1
Introduction
Climate change presents an existential threat, demanding massive worldwide reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases. Mitigating this threat will require a continuing evolution in our energy system over the coming decades with an increasing reliance on low-carbon energy sources. Nuclear power could be important in this transition. But the role for nuclear power, as with many other energy technologies, remains uncertain as to its extent and timing. This report will explore the challenges associated with the deployment of new and advanced reactors,1 identify requirements for success, and make recommendations to lay a foundation for a future in which new and advanced reactors contribute to the future energy mix. The committee’s charge is set out in Box 1-1.
The U.S. fleet of commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) today consists of large light water reactors (LWRs). Proponents of new and advanced reactor technologies claim lower costs, shorter construction times, increased safety, greater reliability, increased operational flexibility, and, for non-LWR type reactors, higher thermal efficiency, greater fuel utilization (allowing extended operation between refueling outages), improved waste characteristics (reducing the spent fuel challenge), higher temperature operation (opening new opportunities for process heat), greater proliferation resistance, and reduced regulatory constraints on deployment. These outcomes would be significant, but whether these potential benefits can be realized is uncertain and will depend on many considerations. Uncertainties surround comparative economics with other energy technologies, future demand for electricity and the structure of the grid, the prospects for applications beyond electricity generation, assurance of safety, regulatory hurdles, societal preferences, international market opportunities,2 waste disposition, security, project management, supply chains, nonproliferation, and many more.
Although this study acknowledges that expanded utilization of nuclear power presents formidable challenges, the important opportunities provided by advanced reactors warrant exploration. The current fleet of nuclear reactors already contributes significantly to low-carbon power generation, and many studies show that the continued
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1 The study charge is about “new and advanced reactors,” a term that includes LWRs that are significantly different from current designs (principally, small modular reactors [SMRs]) and reactors using coolants different from light water (e.g., sodium, molten salts, or helium). The focus of the report is on power reactors, not test or research reactors, or production reactors. “New and advanced reactors” will be abbreviated to “advanced reactors” throughout this report.
2 The committee’s charge does not explicitly include commercialization outside the United States, but the topic is discussed because domestic commercialization may depend on the availability of international markets.
operation of existing plants is essential for meeting near-term decarbonization targets (IEA 2022).3 Nuclear power can assuredly be expanded to provide reliable low-carbon power and process heat if society should so choose. Given the growing recognition of the devastating impacts of climate change, the barriers to technologies that can contribute to a low-carbon future, including nuclear power, should be addressed and, if possible, overcome.
THE CONTEXT
The Current State of Nuclear Power in the United States
There are 442 NPPs in operation across the globe. Nuclear energy accounts for ~20 percent of the electricity produced in the United States, ~25 percent in Europe, and ~10 percent worldwide, and it is the largest low-carbon resource in the United States, generating just under half of all low-carbon electricity (EIA 2021).
NPPs in the United States have a combined capacity of 95.5 GWe generated at 54 NPPs (92 reactor units). All of these reactors are LWRs, and most of the later additions to the fleet are large (roughly 1 GWe). They use uranium oxide as fuel, enriched to about 5 percent 235U, and ordinary water as both a coolant and moderator, with traditional Rankine steam-cycle power conversion systems. The average age of the current fleet of reactors is about 40 years (the term allowed in their initial licenses), and nearly all the plants have had their operating licenses
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3 In light of the importance of existing nuclear plants in meeting carbon targets, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $6 billion in subsidies for eligible existing plants in order to facilitate their continued operation. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) also includes a production tax credit of up to $15 per MWh for electricity produced by plants meeting certain labor and wage requirements.
extended to 60 years.4 Over the past decade, some nuclear retirements (as well as many retirements of coal-fired generation) have occurred as a result of the low cost of natural-gas-fired electricity generation (EIA 2022). In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, global gas shortages and volatile gas prices are occurring and there is an increased focus on energy security. The continued expansion of electricity generation using natural gas is somewhat uncertain. At the same time, electricity demand is projected to grow 50 percent by 2050 (EIA 2019), raising the important question of what generation technologies will meet this expanded demand.
