TMI Update: Jan 14, 2024


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https://www.deseret.com/utah/2024/05/13/curtis-utah-nuclear-politics-environment/?utm_medium=email

Advanced nuclear technology development gets a boost from Rep. Curtis

Utah GOP representative wants grants to cover the fees assessed by regulatory agency

 
Amy Joi has worked at the Deseret News for 25 years and for 14 years has devoted her coverage to the environment, agriculture and energy issues facing the West.

The House recently passed the Advanced Nuclear Reactor Prize Act introduced by Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, which authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Energy to award grants to cover fees assessed by the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“The costs and red tape associated with our permitting process are proving to be duplicative and ineffective,” Curtis said. “We need innovation in the nuclear space to ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy in our future and Congress must do more to ensure that can happen.”

The Advanced Nuclear Reactor Prize Act would authorize the energy secretary to make targeted awards to cover fees assessed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the first technologies that are licensed and made operational in five unique categories. The prizes, his office said, will incentivize innovation and quality applications, ultimately making it more affordable for first-of-a-kind technology to get through the licensing process.

The expansion of nuclear energy in the United States would support Utah’s uranium industry. This includes mining and the only conventional uranium mill operation in the United States, the White Mesa Mill in San Juan County. Currently, Russia disproportionately controls the uranium supply chain using questionable labor and environmental practices.

Earlier this month, both the House and Congress passed a bipartisan bill to ban imports of uranium into the United States to bolster domestic mining of uranium in this country.

White Mesa is owned by Energy Fuels and produced 162,000 pounds of uranium ore in 2022 from feedstocks that were not produced in Utah. Energy Fuels also secured long-term supply contracts with U.S. nuclear utilities and an additional supply contract for the newly established U.S. Uranium Reserve.

Such incentives perhaps could have helped the Carbon Free Power Project by the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems get its advanced nuclear project off the ground, pioneered by NuScale, that went through lengthy delays.

“If enacted, this concept could help alleviate the financial burdens developers face during the NRC licensing process for advanced reactor designs,” said Craig Piercy, chief executive officer and excutive director of the American Nuclear Society.

Although it was the first system of its type to get design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it was ultimately derailed in November after the costs became prohibitive for member cities. NuScale has signed multiple contracts with other countries and is proceeding with other projects — which underscores the need for more regulatory relief.

“This government backed support for nuclear projects holds significant promise in fostering innovation and overcoming barriers within the nuclear energy sector,” said Mason Baker, general manger and chief executive officer of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems. “We view nuclear power as a valuable dispatchable energy source, and we will continue to look at resources, such as this, that have the potential to minimize risks and ultimately make the process more affordable.

The bill previously passed the House in February 2024. To fast track the bill into law, it was added to Section B of S. 870, which amends the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act — giving it a boost for survival. It now awaits U.S. President Joe Biden’s signature.

PEACH BOTTOM ATOMIC POWER STATION, UNITS 2 AND 3 – INTEGRATED INSPECTION REPORT 05000277/2024001 AND 05000278/2024001
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission - News Release
No: 24-032 May 3, 2024
CONTACT: Dave McIntyre, 301-415-8200

NRC Identifies Eleven Abnormal Occurrences in FY 2023 Annual Report to Congress

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its annual report to Congress for fiscal year 2023 on abnormal occurrences involving medical and industrial uses of radioactive material.
 
Eleven abnormal occurrences were identified, seven of which were medical events, such as misadministration of radioactive material during diagnostic procedures or the treatment of an illness. Three events involved the theft or diversion and recovery of Category 2 radioactive material sources as defined in 10 CFR Part 37. The remaining event involved an unplanned dose to a fetus. No events at commercial nuclear power plants in FY 2023 met the criteria for an abnormal occurrence.
 
An abnormal occurrence is defined as an unscheduled incident or event that the NRC determines to be significant from the standpoint of public health or safety. The FY 2023 report did not identify any event that met the guidelines for inclusion as “other events of interest.” The report includes an update to an FY 2022 abnormal occurrence at the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada in Las Vegas.
 
The “Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences, FY 2023” is available on the NRC website.
 
