged manufacturing base.
Finding 6-8: Digital engineering tools (including but not limited to digital twins) and building information modeling are focused on removing uncertainties that add to cost and schedule during the planning phase by facilitating coordination among all stakeholders and bringing transparency to construction performance. Such innovations could assist with timely identification of quality issues such as tolerances, thus permitting near real-time decisions on acceptance or rejection of the components during installation, which may reduce cost and schedule impacts. Further research on digital engineering tools is needed to determine the value of implementing them in advanced reactor installations.
Recommendation 6-7: The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy as appropriate should enhance collaboration among entities currently researching and developing digital engineering technologies to support improved vendor fabrication and certification of components. This effort should identify specific capacities that would help nuclear builds in particular.
Finding 6-9: There are significant R&D efforts under way in advanced manufacturing technology development and advanced processes funded through the Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Office and the Advanced Manufacturing Office. Better alignment of these efforts with the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy’s programs may support lower-priced and more streamlined construction of new nuclear sites.
Finding 6-10: Numerous analyses have found that site development challenges have been a primary contributor to cost and schedule overruns for nuclear deployment. Despite this recognition, there is limited R&D activity to develop technologies that can reduce cost and risk in site development that is focused on nuclear plants. For example, $5.8 million was allocated in FY 2022 for the Advanced Construction Technologies Initiative, and some limited funding was provided for materials/manufacturing research (non-specific to site construction) within the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Sub-Program portion of the Cross Cutting technologies program. This is dwarfed by the broader non-nuclear-specific programs under way examining advanced production processes and building design processes funded through the Department of Energy Building Technologies Office and the Advanced Manufacturing Office.
Recommendation 6-8: While it is vital to demonstrate that advanced reactors are viable from a technical perspective, it is perhaps even more vital to ensure that the overall plant, including the onsite civil work, can be built within cost and schedule constraints. Because it is likely that costs for onsite development will still be a significant contributor to capital cost, and the ~$35 million in Department of Energy (DOE) funding for advanced construction technologies R&D is small in comparison to the hundreds of millions spent on nuclear island technology research, more should be done over an extended period to research technologies that may streamline and reduce costs for this work. DOE should expand its current efforts in R&D for nuclear construction and make these advanced technologies broadly available, including to vendors participating in the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program Risk Reduction and ARC20 programs.
Finding 6-11: A highly standardized product-based approach could improve learning, cost and schedule performance, quality, and speed and scale of reactor deployment. However, the data used to make cost and risk estimates are often based on the assumption that plants are sited at locations with similar characteristics, which will not always be the case.
Finding 6-12: There is currently limited U.S. domestic capability to support a product-based approach to building nuclear reactors outside the naval shipyard environment, although some existing nuclear facilities could be modified to support a manufacturing model and international teaming may be possible.
Recommendation 6-9: The Department of Energy should work with the relevant reactor vendors to develop best practices for the pursuit of a product-based approach to reactor deployment.
Finding 6-13: Advanced reactor developers are considering a manufacturing “shipyard” approach to modular development to better control costs in development. While historical assessments do indicate that a production line approach as seen in shipyard production can lead to cost savings, it is unclear whether this approach will translate to significant cost savings in advanced reactor development because it does not necessarily address site development, which can be a primary cost driver in nuclear deployment.
Recommendation 6-10: The Department of Energy should partner with the Department of the Navy and industry to evaluate lessons learned in nuclear shipbuilding to determine the metrics and cost factors that would inform a better understanding of potential cost savings from a manufacturing approach to nuclear new builds. The evaluation would focus specifically on how the engineering facility is set up to enable efficient multiple unit throughput, with considerations to both workforce optimization and setup of internal lines within the facility. Outcomes could include development of standardized tools and analytic methods that would enable better assessment of readiness for commercialization across different nuclear technologies and inform the business cases for development of a nuclear manufacturing facility.