In 2009, the National Research Council published America’s Energy Future, a report that assessed the status of energy-supply and end-use technologies over the next two decades (National Research Council 2009). At the time, the only types of new nuclear plants being commercially considered were evolutionary modifications of the original operating fleet—large (~1 GWe) LWRs. The report indicated that commercial deployment of such reactors would depend in large part on the economics of plant construction: if new plants built between 2009 and 2020 met cost and schedule requirements, the report predicted that others could follow. Two projects were undertaken during that timeframe, and they have far exceeded cost and schedule targets.5 Consequently, there are no current proposals in the United States for the construction of additional large LWRs, calling into question whether additional gigawatt-scale LWRs will be built in the United States.
Since the publication of America’s Energy Future, the awareness of anthropogenic climate change has grown, leading to promises by the United States and other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically in the years ahead. President Biden has committed the United States to a 50–52 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions across the economy by no later than 2050. Other countries have made similarly dramatic pledges. The achievement of these commitments will require significant changes in the entire energy infrastructure.
Only a portion of total electricity generation in the United States is provided by low-carbon sources: 18.9 percent comes from the fleet of NPPs, 13.8 percent from solar and wind (“variable renewables”), and 6.3 percent from hydropower. Most of the remainder comes from fossil sources. There is a strong political and economic consensus in the United States that continued and significant growth of variable renewables will be important, encouraged by the cost reductions that have been achieved and the potential for further reductions. But, as discussed below, there may be limitations to relying on deployment of renewables; other technologies, including nuclear power, could be important complements to renewables in our future energy supply.
Decarbonization and the Changing Electricity System
Decarbonizing our entire economy (including the electricity, industrial, transportation, agriculture, commercial and residential buildings sectors) will require increased electrification and concomitant expansion of the electricity system to meet a wider set of demands than today (e.g., electric vehicle charging), making low-carbon electricity generation sources a particular focus in the efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Various electricity generation technologies have differing life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as shown by Figure 1-1. Nuclear power generation has very low life cycle GHG emissions6 and the low-carbon character of nuclear power is a key factor that motivates this study.
While variable generation, such as wind and solar, will likely become central to electricity systems, it does not provide a universal or assured solution. There is a need for firm capacity when variable renewable generation is unavailable or insufficient to meet grid needs. Moreover, there may be constraints on renewables as a result of
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4 Subsequent renewed licenses to 80 years have been granted for six units (subject in some cases to completion of environmental review requirements) and other applications are under review and are anticipated. See U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Status of Subsequent License Renewal Applications,” https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/subsequent-license-renewal.html#complete.
5 One project (two reactor units), Vogtle NPP in Georgia, has doubled in cost and commissioning has been delayed about 5 years. Another project (two reactor units), VC Summer NPP in South Carolina, was canceled after cost overruns became unmanageable.
6 The term “life cycle GHG emissions” refers to the aggregate quantity of greenhouse emissions arising from the full life cycle, including all stages of fuel production: the construction, operation, and decommissioning of the power plant, as well as back-end fuel management.
land-use limitations,7 the availability of rare minerals needed for their manufacture, regional differences in renewable resource availability, and the formidable challenge of a significant expansion of our transmission system to bring power from remote renewable sites to load.8 Other technologies in addition to nuclear power that could play a role in this evolving system include energy storage;9 fossil plants with carbon capture, utilization, or sequestration (CCUS); and geothermal energy and non-traditional hydropower—all of which carry their own costs, risks, limitations, and uncertainties.
In fact, there are many pathways by which the decarbonization goal could be reached with widely varying costs and constraints, but many global studies contemplate an important role for nuclear power. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently concluded that “nuclear is well placed to help decarbonize electricity supply” and that “nuclear power plays a significant role in a secure global pathway to net zero [carbon emissions].” In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considered 90 pathways to limit global average temperature warming to 1.5°C and found that, on average, the pathways require nuclear power across the globe to reach 1,160 GWe capacity by 2050, up from 394 GWe in 2020 (Nuclear Energy Agency 2022). Table 1-1 sets out some recent estimates of predicted nuclear growth through 2050, yet caution is warranted in reviewing these projections, as they are dependent on a variety of assumptions. Moreover, analyses about deployment worldwide do not necessarily reflect the energy path for the United States.
