Nick Pope
Contributor
The Senate passed a major piece of pro-nuclear energy legislation on Tuesday, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The legislature’s upper chamber passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act — a bill containing the text of the pro-nuclear ADVANCE Act — by a strong 88-2 bipartisan vote. The bill represents one of the most significant efforts undertaken in recent years by Congress to spur the country’s nuclear energy infrastructure and capacity, as well as a rare moment of consensus among both Democrats and Republicans on energy policy through Biden’s first term in office.
If Biden enacts the bill, which has already passed the House, it will be a tool for simplifying the permitting process for advanced nuclear reactors, refine the process for exporting certain nuclear power technologies abroad, augment the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) staff, facilitate advancement of nuclear fusion and related technologies and more, according to its text. (RELATED: Enviros Cheered New York For Shutting Down Huge Nuke Plant. Then Emissions Jumped)
“Today, we sent the ADVANCE Act to the president’s desk because Congress worked together to recognize the importance of nuclear energy to America’s future and got the job done,” Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top GOP lawmaker on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a key player in negotiations, said of the bill’s passage. “This bipartisan piece of legislation will encourage more innovation and investment in nuclear technologies right here on our shores. It also directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to more efficiently carry out its important regulatory mission and helps redevelop conventional energy sites for future nuclear energy projects.”
Nuclear energy is emissions-free and reliable, meaning that it is a sensible option for Republicans, many of whom are strongly against Biden’s $1 trillion-plus climate agenda, and Democrats, who are mostly opposed to significantly expanding reliance on other reliable fuel sources such as coal or natural gas.
However, despite its advantages, the technology has struggled to grow much in the U.S. over the past several decades due in part to high costs, a burdensome regulatory environment, onerous permitting and fears from some corners of the public about the potential for a nuclear disaster, as energy policy experts previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“I urge President Biden to quickly sign this historic nuclear energy policy reform into law,” Republican South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan, another key player in crafting the bill and subsequent negotiations, said of its passage. “With the President’s signature, we will be safeguarding our energy security and our national security.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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It’s good to see elected officials coming to their senses and demanding an increase in a power source that can actually deliver cheap, reliable energy, as has been seen in France and Sweden, among others. Never mind these wasteful subsidies to wind and solar that continue to spin their wheels while proving they’re just a pipe dream until large-capacity storage batteries become common—if ever. As things stand now, fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear are the only ways to go and never mind the climate catastrophe BS because there isn’t one in the first place.
Since the NRC, with it policy based on lies that are so financially enriching for certain small but powerful interests is a very significant impediment to nuclear power, probably the greatest by far, “augmenting” it is exactly the opposite of what is needed. Until that changes and policy becomes based on reality, nothing will improve for nuclear power.
Andy, you are correct in describing the NRC, but in fairness, the NRC is like every other government agency, dominated by Democrats who will tirelessly advance the Democrat agenda regardless of which political party is in the majority. The 88-2 Senate vote for The Nuclear Advance ACT together with the May 29, 2024, Biden-Harris pro-nuclear factsheet should trigger an appropriate response at both the NRC and EPA.
Not the chance of a snowflake in hell. The Linear no-threshold lie adds billions to the building and maintenance of any US nuclear plant (and probably also in other western countries). Someone of course benefits by the spending of those billions so only a refutation of LNT has a chance of removing major opposition and making nuclear reasonable.
I have worked with the NRC and EPA. Someone asked me which one I would rather work with. I chose the NRC because they usually make sense (with notable exceptions). Their rules usually have some sort of consistent underpinning while EPA’s rules are based in whatever whim the administration in power has. When EPA issues a new rule, their justifications are not scientifically accurate, they are just filling in the blanks with the way they wish it to be.
Never worked with the EPA but I have worked with the NRC (as well as for the NRC as an intern in college) and I would concur. Most of the NRC technical staff has either an industry or nuclear navy background. I suspect many at the EPA come right out of college.
A problem with the NRC is that the headquarters in DC and those in the regional office are sometimes not on the same page and you end up answering the same questions.
