Latest news with #PathwaystoCommercialLiftoff:AdvancedNuclear
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SMRs, not large reactors, are ‘future of nuclear power': ITIF
This story was originally published on Utility Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Utility Dive newsletter. Small modular reactors are more likely than larger designs to achieve long-term 'price and performance parity' with conventional energy sources, such as gas, but only with substantial, ongoing support from the U.S. government, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said Monday. Authored by ITIF Center for Clean Energy Innovation Research Director Robin Gaster, 'Small Modular Reactors: A Realist Approach to the Future of Nuclear Power' advised the U.S. Department of Energy to develop independent SMR assessment capabilities that focus on price and performance parity, or P3, while expanding support for basic and applied nuclear research and funding efforts to commercialize and scale promising technologies. With robust federal backing, SMR developers could support 'an important strategic export industry' for the United States over the next two decades, the report said. ITIF's analysis pushes back on the notion that new gigawatt-scale reactors will play a major role in the United States' future energy mix. A range of pro-nuclear voices have supported the idea of 'fleet scale' large reactor deployments, including private sector developers like The Nuclear Company and DOE under former President Joe Biden. In a September update to its 'Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear' report, DOE said the U.S. would need to deploy a mix of SMRs alongside larger Generation III+ reactors, like Westinghouse Electric's 1,117-MW AP1000, to meet expected future power demand. DOE recommended a 'consortium approach' to enable serial deployments of five to 10 reactors of the same design. President Donald Trump sounded more skeptical of large reactors on the campaign trail last year, telling podcaster Joe Rogan in October that projects like the twin AP1000 reactors at Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 — which took more than a decade to complete and ran billions over budget — 'get too big, and too complex and too expensive.' Without the real-world learnings generated by a critical mass of AP1000 deployments, it's unlikely that new large reactors will come down the cost curve to reach P3, ITIF said in the report. 'There are simply not enough orders in the United States to generate sufficient scale economies' for large reactors even as the AP1000 emerges as the 'standard' U.S. design, the group said. While it won't be clear whether SMRs can reach P3 for 'at least a decade … there is a greater possibility that SMRs will indeed scale, costs will fall, and P3 will be achieved.' As a category, SMRs have several advantages that could help them outcompete larger reactors and greatly expand the nuclear reactor market in the process, ITIF said, including: Power outputs ranging from single-digit megawatts to 300 MW, allowing for a wider range of real-world applications; Higher outlet temperatures that suit some SMRs for high-temperature industrial processes; Modular design that allows for higher-energy, multi-reactor aggregations; Passive safety features that may reduce construction costs and accident risk; and, Cheaper fuel and less refueling downtime in at least some SMR designs. Still, ITIF said the first commercial SMRs will likely cost more per MWh than renewables, gas-fired generation and existing large reactors, ITIF said. They are also sure to face significant risks on the path to commercialization, including technological issues, regulatory barriers, market challenges such as higher-than-expected deployment costs and political risk due to the likely need for long-term government support, ITIF said. Since President Trump's first term, the federal government has invested billions to support both the existing nuclear power fleet and emerging nuclear technologies, especially SMR and microreactor designs. DOE's Liftoff Report detailed a range of recent and ongoing federal financial incentives and enablement programs for nuclear technology. These include 'stackable' Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, which face an uncertain fate this year as Congress looks for tax-cut offsets, as well as DOE's $900 million Generation III+ SMR program, Idaho National Laboratory's National Reactor Innovation Center, the U.S. Department of Defense's mobile and fixed microreactor initiatives, and billions in unspent IRA funds held in DOE Loan Programs Office accounts. The Gen III+ SMR program is open for applications through April 23. Through it, DOE intends to 'jump-start' deployment of light-water SMRs, which share more in common with existing designs for larger light-water reactors than non-water-cooled Generation IV SMRs, said Jeff Merrifield, chair of the United States Nuclear Industry Council board of directors and partner in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP's energy practice. 'Many [Gen III+] designs being proposed utilize fuels and components similar to currently-existing reactors,' which could in theory avoid some licensing challenges that novel reactors may face, Merrifield said. The fuel issue is particularly important from a time-to-market perspective given tight supplies of the higher-potency HALEU many Gen IV reactors require, though the federal government is 'working in overdrive to increase [HALEU] enrichment,' he added. To give SMRs a chance at achieving price and performance parity, governments — federal, state and local — must share financial and nonfinancial risk with the numerous other likely stakeholders in future SMR projects, including technology vendors, utilities, corporate offtakers, lenders and ratepayers, ITIF said. On the financial side, long-term power purchase agreements will likely be 'mandatory' for larger SMRs given lenders' reluctance to fund such expensive projects, along with government support through grants, tax credits and loan guarantees, ITIF said. Development groups can also look to international financial risk mitigation frameworks, such as direct government ownership, subsidized loans and market-based contract-for-difference subsidies, ITIF said. The federal government is already working to reduce nonfinancial challenges like technology risk, cumbersome Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing processes, and limited HALEU availability from non-Russian sources, which has already compelled at least one early-mover Gen IV reactor developer to source its fuel outside the United States, ITIF said. But DOE, NRC and other agencies must do more to support early technology development, validation, early deployments and deployments at scale over the coming decade, it said. Recommended Reading US 'nuclear renaissance' faces high capital costs, uncertain federal policy support: ICF