Subject: Summary of April 9, 2024, Public Meeting with Constellation Energy Generation, LLC Regarding Hooded Masks (EPID L-2024-LRM-0041)
 
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Nevada nuclear commission ready to strike back after pro-Yucca hearing in Congress

Comments in a House hearing raised fears that Congress may reopen nuclear waste issue after election, and that state needs to be more proactive in fighting it.

Gabby Birenbaum Gabby Birenbaum          

Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack records a video for his constituents in the South Portal tunnel at Yucca Mountain on Saturday, July 14, 2018. Twelve members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee toured the proposed site for story nuclear waste. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent)

Earlier this month, a congressional subcommittee met to discuss spent nuclear fuel and where to store it — setting off alarms for opponents of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the federal site in Nye County designated to store the nation’s high-level nuclear waste that has nonetheless sat vacant for decades due to intense regional opposition.

Two weeks later, the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects held its first meeting of the year to discuss the antagonistic tenor of the subcommittee meeting — and strategize for how to beat back a potential new wave of Yucca enthusiasm after the 2024 election.

“[The hearing] is a problem,” said Fred Dilger, the director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. “It suggests to us that the pro-Yucca faction may be back after November.”

Members of the commission — which advises the governor and Legislature on radioactive waste issues — said they and Nevada’s congressional delegation were taken aback by the harsh tenor and lack of knowledge that subcommittee members displayed during the April 10 hearing. Key subcommittee members referred to Yucca as a “technically successful” program that has only been stymied by politics from “states like Nevada.”

While no new legislation or funding has been proposed this Congress, the commission believes the subcommittee members’ frustration is worthy of strategic response, particularly because of existing technical issues with the site that they say members and witnesses did not acknowledge. 

Even if a newly seated Congress in 2025 is interested in allocating funds to restart the licensing process for Yucca Mountain, Nevada has a number of baked-in processes meant to muck up the works.

Though the proposed repository is on federal land, the Department of Energy would still need to pursue a license application to use and build the site, given that the only existing infrastructure is a tunnel within the mountain. Doing so, according to government estimates, would cost $1.66 billion just on licensing — which the state would fight in court through existing challenges over water rights — and could take up to 10 years. Even if the license application is ultimately granted, construction would then cost between $75 billion and $119 billion.

In addition, there are practical challenges that have severely curtailed the ability to transport nuclear waste to Nevada. There are no existing rail lines nor right-of-ways to Yucca Mountain, and existing tribal lands and the Basin and Range National Monument stand in the way of potential shipping routes.

Scores of Nevada politicians and geologists alike have argued against the repository on the basis of science and national security. On the latter point, Dilger said new developments at Creech Air Force Base — less than 50 miles from Yucca — to build out satellite launch capacity and the proximity between aerial combat training at Southern Nevada’s various military installations and the proposed nuclear waste repository bolster the national security argument, and make the Air Force a likely ally in the fight to kill the program. 

“They're very jealous of their ability to do the things they want to do in that operating area,” Dilger said. “And Yucca Mountain would compromise that. There's no disagreement between ourselves and the Department of Energy about that.”

And he added that recent high-profile transportation incidents — from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio to the recent collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore — could bolster safety arguments in the existing accident-prone mountain passes around Nevada, where nuclear waste would need to be transported. 

Despite all of the practicalities on their side, commission members agreed that when it comes to Yucca, they can never be too careful — and wondered aloud whether they should have been more aggressive in the run-up to the hearing.

In 2022, the state filed a legal motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking it to dismiss the Yucca licensing project, coinciding with a targeted social media campaign for policymakers and nuclear energy wonks. But that motion took place under Gov. Steve Sisolak (D); once Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) took office, Dilger said the governor’s office was “reluctant” to engage in media efforts this past fall.

Lombardo’s spokesperson Elizabeth Ray said the governor’s office supports the agency’s work and “looks forward to the appropriate implementation of their community outreach strategy.”

Board members noted that the agency is still actively educating policymakers on the issue, and suggested better coordinating those efforts with Clark County and the City of Las Vegas.

Forecasting the future

Dilger said that he does not expect the upcoming presidential election to have an impact on whether the federal government takes another swing at licensing Yucca. The Biden administration has been consistent in opposing any new funding for Yucca and following the Nevada delegation’s preferred approach of consent-based siting. While former president Donald Trump initially included Yucca funding in his budgets — though it never passed the Senate — he reversed course in 2020. 