Edward, agree with every word with one small caveat, battery storage to bridge a few days of cloudy and calm weather will forever, yes, forever be too expensive, >10x times too expensive, it’s not a matter of technology it’s chemistry, physics and thermodynamics.
The NRC has used LNT and it made it even worse with “ALARA” As Low as Reasonably Achievable” the Sledge Hammer to drive Nuclear Power into the Ground.
The problem with ALARA is that each year it’s advancements make it possible to detect lower doses and new methods are devised to reduce the dose workers receive. These cost money and make the old equipment obsolete. Then INPO and the NRC grades each plant on the total dose received. This is not a Pass/Fail on meeting the minimum requirements as there is NO MINIMUM, The Minimum is ALARA!!
The grade system places each plant into a Quartile. The top Quartile has no problem, The second highest knows the need to improve, the third highest or second lowest knows they have major problems to resolve, the Lowest Quartile knows their job is in jeopardy. And I know three plant managers that are no longer managers because they could not extract themselves from the Lowest Quartile. Thus, BIG money is spent trying to achieve an impossible goal – there will always be 25% of the plants in the lowest quartile.
Worse yet is the push to reduce shutdowns and minor events, since the event in Japan. The probability of an event like TMI or Fukushima is very small — in the order of 10^-9 to 10^-10 per year. (10^-9/year means 1 chance in 1,000,000,000 per year of operation).
The following link gives more detailed probabilities of other events.
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0212/ML021270019.pdf
Net result: Make it impossible to finance or build new nuclear power plants
I believe we could have new nuclear generation come online in 12 months, probably less, if we just got the damn government out of the way. I don’t think this legislation goes far enough, if at all, in that direction.
Look into how the first half dozen or so NPPs were built in significantly less than ten years from the date the contract was signed by the utility to have GE, Combustion Engineering or Westinghouse build the plants “Turn-Key” for les than 1/10th the cost of those built ten years later by the utility engineers with the assistance of the NSSS [Nuclear Steam Supply System.] I am not aware of any significant event at any of the first plants. The major problem they had was the modifications to the plant to meet new NRC requirements and regulations in spite of the fact that these and most plants given a “Construction Permit” by the NRC were exempt from all new regulations and requirements. NRC got rid of that exemption after TMI.
The probability of increasing NPP safety by eliminating the exemption of “Beyond Design Basis events” from design requirements by the NRC is less than or equal to the probability of winning the $2 Billion lottery by buying ten or one hundred lotto tickets instead of only one. DO THE MATH. None of these changes to requirements have a real Cost-benefit analysis. how many times has DC Cook or Palisades suffered from a Seiche?
For examples read https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1204/ML12044A209.pdf
Don’t count on anything changing if democrats remain in power. Biden will double-down on his failing Green New Deal policies because that’s what the big money men who control the democrat party want.
I would think what matters is how much the permitting process was reformed. Allowing multiple interventions by antinuclear groups was the major issue, along with active mischief by politicians like Jerry Brown or Andrew Cuomo.
It all start the zero linear threshold lie.
To be fair, no one knew the truth back then. Linear no threshold was simply a ‘better safe than sorry’ wet finger.
A most convenient one for anti-nuclear lobbies though, as it turned out.
wrong. There were hundreds of published article on empirical results saying otherwise. That fantasy earns billion of $ from every nuclear plant, markedly raising the costs and, of course, gives the opposition screaming points.
Evidence?
Back in the 1950s papers on the effect of long term chronic low level radiation were essentially zero.
It isn’t always a conspiracy.
Much of the hysteria originated with Hermann Muller who was likely a fellow traveler if not a communist himself. I suspect Muller wanted to blunt the nuclear superiority that the US had over the Soviets in the late 1940s.
I don’t have the references now but there were several hundred published papers showing beneficial results on test animals from low dose radiation. Perhaps no experimental results on humans at that time but likewise no evidence that all ionizing radiation was harmful. The scientific community involved in radiation research protested the LNT pronouncements but to no avail.
Doesn’t NASA still ionize the food for the astronauts? And I mean more than beaming UV at the food.
