Legal and Policy Advancements for Advanced Reactors
The reintroduction of Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA) caps off a week of activities focused on innovation, and follows on advancement of key U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidance on advanced reactor licensing.
We covered NELA when it was first introduced in 2018, focusing on its important bipartisan contributions to reestablishing global leadership in nuclear…
The start of 2019 has seen significant progress towards production and licensing of high-assay low-enriched uranium (“HALEU”) fuel. If this momentum keeps up, it has the ability to check off what we have long-discussed to be a key prerequisite to commercial debut of advanced reactors.
As to production of HALEU, two significant events occurred around…
Blog author Sachin Desai, along with a member of the NRC staff, both acting in their individual capacity, recently published an article in the American Bar Association’s nuclear law publication entitled “Preparing for Advanced Reactors: Exploring Regulatory and Licensing Reform.” The article reviews advanced reactor licensing reform efforts, discusses an NRC staff recommendation…
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently released a staff paper-SECY-18-0096-seeking Commission approval of a new proposed methodology for establishing “functional containment” performance criteria for non-light water reactors (non-LWRs). This methodology would step away from deterministic containment design parameters and embrace a concept of “‘functional containment’ as a barrier, or a set of…
Recently, the Hill has been taking a flurry of legislative actions that impact the advanced reactor community across all spectra. We provide a summary of some of the major bills going through Congress below, including a couple which have recently become law or may become so soon.
Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA) (S. 97).…
A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators has introduced the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA) (S 3422), a bill designed to help the United States return to its lead in nuclear energy technology. The bill sponsors explain that the U.S. has yielded this position to Russia and China–weakening our energy security, economic competitiveness, and national…
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this week announced the award of approximately $60 million to 13 advanced reactor projects—the first under the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) “U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development.” The 13 projects cover a diversity of steps in the commercialization process:
…
Nuclear power has had a busy year in 2017. One of the most important trends for preserving the existing fleet of operating nuclear power plants has been the financial commitment by US states to support nuclear power operating in their states and preserve their largest source of carbon-free power—and the thousands of jobs that go…
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has moved forward in developing initial regulatory positions on next-generation reactors, and reaffirming the value of its international cooperation efforts.
In support of its December 14th periodic meeting on small modular reactor (SMR) and advanced reactor regulatory reform, the agency has issued two draft papers for which it…
The value of nuclear power’s reliability and resiliency are getting a closer look. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently issued a grid study calling for FERC to better value essential reliability and resiliency services performed by baseload generation, including nuclear. Recent natural disasters have also reemphasized the real value of resilience, and the role…