Politically, given Nevada’s status as a pivotal swing state, presidential candidates have little incentive to pick a fight with Nevada voters during an election year. 

Dilger said that unlike in the first few decades of the Yucca fight, both the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy would prefer a new approach and recognize that the project is functionally dead, between scientific, practical and financial challenges. However, he fears a new pro-nuclear group in Congress reviving the issue.

“It's a very odd situation,” he said. “But until we get legislation to kill Yucca Mountain, and start a search for a new repository, we're on the hook.”

However, a future Trump administration could pose a threat to anti-Yucca advocates given recommendations from Project 2025, a constellation of policy plans for the executive branch created by numerous former Trump officials and allied conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation.

On nuclear energy, the Project 2025 authors are explicit, calling for the restart of the Yucca Mountain licensing process. They also want to reconstitute the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), the agency that first selected Yucca Mountain as the high-level nuclear waste storage site and which was dismantled by the Obama administration.

The reestablished OCRWM would be responsible for “developing the next steps” with respect to Yucca, including reforming the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to encourage privatization of nuclear waste storage.

While Project 2025 also urges the next administration to use consent-based siting to identify and build new repositories, and says that finishing the Yucca application process does not represent a commitment to completing the facility, authors made it clear that Yucca is not off the table.

“Consent-based siting for a civilian waste nuclear repository has been a way to delay any politically painful decisions about siting a permanent civilian nuclear waste facility,” they write.

Former Sen. Richard Bryan (D-NV), the chair of the commission, reiterated that the onus is on Nevada to respond to any threat — including from the subcommittee.

Bryan said the congressional delegation was working on a united further action to educate members on the risks Yucca poses, led by Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV). Titus sent a letter to the subcommittee on the day of the hearing; a spokesperson for her office confirmed discussions are ongoing for next steps.

“If we're not able to communicate these concerns to subcommittee members [and] to others, then we're in effect unilaterally disarming ourselves,” Bryan said. 

The Nevada Independent is a 501(c)3 nonprofit news organization. We are committed to transparency and disclose all our donors. The following people or entities mentioned in this article are financial supporters of our work:

  • Steve Sisolak - $3,700
  • Richard Bryan - $2,723
  • Joe Lombardo - $1,800
  • Richard Bryan - $103

Nuclear power’s expansion risks collapse on widening conflicts
Vapor rises from cooling towers of a nuclear power station in Bugey, France. Geopolitical instability and war are putting the growth of nuclear power, a key clean energy source to combat climate change, at risk.
BY JONATHAN TIRONE
BLOOMBERG | Apr 26, 2024
 

Atomic power’s potential as a clean-energy source forestalling climate change is increasingly at risk, with new data suggesting nuclear growth could be threatened by spreading geopolitical instability and war.

While bankers balk at the $5 trillion price tag to triple atomic generation by 2050, researchers at George Washington University reported this week that deteriorating security inside key growth markets may also threaten the next nuclear-energy renaissance before it begins.

 

"It is hard to see how a tripling of nuclear energy could occur without exacerbating the risk of proliferation, nuclear terrorism, sabotage, coercion and weaponization,” said ex-U.S. State Department diplomat Sharon Squassoni, who led the study. "Approaches to reducing carbon emissions really need to consider national security implications.”

To hit ambitious nuclear targets, the world economy would need to install 800 gigawatts of additional capacity over the next quarter century, equivalent to about 30 large new reactors coming online every year until mid-century. While China and Russia have sprinted ahead and are constructing gigawatt-scale units, many western and emerging economies have downsized their ambitions.

So-called small modular reactors are designed to generate a third or less of the electricity produced by a traditional unit. There are currently more than 80 competing designs under development. Because of their smaller size, potentially thousands of additional new plants will need to be installed, often in far-flung locations.

"Wide scale introduction of SMRs could increase risks in a variety of ways,” Squassoni said. The data she collected shows more than three-quarters of the 54 countries that have registered interest in building mini reactors are also experiencing moderate to severe political instability.

The clearest danger is that warring states directly target nuclear sites, as Russia did in Ukraine when it attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, or, Israel has contemplated doing to disrupt Iran’s uranium-enrichment. Then there are the less obvious concerns, with research showing SMRs aren’t a panacea solving the risk of accident, supply-chain vulnerability or weapons proliferation.