CHAPTER 7
Finding 7-1: In recognition that advanced reactors present different regulatory issues from light water reactors, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is allowing a degree of regulatory flexibility under the existing regulatory system (NRC Part 50 and Part 52). It is also pursuing a technology-independent, performance-based, and risk-informed regulatory process for advanced reactors to be promulgated as Part 53. These actions reflect reasonable flexibility by the NRC to adjust the regulatory system to accommodate reactors different from existing light water reactors.
Finding 7-2: Establishing the safety case for an advanced reactor will require a thorough verification of the validity of safety claims based on detailed analyses founded on experimental data. All should recognize that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will take its obligation to ensure adequate protection of public health, safety, and environment seriously and that the necessary thorough review of applications can be time consuming.
Recommendation 7-1: Advanced reactors will not be commercialized if the regulatory requirements are not adjusted to accommodate their many differences from existing light water reactors. A clear definition of the regulatory requirements for a new technology must be established promptly if timely deployment is to be achieved. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs to enhance its capability to resolve the many issues with which it is and will be confronted. In recognition of the urgency for the NRC to prepare now, Congress should provide increased resources on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year to the NRC that are not drawn from fees paid by existing licensees and applicants.
Recommendation 7-2: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should undertake a lessons-learned effort as it processes the first group of applications for advanced reactors as a means to streamline its review without compromising its commitment to the public health, safety, and the environment.
Finding 7-3: There is a need to ensure a balance between staged licensing and efficiency in the licensing process. The existing process of providing intermediate, but non-final, resolution of matters by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is a reasonable and practical compromise to provide timely and informed input to license applicants.
Finding 7-4: International sales may be an essential part of the business plans of some vendors. Regulatory requirements that differ from country to country can inhibit international sales.
Recommendation 7-3: In light of the importance of international markets, significant efforts should be undertaken now to reconcile needless differences in licensing obligations from one country to another. This should involve increased engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency on these matters, as well as exploration of regulatory mechanisms like those used by the aviation industry. In the meantime, bilateral arrangements with other countries pursuing advanced reactors, such as the memorandum of understanding that the United States has entered with Canada, may pave the way for broader international harmonization.
Finding 7-5: Some reactor vendors anticipate opportunities to deploy their reactors near or in urban environments or in the vicinity of industrial facilities that will use heat produced by the reactor. These applications of advanced reactors will present unique siting and emergency planning issues. Careful and early examination of such issues is necessary to define the future range of economic opportunities that are available for advanced reactors.
Recommendation 7-4: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should expedite the requirements and guidance governing siting and emergency planning zones to enable vendors to determine the restrictions that will govern the deployment of their reactors.
Finding 7-6: Some advanced reactors are likely to present unique and difficult decommissioning challenges.
Recommendation 7-5: Reactor developers need to consider the challenges associated with decommissioning and address them in the reactor design. The failure to consider decommissioning issues in the design phase could result in large expenses at the end of a reactor’s life. Vendors should exploit the lessons learned from Department of Energy and Department of Defense decommissioning activities, as well as from the decommissioning of power and research reactors.
Finding 7-7: Some vendors propose to use novel fuels for which limited experimental or operational data is available. This is likely to present a particular regulatory challenge because of the need for extended fuel irradiation to provide the data necessary to support the safety case for the designs. Moreover, the development of the necessary fuel cycle infrastructure will require extensive new regulatory activity.
CHAPTER 8
Finding 8-1: A successful deployment of advanced nuclear energy will require technologies that meet a specific market need at an economic price and that integrate safety, safeguards, and security into the design. Far less appreciated, but likely as critical, is the need to integrate public participation and consent into design, siting, and long-term operations.
Recommendation 8-1: Socio-technical approaches should become part of the nuclear energy research and development (R&D) cycle, treated with the same seriousness as technological development. Research programs need to be reimagined to include public engagement starting at early innovation and through planning, design, deployment, and operation. These programs should be endogenous to the R&D cycle (rather than added on) and should be taken seriously and done rigorously. The Department of Energy should update its programs and associated budget requests to include social science along with their traditional physical science and engineering research. This should lead to the establishment and support of a national cohort of scholars leading in the socio-technical aspects of nuclear energy use.