The electric power system in the United States is undergoing a sweeping transition in parallel with the movement to low-carbon generation. The most prominent challenges include (1) the speed and scale of new infrastructure needed to decarbonize and meet higher demand; (2) finding economic means to provide firm capacity when
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7 For example, the prevalence and stringency of ordinances restricting the deployment of wind generation is increasing across the United States, particularly in the Midwest. In Iowa, 16 or 19 counties have adopted strict restrictions in the past 4 years. See Clearpath, 2022, “Hawkeye State Headwinds: A Case Study of Local Opposition and Siting Challenges for Large Scale Wind Development in Iowa,” https://static.clearpath.org/2022/07/hawkeye-headwinds-report-large.pdf.
8 The cost of the expansion of the transmission system has been estimated at $360 billion (Larson et al. 2021).
9 Storage might be provided by chemical means in batteries or in low-carbon synthetic fuels, by potential energy (e.g., pumped storage between water reservoirs at different elevations or compressed air at high pressures), or as high-temperature heat (e.g., by storage of high-temperature salt).
TABLE 1-1 Nuclear in Emission Reductions Pathways
| Organization | Scenario | Climate Target | Nuclear Innovation | Description | Role of Nuclear Energy by 2050 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity (GW) | Nuclear Growth (2020–2050) | |||||
| IAEA (2021b) | High Scenario | 2°C | Not included | Conservative projections based on current plans and industry announcements. | 792 | 98% |
| IEA (2021c) | Net Zero Scenario (NZE) | 1.5°C | Not included in the quantitative model, although the potential of HTGR and nuclear heat are acknowledged in the report narrative | Conservative nuclear capacity estimates. NZE projects 100 gigawatts more nuclear energy than the IEA sustainable development scenario. | 812 | 103% |
| Shell (2021) | Sky 1.5 Scenario | 1.5°C | Not specified | Ambitious estimates based on massive investments to boost economic recovery and build resilient energy systems. | 1,043 | 160% |
| IIASA (2021) | Divergent Net Zero Scenario | 1.5°C | Not specified | Ambitious projections required to compensate for delayed actions and divergent climate policies. | 1,232 | 208% |
| Bloomberg NEF (2021) | New Energy Outlook Red Scenario | 1.5°C | Explicit focus on SMRs and nuclear hydrogen | Highly ambitious nuclear pathway with large-scale deployment of nuclear innovation. | 7,080 | 1,670% |
| Many pathways require global installed nuclear capacity to grow significantly, often more than doubling by 2050 | ||||||
SOURCE: Nuclear Energy Agency, 2022, Meeting Climate Change Targets: The Role of Nuclear Energy, Paris: OECD Publishing, https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_69396/meeting-climate-change-targets-the-role-of-nuclear-energy.
renewable generation is not available or is insufficient; (3) the growth of decentralized generation and residential and commercial energy management models arising from variable tariffs, smart metering, demand response, and microgrids; and (4) increased efforts to electrify transportation, commercial and residential buildings, and industrial processes. As responses to these challenges are being developed, the threats facing the aging electric power system are becoming more acute, including those arising from the extreme natural events associated with climate change and the threat of physical or cyber sabotage. At the same time, the regulations and market rules governing the electricity system are evolving in uncertain ways. As a result, there is uncertainty surrounding nearly every aspect of our electricity system.
Further complicating decarbonization efforts, electricity generation constitutes only about 30 percent of carbon emissions, and some sectors of the economy cannot be directly decarbonized by electrification. The strategy to achieve a low-carbon future must extend beyond electricity to consider the means by which to meet a much wider set of energy needs. For example, the decarbonization of the transportation sector would be furthered by the wide-scale deployment of electric vehicles, but likely will also require low-carbon liquid fuels for heavy trucks, rail, aircraft, and marine shipping. The continued need for liquid fuels might be met by combining hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water with carbon dioxide to manufacture synfuels or with nitrogen to produce ammonia. Heat from low-carbon sources might be substituted for heat from fossil fuels for industrial processes that do not lend
themselves to electrification. Nuclear power, along with other technologies, can be deployed to meet energy needs beyond electricity production.
The optimal balance among the various possible energy sources to meet future demand in a low-carbon energy system is unclear. Indeed, regional differences in the optimal balance are to be expected given resource availability and other factors. And the optimal balance in one period will not necessarily be optimal in other periods because of technical, economic, legal, social, environmental, or policy developments.