Gums asks…
I received training in the 60’s while attending the USN Nuclear Power School. Some of the training material was written in the 50’s. I clearly remember, to this date, that the training stated that the threshold for radiation exposure used for troops at the bomb test was based upon the dose that caused a reddening of the skin, similar in color to a minor sunburn. For safety to the USN personnel, the permissible dose was multiplied by ten, to this date, the permissible dose is still the same.
P.S. My Highschool Chemistry/Physics teacher was one of those that you see in the photographs of US Army troops watching the bomb test from a “Safe” distance. He was still alive in 2000. I served 20 years in the US Navy, at least 1/3 of that time within 100 yards of a Nuclear Reactor while in operation and am now 82 years old. LNT is a SCAM.
Yeah. Strange how the greens etc accept everything the UN IPCC say but never accepted anything the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) said
The Scandalous Science Behind Nuclear Regulation (reason.com)
Muller’s influence peaked during the Cold War, as fears of radioactive fallout from above-ground nuclear weapons testing dominated public discourse. He warned that fallout could unleash a wave of birth defects based on unwarranted extrapolations from his fruit fly experiments. Though human studies of the offspring of Japanese atomic bomb survivors found no significant evidence of genetic damage, Muller helped convince the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to exclude this inconvenient data when it convened an expert panel to assess fallout risks, opting instead to rely on his research using fruit flies and newer studies involving mice.
Seems to me the gubberment should not be meddling with energy in the first place, too important to have bureaucrats muck it up.
In the case of nuclear the government has to meddle at some level, if only to get insurance to be possible for plants.
The problem is that if some green group, backed by renewable money, on detecting a radiation release of less than a banana sues a plant for billions of dollars and forces its closure, on the grounds not that it actually is dangerous but it makes them feel scared, which seems to be where current legislation is, there has to be some other organisation over and above a Marxist infested legal system, that is subject to some sort of democratic scrutiny, to oppose it.
It seems to be, and it is definitely open to debate, that the government – if it and the people want nuclear power – should have a rôle in terns of removing unnecessary planning and regulatory obstacles, underwriting insurers, and in guaranteeing that no future legislation will revoke operating licenses without due compensation.
And then let the private capital do what it does best – take calculated financial risks.
In an ideal world the government would represent a mediating influence between capital and hoi polloi.
The problem is that it is all too easy for government to get hijacked or corrupted by narrow interest groups with deep pockets.
Needless to say, I don’t know how to prevent that entirely,
A few miles south of TMI is, was, a three-unit coal powered station. If/when the wind was blowing from the south several rad monitors at TMI would often alarm. Set of by the presence of radioactive material in the coal (Radon? Most coal was from PA.) Thus, the population around TMI received a higher dose daily from the coal fired power plants than TMI released during the event. I know because I worked there and was monitored daily!
Coal naturally concentrates uranium. When groundwater, containing very, very, very low levels of uranium flows through the coal, the uranium gets filtered out.
After Opposition Leader Dutton’s announcement they want nuclear power as fickles aren’t cutting it he reminds the naysayers about safety sign on-
Labor ‘signed up to safety’ of nuclear technology with submarines: Peter Dutton (msn.com)
At least we have a contest of ideas with a Federal election coming up.
Sounds hopeful. I hope something comes from it.
“high costs, a burdensome regulatory environment, onerous permitting and fears from some corners of the public”
The first item is a function of the next two. The last item which underpins 2 and 3 was created by the usual suspects to thwart the US from asserting a lead in an important technology that was invented here. The winners from the US anti-nuclear campaign are Russia which wanted to disarm the US and to export its third rate technology and its uranium. and the Petro States who kept us from reducing dependence on them. Cui Bono?
Expensive? Dangerous? Consider a Candu reactor. Its modular design was invented in the 1950s. It uses natural (non- upgraded) uranium (yellowcake). Costs per module half a dozen years ago was CDN 350 million. They take 3 yrs to build, never have a delay or cost overun.
In other technologies, the U²³⁸ is inert, but in the Candu, it captures neutrons and synergistically participates in the fission reaction. Recent improvements have reduced fuel
costs to CDN 2.5 cents/kWhr!! The tech is configured to allow refueling without shutting down. The Bruce Point reactor for decades was the world’s largest, comprised of 7 modules.