Finding 8-2: There exists significant tension between the secrecy and security required by the institutions that develop, deploy, and regulate nuclear power—and the transparency and openness that are hallmarks of best siting practices and community support. This is inevitable, but resolving or managing the tension would support efforts to expand nuclear power, especially if plans for widespread national or international deployment are envisioned.
Finding 8-3: Risk communication strategies that rely exclusively or greatly on the engineer’s myth and the deficit model of science communication have been tried in the nuclear industry and have failed comprehensively.
Recommendation 8-2: To improve the prospects for nuclear deployment in coming decades, nuclear vendors need to employ new risk communication strategies, including those grounded in rigorous social science (rather than polling) and respect for community apprehensions and desires. Moreover, risk communication strategies need to remain robust and endure for the life of a nuclear plant, not just during construction. Different methods and frameworks for engagement may be required in each phase of a plant’s lifetime.
Finding 8-4: Academic training in nuclear engineering, and in many engineering fields broadly, has focused on deep technical training without sufficient considerations of the social consequences of engineering decisions.
Recommendation 8-3: U.S. academic institutions need to take the lead in promoting socially conscious engineering. Within the nuclear energy field, the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization and the American Nuclear Society Education, Training, and Workforce Development Division should
engage with experts in the social sciences of design and siting to collaborate, develop, and implement a set of recommendations for updating curriculum, accreditation, scholarship and fellowship programs, as well as research programs. This includes economics, ethics, social science, and the importance of historical decisions and practices that left negative impressions of nuclear technology. While integrated engineering teams should include a broad range of experts crossing many disciplines, engineers, who often lead design teams, should be trained to appreciate the social components of design choices.
Finding 8-5: Empirical evidence (in the form of new conceptual reactor designs proposed over the past two decades) suggests that public engagement during design and designing for values remains far removed from how nuclear reactor designers approach their tasks; this is especially true for engineers who are trained to focus on technical issues.
Recommendation 8-4: The advanced nuclear industry, guided by experts who understand the effect of social interactions on design choices, should devote resources to public engagement during the front-end design phase to ensure that products are best aligned with values. This might minimize the opposition to the licensing process for any specific site. To maximize the probability that a specific design is acceptable to the largest number of communities, reactor designers must engage with potential host sites well in advance of submitting their design certification documents to the regulator: only then could they realistically address public concerns and mitigate them in their proposed plans. This does not mean that each site needs a different design, but that community concerns broadly are considered while designing a nuclear energy system.
Finding 8-6: The advanced reactor community in the United States is still in its nascency, and therefore has no experience in dealing with potentially challenging siting issues associated with (1) constructing a variety of new nuclear reactor designs at many new locations inexperienced with nuclear power and (2) deploying a variety of novel operational paradigms that are different from nuclear power’s traditional role as a baseload electric power generator.
Recommendation 8-5: The developers and future owners that represent the advanced nuclear industry should adopt a consent-based approach to siting new facilities. The siting approach will have to be adjusted for a particular place, time, and culture. The nuclear industry should follow the best practices, including (1) a participatory process of site selection; (2) the right for communities to veto or opt out (within agreed-upon limits); (3) some form of compensation granted for affected communities; (4) partial funding for affected communities to conduct independent technical analyses; (5) efforts to develop a partnership to pursue the project between the implementer and local community; and (6) an overriding commitment to honesty. Following these practices will require additional time and financial resources to be allotted to successfully site and construct new nuclear power facilities, and the industry should account for these costs in their plans. The industry should be willing to fully engage with a community, hear its concerns and needs, and be ready to address them, including adjusting plans. While this would raise the likelihood of successful deployment, it is not a guarantee of success. Additionally, the industry, guided by experts in consent-based processes, should capture best siting practices in guidance documents or standards.