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US ‘nuclear renaissance' faces high capex costs, uncertain federal policy support: ICF
This story was originally published on Utility Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Utility Dive newsletter. Nuclear power's long-term role in the U.S. electricity generation mix depends on still-unresolved questions about plant economics, technology selection, federal policy and financial support, fuel availability, waste disposal and public attitudes, analysts for strategic consultancy ICF said in a whitepaper released Thursday. Despite interest from utilities and large electricity consumers that has led to multiple planned reactor restarts and several gigawatt-scale partnerships between nuclear companies and offtakers, the industry faces 'significant challenges and limitations that will determine whether it will expand its role as a core technology underpinning the U.S. energy system,' the authors said. Despite higher revenue potential than most competing technologies, capital costs for new nuclear plants could range from $456/kW-year to $863/kW-year, significantly above those for wind, solar, gas combustion turbines and 4-hour battery energy storage systems, they said. Since 2023, the owners of three recently retired nuclear power plants — the 800-MW Palisades plant in Michigan, 835-MW Crane Clean Energy Center in Pennsylvania and 601-MW Duane Arnold plant in Iowa — have announced plans to resume operations. The Pennsylvania restart is supported by a 20-year power purchase agreement between Microsoft and Constellation Energy. Meanwhile, 'hyperscale' tech companies like Amazon, Meta and Google have inked tentative partnerships with advanced nuclear technology developers. Data center operator Switch and steelmaker Nucor have shown interest in advanced nuclear as well. In December, Switch and Oklo announced a 20-year, 12-GW nonbinding 'master power agreement' through which the advanced nuclear company would develop, build and operate nuclear plants to power Switch facilities. 'Should these new investments in nuclear energy come to pass, they could make a dent in the growing electricity demand. But a nuclear renaissance isn't written in stone,' whitepaper authors Ian Bowen, Dino Vivanco, Vinay Gupta, George Katsigiannakis and Shanthi Muthiah said. Technology selection and design standardization are vital considerations for the industry, whose operating commercial fleet features more than 50 different reactor designs, the authors said. 'For nuclear costs to decline in the United States, the nuclear industry needs to pick a design and stick to it,' they said. The advice echoes similar guidance in the U.S. Department of Energy's September update to its Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear report. DOE recommended a 'consortium approach' similar to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner development process, targeting 'serial deployments' of five to 10 reactors of the same design. DOE also suggested deploying a mix of large reactors, such as the 1,117-MW AP1000s commissioned earlier this decade at Georgia Power's Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4, and 50-MW to 300-MW small modular reactors, which experts say are easier to site and cheaper and faster to deploy. SMRs are better-suited to siting at retired coal-fired power plant sites, where they may take advantage of existing interconnection rights, the ICF authors said. In a report last year, DOE said the 145 coal power plant sites it examined could host as much as 174 GW of nuclear capacity, while 41 existing nuclear sites could host up to 95 MW of additional nuclear capacity. Any 'nuclear renaissance' likely depends on continued federal support for existing and new nuclear, the ICF authors said. Without the investment tax credit authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, new SMRs are much less likely to pencil out and Congress may need to extend the credit beyond its 2032 expiration date to support larger-scale deployments following an initial group of demonstration projects in the early 2030s, they said. Owners of restarted nuclear reactors are more likely to claim the production tax credit authorized by the IRA, the authors noted. Both the investment tax credit and PTC face an uncertain future as Congress considers eliminating or sunsetting IRA tax credits to pay for a 10-year tax cut extension the U.S. Treasury Department expects to cost $4.2 trillion. Twenty-one House Republicans signed a letter this month urging GOP leadership to retain the IRA's clean energy tax credits. But it's unclear whether those legislators will hold the line when the final tax package comes up for a vote, Boundary Stone Partners co-founder Jeff Navin told E&E News on March 24. 'I think the clean energy industry and the people who are benefiting from the IRA are in a little bit of a state of delusion at the moment,' said Navin, who also serves as director of external affairs for advanced nuclear technology company TerraPower. Recommended Reading As offshore wind struggles, is advanced nuclear a viable Plan B for Eastern states?
