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From page 60... ... Test Bed capable of hosting operational test and experimental nuclear reactor concepts that produce less than 500 kW thermal power suitable for DOE Authorization; • Evaluation of Demonstration Site Alternatives; and • Funding for collaborative R&D efforts between industry and the national laboratories that directly enable future demonstrations of advanced reactors. The following section summarizes these advanced reactor program efforts and Appendix D describes in detail the breadth of these DOE programs. Read the entire page →
From page 61... ... Similar to NASA's transition, DOE and other agencies supporting international development need to transition their support for nuclear energy from a system that has tradi tionally research-based to one that has balanced elements of research and incentives to commercializa tion. The programmatic themes used by NASA to enable their transition that could be adopted by DOE for advanced nuclear energy include • Milestone-based, fixed-price payments that limit government responsibility for cost overruns compared with traditional "cost-plus" contracts; • Cost sharing with private investors; • Use of "other transactions" authority from the 1958 Space Act that enabled agreements that were neither procurements nor grants, and were not subject to the complete Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Read the entire page →
From page 62... ... The overall DOE program has elements in addition to ARDP. The combined portfolio includes • University-led research with industry and national laboratory teams; • Industry-led research through targeted Funding Opportunity Announcements; • Laboratory-led advanced SMR program for early-stage, crosscutting engineering technologies; • Laboratory-led advanced reactor technology program for long-term innovative technologies; and • ARPA-E independent programs in support of nuclear energy. Read the entire page →
From page 63... ... designs, the implied demonstration cost is likely >$10,000/kWe for these initial plants, which provides an indication of the cost reductions required to reach market competitive prices.10 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) Read the entire page →
From page 64... ... program seeks to develop digital twin technology for advanced nuclear reactors and transform operations and maintenance (O&M) systems for advanced nuclear plants (explained further in Chapter 6) Read the entire page →
From page 65... ... ADVANCED REACTOR COMMERCIALIZATION PROGRAM The preceding section described government efforts to support technical development of advanced reactor technologies through R&D support programs. Even if programs such as ARDP are successful in demonstrating the possible viability of advanced reactors, the overall aim of the effort would not be achieved unless the barriers to wide scale deployment are overcome. Read the entire page →
From page 66... ... 12 Arecent study by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency provides context and significant detail about the viability of nuclear in co-generation, covering a wide range of alternatives such as hydrogen production, desalination, and district heating (NEA 2022) Read the entire page →
From page 67... ... Commercialization Risk. Even after a reassuring demonstration, there are challenges associated with commercial deployment, such as overcoming the project management cost and schedule delays that have plagued nuclear construction in the United States and Europe; establishing supply chains for fuel, parts, and components of sufficient quality, volume, and price; developing a sufficient order book to justify the establishment of a manufacturing facility; and ensuring the availability and cost of the necessary skilled workforce both for construction and operations. Read the entire page →
From page 68... ... Deployment mechanisms exist that could create a clear and durable market signal for the commercialization of advanced reactors, several of which are briefly described below. Loan Guarantees. Read the entire page →
From page 69... ... The Inflation Reduction Act provides a 10 percent enhancement of tax credits for clean-energy projects in an "energy community." Among several criteria of eligibility for this bonus is a project be located in a census tract within which a coal power plant has closed since 2010. Several vendors of advanced reactors have examined the siting of new reactors at retired coal plants and these coal-to-nuclear projects may be eligible for this enhancement of tax credits. Read the entire page →
From page 70... ... The scale of these incentives needs to be sufficient not only to encourage nuclear projects but also the vendors and the supporting supply chains. Read the entire page →
From page 71... ... 2017. Program on Technology Innovation: Expanding the Concept of Flexibility for Advanced Reactors, Refined Cri teria, a Proposed Technology Readiness Scale, and Time-Dependent Technical Information Availability. Read the entire page →
From page 72... ... 2022. Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the Waste Aspects of Advanced Nuclear Reactors. Read the entire page →
From page 73... ... New and advanced nuclear power technologies have the potential to provide a range of energy services other than electricity. For example, they produce large amounts of heat that can be leveraged for useful purposes: either nuclear electricity or nuclear heat can be used to desalinate water or produce synthetic fuels1 like hydrogen, ammonia, and gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons. Read the entire page →
From page 74... ... Whenever nuclear reactors are combined into larger systems that are intended to produce products other than heat or electricity, the combined systems are called integrated energy systems (IES) .2 NPPs could be deployed to exclusively provide energy services to industrial customers, instead of dispatching electricity to the grid. Read the entire page →
From page 75... ... . High-temperature Required for ammonia synthesis and steam methane reforming. Read the entire page →
From page 76... ... The following subsections briefly describe potential non-electric applications: clean hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic fuels production, industrial process heat, district heating, and water desalination. As discussed in Box 5-2 Read the entire page →
From page 77... ... to obtain elemental hydrogen. Currently, most hydrogen worldwide is produced using steam methane reforming, a process in which natural gas is heated in the presence of steam and a catalyst to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Read the entire page →
From page 78... ... . Nuclear reactors may also be co-located with the industrial customer to produce hydrogen on-site, for example to replace the steam methane reforming process (Nuclear Newswire 2022) Read the entire page →
From page 79... ... LTE does not require the system integration that HTSE entails, where diverting the thermal energy from the NPP necessitates more complicated engineering design and sometimes complex system integration. However, PEM electrolyzers rely on expensive catalysts to drive the hydrogen production process. Read the entire page →
From page 80... ... Coupling advanced reactors with SOECs for hydrogen production initially will not be cost-competitive compared to LWRs because the capital cost of existing reactors has been recovered long ago. However, cost reductions in advanced reactors and performance improvement of the SOEC process may make this pathway competitive in comparison with other low-carbon hydrogen production pathways. Read the entire page →
From page 81... ... Factors unique to the LCOH of electrolytic hydrogen production pathway include the hydrogen plant capital cost, the efficiency of electrolyzers, and so on. When it comes to the nuclear–hydrogen route, it is likely that the goal set by the Hydrogen Shot initiative can only be realized by the existing fleet of nuclear reactors, rather than one of the advanced reactors. Read the entire page →
From page 82... ... If new and advanced reactors are commercialized in the coming decades, their availability might coincide with that of cheaper, better performing SOEC stacks, improving the economic viability of the plant. Some transformative manufacturing methods such as a hydrogen gigafactory or existing world-class shipyards have been proposed that might significantly reduce the cost of future advanced reactors as well as hydrogen production to $0.9 per kg-H2 by 2030 (Ingersoll and Gogan 2020; EPRI 2021b) Read the entire page →

From page 60...

... Test Bed capable of hosting operational test and experimental nuclear reactor concepts that produce less than 500 kW thermal power suitable for DOE Authorization; • Evaluation of Demonstration Site Alternatives; and • Funding for collaborative R&D efforts between industry and the national laboratories that directly enable future demonstrations of advanced reactors. The following section summarizes these advanced reactor program efforts and Appendix D describes in detail the breadth of these DOE programs.