CHAPTER 9
Finding 9-1: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff has proposed significant modifications to physical security requirements to accommodate designs and operations proposed by licensees of advanced reactors that differ from larger light water power reactors. There are many hurdles, including new assessments without clear NRC guidance on compliance demonstrations and a fuller understanding of the vulnerabilities that the new designs and deployment scenarios may present. These issues must be evaluated and any capacity/capability shortfalls in NRC expertise must be overcome before any such modifications can be applied by vendors.
Recommendation 9-1: The modification of the security requirements proposed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff could have significant implications for the design, staffing, and operations of advanced reactors, thereby impacting business plans. Delays in providing clear regulatory guidance may impact capital availability and increases the potential for costly redesign if guidelines do not align with expected modifications to existing protocols. Congress should provide additional funding for NRC evaluation of security guidelines and NRC should expedite its consideration of the staff proposal and seek to complete the rule making promptly if significant changes are deemed appropriate. In that case, the prompt completion of the associated guidance should also be a high priority.
Finding 9-2: Advanced reactor designers envision increased use of automation and the potential for use of artificial intelligence–enabled sensors and controls to reduce staff costs, enhance the robustness of defenses, and, in some cases, provide for remote, multi-asset operations. These systems could increase cybersecurity risk, with some resulting security cost burden over the operating life of the reactor.
Recommendation 9-2: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must ensure the safety and security of new designs, especially for designs that employ greater automation and incorporate remote operating options. Claimed cybersecurity protocols should be tested and regularly validated across the full life cycle of the facility. Licensees should incorporate sufficient cybersecurity controls to ensure safety and guarantee asset protection and manufacturing facility protection across the product life cycle. Both the NRC and the vendors should work closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Small Modular Reactor and Instrumentation and Control Systems groups to develop international standards and determine whether new monitoring alternatives are needed.
Finding 9-3: As advanced reactors continue to be developed with the potential of rapid scale-up both domestically and internationally in the coming decades, it is crucial to recognize, prioritize, and address potential gaps in safeguards technology and to incorporate key measurement capabilities at the earliest stages of the design process. Several initiatives in the United States and within the International Atomic Energy Agency have begun to address these challenges.
Recommendation 9-3: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Department of Energy (DOE) should identify the funding, personnel, regulatory analyses, and key technology gaps for pilot programs in international safeguards for advanced reactors. There is also a need for the vendors to engage early in their designs to fully understand IAEA safeguards requirements and implementation. Because the first vendors will bear the largest cost burden in developing and implementing safeguards for new advanced reactor designs that other vendors may incorporate, the IAEA and DOE should develop cost incentive-based programs to encourage early-adopter vendor participation in safeguards development.
Finding 9-4: Consideration of safety, security, and safeguards requirements—individually as well as their interactions—at the beginning of and throughout the advanced reactor design process by the vendors will avoid unnecessary costs and complications.
Recommendation 9-4: Vendors bear the responsibility of demonstrating compliance of their designs with safeguards, security, and safety requirements, including International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards requirements for reactors sold to non-weapons states. Vendors should recognize that these requirements are interrelated with each other and should ensure that any necessary trade-offs are made early in the design process.
Finding 9-5: The U.S. government has established a robust set of programs and organizations that will support advanced reactor developers across the spectrum of research, development, and deployment, including support for domestic and international safeguards and security research, international engagement, and licensing assessment. In addition, the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have initiated complementary programs to support the long-term effort needed to develop effective nuclear frameworks for the deployment of new and advanced reactors.
Recommendation 9-5: The United States should develop a plan for increased and sustained long-term financial and technical support for capacity building in partner countries, including cost requirements for using U.S. national laboratories and universities as training platforms. This plan should include partnering with U.S. reactor vendors to develop a safety, safeguards, and security “package,” where the United States and the vendor could offer customized support to a host country for developing and implementing new safety, safeguards, and security arrangements.