They are so safe that the Pickering station was built built right in the suburbs of Toronto in the 1960s. Plant life is 40yrs with a planned refurbishment after 25 yrs.
I learned something interesting about nuclear in a long life. There is a lot of chauvinism in the global industry. Buyers may beat a path to your door if you produce the world’s best mousetrap, but a nuke plant not so much!
Canada (Chalk River) invented thfirst breeder reactor in about 1947 and used thorium as the candidate. They provided data for Oak Ridge’s thorium reactor which was ordered shut down in ~1960 after about 5 years ops.Canada’s reactor continued to operate until 1997. Now, this 75 yr old Canadian tech has the world all excited. Go figure! People will be lining up to buy a Chinese plant.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2021.1913033
Recent improvements have reduced fuel
costs to CDN 2.5 cents/kWhr!!
Surely this is MWhr ???
No, $25 per MWh
MW/1000=KW
$25.00/1000=.025 … 2.5¢
“Consider a Candu reactor. Its modular design was invented in the 1950s. It uses natural (non- upgraded) uranium (yellowcake).”
Yes, we should build Candu reactors!
Why wasn’t this suggested to/forced on, the Mad Mullahs of Iran when they claimed all they wanted was electrical power out of their nuclear program? If they planned on using Candu reactors, then they wouldn’t be close to building a nuclear weapon the way they are now, because they would not have been enriching uranium because it is unnecessary to power a Candu reactor.
If Biden had not been elected, the Mad Mullahs would not be close to building a nuclear weapon. Biden enriched the Mad Mullahs with his relaxation of sanctions, and made it possible for them to continue with their uranium enrichment and to step up terror attacks in the Middle East.
Joe Biden hates Israel and loves the Mad Mullahs of Iran, just like his former boss, Barack Obama. Or maybe Joe is just following Obama policy. But no, I think Joe really does hate Israel.
And Joe must hate the United States as constituted because everything he does harms the United States.
Joe Biden is a traitor to his country and the people in it. He’s not the only one, but he’s the most dangerous of the Democrat bunch. Or rather, the most dangerous visible Democrat. The ones pulling his strings are the real danger.
Joe Biden is the Worst President Evah! It’s no contest.
“Consider a Candu reactor . . . Costs per module half a dozen years ago was CDN 350 million. They take 3 yrs to build, never have a delay or cost overun.”
Which, I speculate, is why this 70-odd year-old technology has been adopted so widely around the world. Including the powering of navy vessels . . . you know, because it is modular and so cheap.
/sarc off
Bodes well for Dutton in Australia.
Efforts to put nuclear on the energy agenda increases the sovereign risk for weather dependent generators. Remove subsidies for WDGs and they go away. Increasing the risk of removing subsidies gives cause for the subsidy farmers to hold fire on investments.
Unless China gets on with its nuclear program, its ever increasing demand for coal is a security risk for all countries holding coal reserves and not allowing China easy access. If you want wind turbines and solar panels then you need to send your coal to China.
China cannot be the global manufacturer without abundant low cost coal. China added 47GW of coal fired generation in 2023. Building power stations in China is a bit like baking a cake using a recipe book. Their recipe is so well developed that the result is certain. They could be just building more coal fired power stations because they are good at it and they will never burn coal in them but I doubt that. Who thinks China’s coal consumption will fall in 2025?
Building more but also closing older ones. Plus they don’t have any natural gas
Numbers matter. Yes, they are closing older plants, but they are building new plants much, much faster than they are closing old ones.
I believe that the new ones are also a lot bigger than the old ones being retired.
The total amount of coal China is burning has increased by a lot.
The EIA pretends to believe China’s coal consumption will fall in 2025 because that’s what they are told to pretend to believe. In the absence of a significant recession China’s consumption of coal may wiggle a few percent year to year but significant coal consumption reduction won’t happen until the new current generation of ultra super critical coal plants fit with BACT (Best Available Control Technology) for Sox, Nox, Particulate, Pb and Hg end their economic life and are replaced with nuclear, 2075 is more realistic than 2025.