Moreover, in evaluating the opportunity for nuclear power to address climate change, three crucial timelines must be considered together: the timeline for deployment of low-carbon technologies, the timeline for decarbonization of end-uses, and the timeline to develop and demonstrate new clean energy technologies. As noted above, large LWRs using existing technology will contribute in the near term, but there is little enthusiasm today for their deployment in new construction in the United States.10 Because demonstrations of new and advanced nuclear designs are not expected until the late 2020s or early 2030s, it may be difficult for new nuclear technologies to contribute significantly until the next few decades. Nonetheless, there is a potential longer-term role for advanced reactors. Electricity demand will grow, the costs and benefits of various technologies may change, capital stock will turn over and need to be replaced (providing the opportunity for technology substitutions), and decarbonization of buildings, industry, and transportation will continue to be targets for decades to come (Figure 1-2). While there is urgency in focusing on short-term solutions for decarbonization, advanced reactors could play an important role in coming decades.
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.
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10 The picture is different outside the United States. About 55 power reactors are currently being constructed in 19 countries and most of these reactors are large LWRs (1 GWe or larger).
NEW TECHNOLOGY DEPLOYMENT SCENARIOS
A variety of vendors are pursuing innovative reactor designs in anticipation of a substantial future market in the United States and abroad and in response to the potential needs of an evolving energy system. The vendors offer a variety of deployment scenarios for these new technologies:
- Deploying small modular reactors for electricity production. The smaller size may enable the manufacture of a major portion of the plant components (or in some cases entire systems) in a controlled factory setting, which could improve quality and reduce on-site construction activity and costs. Multiple modules of these reactors could be located on the same site to obtain the power capacity required by a customer. Alternatively, installation of these reactor modules could be staggered over time to complement growing demand or an owner-operator’s financing ability.
- Repurposing existing fossil generation sites (e.g., coal plants) with new nuclear generation to benefit from existing transmission infrastructure, cooling capability, and possibly portions of the existing plant outside the nuclear island (e.g., turbine-generators).
- Combining electricity production with thermal energy storage, thereby providing flexible operation.
- Producing high-temperature heat for industry, such as chemical processing or hydrogen production.
- Producing low-temperature heat for district heating, desalination, or agriculture.
- Combining off-grid electricity and district heating.
- Providing dedicated electricity supply to an industrial partner (rather than providing power to a bulk power grid).
- Using microreactors (1–10 MWe) for remote sites, electric vehicle charging, ancillary services at key grid nodes, or even as a primary source of electricity in a reconfigured grid.
- Providing transportable small reactors or microreactors to meet emergency needs.
- Deploying reactors that are moored or located offshore from load centers, thereby enabling efficient shipyard construction and alleviating siting restrictions.
- Using nuclear reactors for marine propulsion.
- Providing reliable and resilient onsite power for military bases.
Demonstration plants and pilot projects will need to be built for novel designs and novel deployment paradigms before wide commercial exploitation is possible. As described in more detail in Chapter 4, the U.S. Congress has allocated significant funds over the past decade to support advanced reactor concepts in partnership with the private sector and has established several new programs to nurture new reactor technology (Box 1-2). The traditional nuclear deployment strategy has depended on the conduct of significant government-funded R&D before passing a new concept to industry for possible commercial deployment (e.g., Next Generation Nuclear Plant of the Early 2000s; see NRC 2021a). To meet aggressive deployment scenarios in the coming decades, a more comprehensive approach is required. Congress has recognized this reality in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA); it provides incentives for clean energy technologies (production and investment tax credits), including nuclear power, that are aimed at nurturing commercialization.
Even with significant government support, a credible and commercially viable nuclear power technology requires
- Developing a business case that shows a competitive advantage over alternatives. For example, a nuclear plant to provide high-temperature heat would have to outperform natural gas with carbon capture and storage or solar-to-heat systems.
- Convincing investors to finance and build the needed supply chains and factories. A current example is the need for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) desired by many advanced reactor vendors.
- Completing regulatory approvals in a timely manner for products that are new to the regulator.
- Attaining community acceptance for deploying nuclear reactors, both in traditional ways and in first-of-a-kind deployment scenarios (e.g., microreactors as part of a distributed network of electric vehicle charging stations).
