Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The advanced nuclear industry is facing new challenges on the Hill that compound the private sector's woes.
Why it matters: Don't expect the recent high-profile setbacks (see NuScale) to dampen congressional enthusiasm for the technology, but there are real roadblocks to commercialization right now.
Driving the news: The ADVANCE Act — one of the main nuclear bills moving this year — appears to have fallen out of the defense authorization bill, as we reported Tuesday.
- There's also some question about whether another key provision — John Barrasso's Nuclear Fuel Security Act — will make the final NDAA. His legislation aims to boost domestic production of high-assay, low-enriched uranium for advanced reactors.
- Meanwhile, Senate Energy and Natural Resources will hold a hearing Thursday on advanced nuclear commercialization — the industry's most significant Hill scrutiny since the NuScale debacle early this month.
- It'll feature testimony from John Wagner, director of the Idaho National Lab, where NuScale's project was to be sited.
What they're saying: ENR Chair Joe Manchin told Axios he has "a lot of concerns" about recent struggles in the private sector that he plans to raise at the hearing. But he added that Congress shouldn't stop trying on advanced nuclear.
- "The bottom line is, it's a technology that we must mature," he said. "It gives us dispatchable, 24/7 [power], and I think it's imperative that we are leaders in that."
- Sen. Martin Heinrich said he still sees a prominent role for federal dollars to commercialize small modular reactors and other emerging low-carbon technologies.
- "What we're trying to figure out is what are the most appropriate technologies to decarbonize the last 20% of the grid," he said.
Context: NuScale's small modular reactor is the only technology of its kind that has received Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval.
- The company and its partner on the Idaho project, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, said they didn't have enough buyers for the power as they faced rising costs — despite a cost-share agreement with the Energy Department.
- In a statement, the Nuclear Energy Institute said it has "no doubt that NuScale has a design that will deploy and bring clean and reliable energy in the future."
- Heinrich, too, dismissed the idea that NuScale would bring bigger consequences for the industry: "I don't see that as an indictment of small modular so much as a marketing failure."
Yes, but: It takes a long time to get these designs approved at the NRC, and advocates on both sides of nuclear see a bleak outlook for SMRs in the near term.
- Even the ADVANCE Act — which would cut licensing fees and attempt to staff up the NRC — wouldn't move the needle much, said Breakthrough Institute executive director Ted Nordhaus.
- Nordhaus thinks Congress needs to more directly force the NRC to speed up its licensing process for advanced reactors.
- "Congress is going to ultimately have to decide how committed this bipartisan coalition is to actually getting these reactors commercialized," he told Axios. "At times it sort of verges on being a kind of Potemkin nuclear commercialization strategy."
What we're watching: Barrasso told Axios he's still working to make sure his nuclear fuel bill makes the final NDAA.
- Sen. Tom Carper, meanwhile, said he'll try again next year if he can't find a vehicle for the ADVANCE Act before lawmakers head home for the holidays.
- "I don't know that we're going to be able to do that this year, but we can certainly continue to lay the groundwork," he said.