Asked about the risks, Rafael Mariano Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said while the danger to nuclear sites is real, it might be better to hold people accountable than forestall a technology.

"The issue here is not the nuclear installation,” Grossi said Wednesday during an interview in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. "The issue is the decision-making process of men and women who decide they are going to target a nuclear facility.”

Hello community!
 
We hope you all are staying safe and healthy as the weather changes and we're facing some unseasonably warm temperatures.
 
There's some pretty frustrating news from DTE this month, detailed by our Grandmother Jessie Collins in this month's newsletter. Check out the following highlights:
 
  1. DTE filed for a 20-year extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for Fermi 2’s license, set to expire in 2025. CRAFT filed legally to stop the extension but we were unsuccessful. This August, the NRC will be conducting an inspection of the commitments DTE has made in order to receive their extension. Of the 37 commitments DTE made, only 10 are completed. Can they complete the other 27 in time? We’ve included the list in this month’s newsletter, which lists mostly technobabble with the occasional extremely vague statement like “enhance self-assessment.”
  2. DTE has requested another rate hike 4 months after their last increase: in December, they were approved for a $368 million increase and are now asking for an additional $450 million. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is challenging DTE, calling this recent request “absurd in both the astounding dollars and obnoxious timing.” Nessel has launched a website where we can file our horror stories as ratepayers, go check it out and support her in facing down DTE.
  3. The Fermi 1 reactor suffered a partial meltdown in 1972 (52 years ago) and DTE has still not cleaned up their mess. Every year, DTE files a report with the NRC with details about Fermi 1’s current status, including revealing that the decommissioning trust fund is $23.5 million short of where it needs to be. Meanwhile, the Fermi 2 decommissioning fund is full and millions of ratepayer dollars are supposed to be going towards it every year. So, where is that money going? And why does DTE need another rate hike?
 
Read more about these issues in our newsletter!
 
Thanks for supporting us and a safer world powered by renewables.
We’re in this together!
 
Peace and Safety,
 
The CRAFT Team
Citizen's Resistance At Fermi Two (CRAFT) is an Indigenous-led, grassroots, organization, committed to an accessible, fair, and just energy future for all! CRAFT originally formed after the Christmas Day 1993 incident at the Fermi2 nuclear reactor that dumped 1.5 million gallons of untreated toxic, radioactive water into Lake Erie. We will continue to push for the closing of Fermi2, and for a safer world powered by renewables.

https://www.eenews.net/articles/after-vogtle-whats-next-for-nuclear/

Energywire

After Vogtle, what’s next for nuclear?

By Zach Bright | 04/30/2024 06:53 AM EDT

The Georgia reactors came online Monday — seven years late at a cost of $35 billion, more than double the initial $14 billion estimate.

A turbine that generates electricity using steam heated by nuclear fission sits at Georgia Power Co.'s Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant Jan. 20, 2023, in Waynesboro, Ga.
A turbine that generates electricity using steam heated by nuclear fission sits at Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Georgia. John Bazemore/AP


The United States just finished what could be its last big nuclear build.

The second of two new reactors at Plant Vogtle began sending electricity to the Georgia grid Monday, after years of development and billions of dollars in investment. Each reactor will produce about 1,100 megawatts of power, which will help meet surging electricity demand without creating climate-warming emissions.

To some, it’s the fulfillment of nuclear energy’s big promise: carbon-free power that can run just about 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“A generation from now, the people in Georgia are going to be really, really happy that Vogtle Units 3 and 4 have gone online,” said Jeff Merrifield, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who is now a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

Government leaders and the energy industry are looking more and more to nuclear energy as a way to meet ambitious climate goals. In March, the U.S. was among 34 countries to commit “to fully unlock the potential of nuclear energy” by shoring up existing reactors and building new ones. The Biden administration has also signed on to an international pledge to triple the world’s nuclear energy by 2050.

Yet it’s no secret that the Vogtle expansion was behind schedule and over budget. The new reactors came online seven years late at a cost of $35 billion — more than double the initial $14 billion estimate.

Proponents like Merrifield insist such issues are unique to first-of-a-kind projects. And Southern Co., which developed Plant Vogtle, declared the project a success: CEO Chris Womack called Monday’s completed expansion a “hallmark achievement for Southern Company, the state of Georgia and the entire United States.”

But critics say Plant Vogtle’s delays and costs are the norm for the nuclear industry.