Will the kids in the Administration allow old Joe to sign it though.
If Joe doesn’t sign it, it will become law by default after a period of time.
If Joe vetoes it, at least in the Senate, they have the votes to override a veto. I haven’t seen anything regarding what the vote in the House was.
Non-issue, Biden-Harris issued a pro nuclear fact sheet May 29, 2024, that’s why 33 Democrat senators voted for the Advance Act. Done Deal.
IDK. Santee Cooper was building a plant not too long ago. It had already been permitted and everything. They abandoned it. Part of the problem was corruption and at least one person went to prison.
But the State has been unable to find anyone to come in and take over the project. Will this law make that project viable?
The supplier of that reactor 1) tried to do a Boeing and used subcontractors from throughout the world including some incompetent ones that had no nuclear experience 2) could not provide an honest estimate of the construction schedule.
A third problem was finding qualified people to build the reactors. I worked on that project and we were in constant competition with the project in Georgia to find people with suitable skills AND willing to put up with nuclear requirements. Many of the craft people were in their 50s and 60s. This is going to be a problem for any new projects unless the SMRs are shown they can be built with far fewer skilled people.
Of course, saying that the US Congress-initiated Fire Grants and Safety Act containing the ADVANCE Act will “spur the country’s nuclear energy infrastructure and capacity” says nothing about the taxpayer-funded subsidies needed for such spurring. That is, the future PUBLIC cost of passing such a bill and having the President sign it is nowhere to be found in the above article.
Ka-ching!
Routine procedure to link a controversial Bill to a sure to pass Bill. Read the original articles, one key is the 30% tax credit matching wind and solar. For the first time in 40 years a Democrat Administration and most Democrat Senators have ended their nuclear power opposition. This is a big deal.
No serious private investor will consider nuclear power until a vendor will build a prototype on schedule and within budget and demonstrates that it can be run reliably and economically. They will have to do this largely at their own expense.
The LNT hypothesis will have to be overturned as the basis for radiation exposure limits and a skilled workforce to build and operate the plants will have to be re-created.
I have a degree in nuclear engineering and worked in commercial nuclear power for 35 years including at the cancelled AP1000 project in South Carolina and the prematurely closed San Onofre plant. It saddens me to say that coal is more likely to make a comeback than nuclear power.
NuScale (NYSE symbol SMR) has ordered long lead time items for their NRC design approved reactor. The stock price has doubled in the past six months.
Speaking of NuScale:
“In January 2023, CFPP approved a new Budget and Plan of Finance, establishing a target price of $89/MWh (¢8.9/kWh) after an estimated $30/MWh generation subsidy from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The projected build cost had increased to $9.3 billion for 462 MWe generation capacity from $3.6 billion for 720 MWe in 2020. $4.2 billion of the cost would be covered by the DOE and IRA support, leaving $5.1 billion of acquisition and construction costs to be covered by UAMPS members.
“In November 2023, UAMPS announced it was unlikely that the project would have enough subscription to continue due to cost increases, and UAMPS and NuScale jointly decided to cancel the project. POWER magazine reported that the project had received $232 million of DOE financial support by the time it was cancelled.”
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power
(my bold emphasis added)
{note: UAMPS = Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a subdivision of the State of Utah; CFPP = Utah’s Carbon Free Power Project}
YIKES . . . shades of the Solyndra fiasco! Talk about feeding at the public trough.
Moderator – can someone explain why my comment has been deleted? It was pretty vanilla as comments go, I cannot believe that I broke any rules.
I hope this delete crap doesn’t happen here, Quora has labeled 60 of my postings as spam and deleted them, no profanity, no personal attacks, nothing sexual, just truth telling about “progressive” policy.
Biden will likely sign the bill and then ignore it. This is another meaningless election-year stunt.
However, it could come into play if Trump is elected.
Biden most likely doesn’t understand what his Biden-Harris Fact Sheet released May 29 means but his handlers who wrote it do. Anyone with half a brain knows wind and solar can never provide even half of a modern society’s energy needs, that awareness is the basis for COP 28 calling for a tripling of nuclear.