Many of the proposed new nuclear deployment paradigms would entail novel system integration risks, and both the nuclear plants and the broader systems will need to be evaluated from technical and economic perspectives.
Reactor vendors have taken different approaches to meet the product development, supply-chain creation, regulatory approval, and community acceptance milestones. Four examples are presented in Box 1-3: (1) NuScale
has sought to minimize changes from already approved LWR technology; (2) Oklo has chosen to move to very small reactor sizes; (3) TerraPower has chosen to pursue an advanced reactor that has been explored extensively in the past; and (4) Kairos Power seeks to pursue an advanced reactor with which there is limited experience. These were selected because they reflect a range of different development models, not because they exhaust the deployment opportunities of possible interest.
REPORT ROADMAP
Each chapter in this report focuses on a specific challenge area that could constrain widespread and timely commercialization of new and advanced nuclear reactors. The chapters are organized in the order below, and each provides recommendations on how to overcome the identified obstacles by outlining the success requirements for each challenge area. Below is a roadmap and summary of each of these challenge areas.
Technology.
While the current LWRs have an excellent record of safety, major accidents like that at Fukushima-Daiichi have suggested that future NPP designs need to be safer than existing plants (including stronger capacity to deal with external hazards), and less dependent on operator actions and active safety systems. These considerations have increased interest in smaller nuclear plant designs that incorporate advanced technologies and improved safety features, as well as lower unit costs. While there is extensive experience with some of the advanced technologies that vendors are pursuing, the designs are at various levels of technical maturity. Chapter 2 describes the various technologies, assesses the safety and technical gaps that must be addressed for the designs to be ready for demonstration and possible deployment, and describes the efforts that are under way to fill the gaps.
Evolution of the grid.
The National Academies recently completed a comprehensive assessment of the future of the electric grid in the United States (NASEM 2021), which demonstrates that significant change is occurring and anticipates continued changes for several decades. Demand for electricity will likely grow along with the need for decarbonization. A suite of low-carbon power-generation technologies has experienced high growth rates and concomitant cost reductions. Customer expectations for resiliency, affordability, and equity are evolving. The grid’s regulatory framework is evolving both to satisfy these expectations and to capture different value streams. Chapter 3 describes changes to the grid and its customers that affect all power suppliers, including nuclear vendors.
Economics.
Although economics will not be the sole determinant of the makeup of the future energy system, it is perhaps the largest challenge to the commercial success of advanced reactors. A variety of studies have examined the mixture of generation technologies that present the lowest overall economic cost, and most indicate that the optimum mixture includes a significant component of nuclear power in a carbon-constrained world if cost targets for advanced reactors are achieved. Chapter 4 describes the implications of cost projections for various combinations of generation technologies, the supply chain requirements for various deployment levels, government programs to facilitate the demonstration of advanced nuclear technologies, and the policies that may be necessary to encourage their wide-scale commercial deployment.
Nuclear power beyond electricity.
Chapter 5 describes the alternative applications for nuclear power beyond electricity production—industrial heat, hydrogen and synfuel production, district heating, and desalination. Of these, hydrogen production using high-temperature advanced nuclear reactors is perhaps the most promising. Such applications may be important in their own right and as a means to enable the economic deployment of nuclear plants on grids with substantial reliance on variable renewables. That is, at times when the output of the nuclear plant is not needed to meet grid needs, the output could be used for other purposes.
Project management.
The recent experience of NPP construction in many developed countries has not been encouraging; it is characterized by delays in completion of construction and significant cost overruns. Depending on the plant, capital cost11 can account for as much as 80 percent of the cost of energy from an NPP, with the remainder of the cost typically divided between operation and maintenance costs (15 percent) and fuel costs (5 percent). In light of this fact, achieving cost targets for nuclear energy depends highly on effective and efficient project management and on a capable and skilled workforce to construct the plants. Factory or shipyard manufacturing
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11 Capital cost refers to the cost to build the power plant. Those costs are then recovered over the life of the plant from revenue from the sale of power.
to enable “product-based” deployment has the potential to reduce costs but has yet to be demonstrated for NPP construction. Chapter 6 explains that lessons from past project and construction management failures must be learned and overcome if NPPs are to play a significant role in the future.