“Despite massive subsidies and support … only one reactor has started almost 15 years later at an exorbitant cost,” said former NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko. “The problem isn’t the commitment of governments; it is the performance of the industry.”

Jaczko called the international pledge “a rehash of the global nuclear efforts in the beginning of the century.” But the latest nuclear push has at least one twist: developers are focused on reactors much smaller than those at Vogtle.

Small modular reactors, or SMRs, are designed to be easier and cheaper to build. They’re gaining enough steam for NRC to develop a streamlined licensing process to help such advanced nuclear technologies get off the ground quicker, many of which aim to break the mold of more traditional, large light water reactors like at Vogtle.

“We’re just not seeing the utilities really jump on the opportunity to build large light water reactors again,” said Rob Taylor, NRC’s deputy director for new reactors.

NRC expects to receive more than two dozen applications for new and advanced nuclear reactors over the next five years — which could each deliver electricity in the tens or hundreds of megawatts.

The future looks small

SMRs, however, aren’t yet a commercial reality.

NuScale Power, the only developer with U.S. regulatory approval for an SMR design, canceled its flagship project because not enough utilities were subscribed to the program. The project would have provided power to Utah utilities — and had received $232 million from the Department of Energy.

The company still aims to deploy two dozen of its smallest SMRs for power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“The small modular reactor paradigm shift is something that I think an entire energy industry is looking for,” said Clayton Scott, NuScale’s chief commercial officer.

A host of other developers are also looking to deploy advanced reactors. Kairos Power, for example, hopes to deploy a 35-MW, fluoride salt-cooled reactor before 2030. DOE has pledged up to $303 million to help design and build the test reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — and NRC has green-lighted a construction permit for the so-called Hermes project.

The aim is to develop a reactor that can be built and installed efficiently, in contrast to traditional nuclear plants.

“The way that new conventional nuclear has been deployed has been less than ideal, both in terms of cost and schedule,” Kairos CEO Mike Laufer said in an interview.

DOE’s $2.5 billion Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program is also backing TerraPower and X-energy, which like Kairos are developing advanced reactors that don’t use water for cooling.

TerraPower, a nuclear developer in Washington state led by billionaire Bill Gates, applied last month for a construction permit for a demonstration build of a 345-MW, sodium-cooled reactor. The company declined to comment for this story.

X energy is developing an 80-MW, gas-cooled reactor that CEO Clay Sell hopes will make nuclear energy a possibility for customers “that would previously have never considered it an option for their portfolios.” The company is already in partnership with Energy Northwest, a major power provider based in the Pacific Northwest.

The country’s largest power provider, the Tennessee Valley Authority, is also banking big on SMRs, with plans for test reactors in Oak Ridge and long-term aspirations to develop a fleet of BWRX-300s, a 300-MW design from GE Hitachi Nuclear.

“There is a need for more energy, more electricity, especially in our region of the country,” said Scott Hunnewell, TVA’s vice president of new nuclear projects, “and if you’re looking for dispatchable or firm baseload capacity, there’s really only two options — natural gas or nuclear.”

Even more traditional nuclear players are thinking smaller.

Westinghouse Electric Co., which developed the AP-1000 design used to build the reactors at the Plant Vogtle expansion, has its own downsized SMR counterpart, the AP-300.

The company also continues to market its large reactors. In an interview, Westinghouse Energy Systems President David Durham said the company is “in discussions with more than one North American utility,” several of which are contemplating adding AP-1000 reactors. He also said there was global interest from countries including Bulgaria, China and Poland.

But, he added, “if a utility is just looking to replace a few coal plants, SMRs make perfect sense.”

Holtec International, which is looking to restart operations at the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan, also plans to add two of its own SMR-300 reactors at the facility. DOE has made a conditional loan commitment of $1.5 billion to restart the shuttered plant by the end of 2025.

“Back in the mid-2010s, if you had told me that we’d start to see an uptick and nuclear would be headed back, I would have been surprised,” Holtec spokesperson Pat O’Brien said.

The nuclear plans that dot the country are ambitious, but they hinge on the success of companies and the ability of regulators to oversee nuclear projects from cradle to grave.

