![]() The program may make grants to various entities, including state and local authorities, educational institutions, national labs, and companies. The new CHIPS and Science Act incorporates legislation called the Fission for the Future Act that creates a DOE grant program to support communities where advanced nuclear reactors will replace retiring fossil fuel plants. Both credits are increased if the facility is located at a contaminated “brownfield” site or in a community negatively affected by shifts in the fossil fuel industry.įossil-to-nuclear transition. Alternatively, companies may elect to receive a credit for electricity produced at such facilities. Atop DOE’s funding for demonstration projects, advanced reactors are also eligible for an investment tax credit created by the new Inflation Reduction Act that will reimburse up to 30% of costs for any zero-emissions electricity facility that enters service in 2025 or after. Natrium employs a liquid sodium coolant and a molten sodium energy-storage system, and it will be sited at a coal power plant in southwest Wyoming that is scheduled to be closed down. The company TerraPower, which is backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, will build a 345-megawatt reactor called Natrium in partnership with GE Hitachi. ![]() Last month, the Dow chemical company and X-energy announced a preliminary agreement to install an Xe-100 at one of Dow’s Gulf Coast facilities to provide process heat and power. X-energy has just completed work on a six-year, $40 million grant DOE awarded in 2015 to develop the company’s designs for the Xe-100 and TRISO. The Xe-100 is cooled by high-temperature helium gas and employs TRISO, a pelletized fuel that is designed to resist meltdowns and permit refueling without a shutdown. The company X-energy is building a 320-megawatt plant in eastern Washington, comprising four of its Xe-100 reactors. Both projects will generate electricity commercially and are targeting completion toward the end of this decade. The funding from the infrastructure law is expected to cover the bulk of DOE’s contribution to the two full-scale demonstration projects it selected for support in October 2020. Last year, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act further cemented the program in place with a special six-year, $2.5 billion appropriation. efforts to promote advanced reactors is DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which congressional appropriators created in 2019 before it was formally authorized via the Energy Act of 2020. semiconductor industry through the CHIPS and Science Act, these policies have benefited from bipartisan backing, though they have had a smaller public profile.ĭemonstration plants moving full steam ahead Like the similarly multi-pronged effort to bolster the U.S. NASA is also developing specialized reactors for propelling spacecraft and supplying power on the surface of the Moon.Īside from funding reactor projects directly, Congress is supporting activities such as early-stage R&D, reactor licensing reforms, development of specialized uranium fuel supplies, and assistance to communities hosting fossil fuel plants that will transition to advanced nuclear power. Smaller reactors would provide power for more localized applications, and some models are intended to be transportable. by promising lower construction costs and stronger safety systems, while providing baseload power to an increasingly decarbonized grid. ![]() Larger models are aimed at reversing the decline of nuclear power in the U.S. If successful, these reactors will serve a range of functions. Energized by billions of dollars in funding through the Department of Energy, a sprawl of experimental efforts and technology demonstration projects are now underway. (Image credit – INL)Ĭongress has passed a series of bills over the past four years supporting the development and deployment of “advanced” nuclear reactor designs, which are markedly different from those currently in commercial operation. The structure had been slated for demolition, but it was restored three years ago and is now set to house the DOME (Demonstration of Operational Microreactor Experiments) testbed, which is part of the lab’s new National Reactor Innovation Center. Workers painting the dome that once housed Idaho National Lab’s Experimental Breeder Reactor II facility.
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