CHAPTER 10
Finding 10-1: 123 Agreements provide a foundation for the eventual transfer of nuclear items from the United States to existing and emerging nuclear-capable countries. Negotiations typically take years and require the application of significant diplomatic resources. Once a 123 Agreement has entered into force, three main U.S. export control processes are used to authorize or license nuclear exports: Part 810 (Department of Energy), Part 110 (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), and Export Administration Regulations (Department of Commerce). Each licensing or authorization process adds additional time, from as little as 90 days to more than 9 months. Therefore, obtaining U.S. export licenses—from negotiation of a 123 Agreement through exchanges of design information (Part 810) to reactor construction—may take at least several years for the first nuclear export to a country, particularly for a first-of-a-kind reactor plant design.
Finding 10-2: The U.S. federal agencies—Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Department of Commerce—working on the different licensing and authorization processes regularly speak and work with one another when presented with an application. This close coordination across these lead agencies has several benefits: it may reduce the need for extensive modification to manage the export of new and advanced reactors and their technologies, and, given that the export of any individual advanced reactor by a U.S. vendor would likely involve all three licensing processes, this interaction across the agencies plays an important role in ensuring that decisions in one process do not work at cross-purposes with the two other licensing processes. There is little evidence, however, that these agencies have offered coordinated and targeted outreach efforts to U.S. vendors of new and advanced reactors.
Recommendation 10-1: Efforts should be made to shorten the timelines for putting in place 123 Agreements and review of export applications. The three lead export control agencies should increase efforts to educate U.S. nuclear vendors on the requirements, bureaucratic resources, and timelines associated with U.S. 123 Agreements and U.S. nuclear export controls. These efforts would include the creation of new specialized guidance materials, training activities, and other forms of technical assistance, especially for new vendors and in coordination with Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear and similar initiatives, in anticipation of new license applications.
Finding 10-3: As some growth scenarios indicate, there could be a significant increase in the number of deployed advanced reactors throughout the world by 2050. Because no single country (or no single vendor within a country) is likely to be able to support the entire international marketplace, all competitors and competitor nations should recognize that they have shared responsibility in minimizing safety, security, and safeguards risks.
Finding 10-4: For U.S. vendors to better compete with state-owned or state-financed vendors in the dynamic international energy market, a technically and economically viable product must be established that could then be supported by a robust and reliable source of export credit financing. Non-U.S. vendors have more options for financing the export and deployment of advanced reactors than U.S. vendors. This imbalance will eventually reduce the competitiveness of the United States’ advanced reactors in the international marketplace, which could limit the opportunities to build successful partnerships that the United States has used effectively to promote U.S. national security and global nuclear safety, security, and safeguards. Exploring non-standard financial mechanisms and ownership models, such as Build Own Operate (BOO) or Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT), could be useful in non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) markets.
Finding 10-5: Most U.S. advanced reactor vendors will not be ready for international commercial deployment until after successful demonstrations in the United States and thus will be unlikely to tap export-import bank financing before a new authorization cycle is necessary. Given the political challenges that occurred from 2015 to 2019, vendors may not view this as a reliable source absent action by Congress to stabilize and expand funding further.
Recommendation 10-2: International nuclear projects by U.S. exporters are likely to require a financing package that reflects a blending of federal grants, loans, and loan guarantees along with various forms of private equity and debt financing. The Executive Branch should work with the private sector to build an effective and competitive financing package for U.S. exporters.
Finding 10-6: Increasing harmonization in developing and interpreting international nuclear export control guidelines as they apply to advanced reactors by nuclear suppliers will help equalize regulatory requirements facing U.S. and non-U.S. vendors.
Recommendation 10-3: The three lead U.S. export control agencies (Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Commerce) should continue to support initiatives within the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Suppliers Group (e.g., technical exchanges, guidance reviews, and regular meetings) to monitor and promote harmonized implementation and interpretation of export control, safety, security, and safeguards guidelines. Increased commitment of U.S. resources to the three lead export control agencies will be needed to support the work of the Nuclear Suppliers Group on new and advanced reactors, including resources for and leadership in a review of new materials and technologies in conjunction with an internal U.S. review of these items.