U.S. regulation.
NPPs are subject to extensive regulatory oversight by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to ensure protection of the public health and safety and of the common defense and security. The existing system is understandably tailored to address issues associated with LWRs. But, given that many vendors are pursuing advanced reactors that are employ technology very different from existing LWRs, the regulatory requirements must change to accommodate them. Because the business case for an advanced reactor must be premised on an understanding of the regulatory environment in which the plant will be licensed and operated, unknown regulatory requirements present an obstacle for commercial deployment. Chapter 7 explains that regulators need to evaluate new risks as well as the ways that vendors plan to prevent or mitigate them, and vendors need to understand the potential limits of the applications of their technologies that arise from regulatory requirements. While the NRC has shown it is prepared to be flexible and to address new safety issues, its capacity will have to be greatly expanded to deal with the regulatory challenges that advanced reactors present in a timely fashion.
Societal acceptance.
Nuclear power has provoked public controversy and opposition. Chapter 8 addresses the societal challenges implicated in the deployment of reactors of any type and outlines the myriad economic, social, behavioral, and political realities that affect public attitudes of the technology. At the end of the day, societal acceptance is an essential element for widespread deployment of any energy technology. Although growing concern for climate change may be prompting changes in attitudes about nuclear power,12 best practices for community engagement and risk communication should nonetheless be pursued to ensure societal support.
Security and safeguards.
NPPs are required to have a capability to withstand a physical attack by terrorists and to avoid cyber vulnerabilities. Licensees in non-nuclear weapons states also have the obligation to establish monitoring and surveillance equipment to ensure that weapons-usable nuclear material is not diverted, subject to inspection and oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).13Chapter 9 explains the security and safeguards challenges associated with advanced reactors.
International markets.
The global market for new electricity capacity could be substantial as countries develop economically and their needs for electricity grow. Many prospective countries currently do not have the regulatory or commercial infrastructure necessary for safe and secure operation of NPPs and that infrastructure must be developed. In order for a U.S. vendor to participate in a foreign market, there must be an agreement for cooperation (a “123 Agreement”) between the United States and the recipient country. Establishing such an agreement can take many years, and challenges arising from export requirements and financing must also be overcome. Chapter 10 explains that the United States will forgo economic opportunities if it does not seek to compete in the international market; indeed, international sales may prove essential for those U.S. vendors that seek to achieve cost targets through serial production of a large number of units. Moreover, the capacity of the United States to influence the international system for safety, security, and safeguards may wane if it does not pursue nuclear power at home or participate in the international market.14
Fuel cycle issues.
One significant barrier to increased reliance on nuclear power is the failure to develop repositories for the disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste. Progress has been made in a few other countries (e.g., Finland and Sweden), but not in the United States. Spent fuel in the United States is safely stored at reactor sites in spent fuel pools and in dry-cask storage, but this clearly is not a solution for the long term. Moreover, many of the advanced reactors are pursuing the development and deployment of new fuel cycles, raising economic,
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12 Restrictions on the construction of new nuclear power facilities existed in 13 states, but West Virginia, Kentucky, Montana, and Wisconsin have recently ended these restrictions and several other states are considering a change in policy (Tony 2022). A recent study by MIT and Stanford researchers on the adverse climate impacts of the closure of the Diablo Canyon plant has caused California to encourage the plant’s continued operation (Aborn et al. 2021; Save Clean Energy 2022). At the same time, energy security concerns arising from the Russian invasion in Ukraine are causing several European countries to reconsider their policies governing nuclear power.
13 The United States is recognized as a weapons state and no U.S. reactors are subject to IAEA safeguards requirements.
14 The absence of a commercial nuclear power industry in the United States would also have implications for the U.S. Navy. The providers of nuclear-quality components and services to the Navy also rely on the market provided by the commercial nuclear industry. See Energy Futures Initiative (2017).
safety, security, and safeguards issues beyond those presented by the reactors themselves. Although issues associated with cost uncertainty arising from the fuel cycle are discussed in Chapter 4, other fuel cycle and waste issues associated with advanced reactors are addressed in a separate National Academies study (NASEM 2022) and are not encompassed in this report. The committee notes that these issues must also be considered as an aspect of reliance on nuclear power.
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.
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