What to do with nuclear waste also remains a thorny issue. More than 85,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel already sits in 100 locations across the country, with congressional gridlock stalling plans for permanent storage. Most recently, Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are considering reviving a project to store it at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

NRC in action

As Congress crafts a bipartisan nuclear energy bill designed to streamline regulations, the NRC is working to speed up licensing for several advanced reactors that the Biden administration is counting on to realize a zero-emissions grid by 2035.

The commission’s proposed “Part 53” rule would streamline the complex and lengthy licensing process for smaller reactors that many in the power industry have been trying to get off the ground.

NRC also unveiled guidance to support the near-term deployment of “technology-inclusive” reactors — such as those made by TerraPower and X-energy — that are cooled by gas, liquid metals or molten salts instead of water. And this month, the commission approved a streamlined environmental review process for all advanced reactors.

NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell said he’s “confident” the agency can efficiently and promptly review the 25 licensing applications it’s expecting through 2029.

“People will look at how long it took us to license in the 2000s, in the early 2010s, and think that’s what it’s going to take us going forward,” said Taylor, the NRC deputy director. “We have changed so much in the last five years that we are a completely different agency.”

But some developers are wary of the agency’s ability to respond to the growing industry within its current budget.

“NRC has been grossly understaffed. They don’t have the necessary number of people to review efficiently,” Holtec CEO Kris Singh said in an interview. “I think NRC is an excellent regulatory agency — I have no complaint about their intentions — but they have lost a lot of talent in recent years.”

Judi Greenwald, executive director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, echoed that sentiment.

“The existing rules are not written for advanced nuclear reactors and require applicants to seek a bunch of regulatory exemptions,” Greenwald said, adding that NRC needs to scale up to facilitate “dozens to hundreds of applications.”

“This is an issue not just for nuclear power, but for all clean energy. Historically, we’ve operated under the implicit assumption that it doesn’t matter how long it takes to build new things… We’ve never really thought about the fact that you actually need to build things to make the environment better,” Greenwald said.

The Nuclear Innovation Alliance, an industry think tank, released a report earlier this year that said many of the NRC’s review processes are needlessly duplicative and mandatory in cases where they don’t provide any additional safety or precautionary benefits.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has pushed back against assertions that NRC’s processes are at fault. Edwin Lyman, the group’s nuclear power safety director, said the problem is not with the NRC, but with nuclear energy developers that are projecting their struggles.

“It’s not the regulator that’s the problem. The industry likes to point fingers to avoid dealing with their own failures,” Lyman said in an interview.

No more Vogtles?

With the fanfare surrounding SMRs, the future of big reactors is unclear.

The U.S. had 93 operating commercial nuclear reactors as of August 2023, down from 104 in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That fleet is among the oldest in the world, with an average age of 42 years old.

Building new plants is timely and expensive; even the Vogtle project was an expansion of an existing plant, not a from-scratch facility. But Steven Biegalski, chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s nuclear and radiological engineering program, argued that now is the time to build out a new generation of traditional nuclear power plants.

“What Southern [Co.] did with Vogtle is a great starting point, and we have to leverage that experience and amplify it to meet our country’s needs,” Biegalski said. The Vogtle project created a workforce and supply chain for building nuclear reactors, he said, meaning future projects could be built more quickly and cheaply.

“The only option really on the table right now to build new nuclear in the United States — meaning if we wanted to start today — are the Vogtle-style plants, which are the Westinghouse AP-1000 design,” Biegalski said.

Southern Co. did not respond to a request for comment.

But clean energy advocates aren’t enthusiastic for more Vogtle-like builds.

Bryan Jacob, solar program director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said such projects take too much time and money to be worth it. While the new Vogtle units were under construction, he said, Georgia added 4,500 MW of solar energy at one-fifth the cost of the nuclear project. The Vogtle units will provide more than 2,000 MW of capacity.

Georgia energy regulators also aren’t keen on approving another big reactor without some guarantees.

Tim Echols, the vice chair of the Georgia Public Service Commission, supported the expansion at Plant Vogtle and wants to see more nuclear builds in his state. But he said the federal government would need to provide backing for that to happen.

“I need a federal financial backstop that would cover 90 percent of the cost overruns over a contracted price to build another reactor,” he said. “We have not reached a point in the U.S. where these first-of-a-kind projects can be built with any assurance that they will be on time and on budget.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Kairos Power aims to build its test reactor before 2030 as part of the Hermes project.

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