Last week, lawmakers took historic action on clean energy, but hardly anyone seems to have noticed.
Congress passed a bill to help revitalize America's dwindling nuclear industry, with the support of President Biden and 88 senators, with not a single Republican voting no.
This bill, known as the ADVANCE Act, is exactly the kind of government action we need to take to fight climate change. It shows that bipartisan majorities can help protect the planet without succumbing to the endless political battles that have blocked so much energy reform in the past.
The purpose of the law is to lift the nuclear industry out of a decades-long slump. The United States produces more nuclear energy than any other country, but has been aggressively cutting back on its reactors in recent times.
That's because most U.S. nuclear power plants are near or past their retirement date, which is concerning given that the average lifespan of a commercial U.S. reactor is currently 42 years, but their licenses typically only last for 40 years (though they can be extended).
Meanwhile, efforts to build new reactors have stalled: Earlier this year, developers fired up a new reactor at the Vogtle Plant near Augusta, Georgia, the first built from the ground up in more than 30 years, but it has been plagued by years of delays and ever-increasing costs, a familiar plague in the industry.
With delays in replacing aging infrastructure, the Department of Energy has warned that the nuclear industry will continue to shrink: By 2040, the United States is projected to produce 20% less energy from nuclear power than it does today.
This is worrying because nuclear power is the largest carbon-free energy source. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are expanding rapidly, but they are replacing fossil fuels. They cannot be expected to support the nuclear industry. And let’s not forget that electricity demand is only going to increase for the next few decades.
Meanwhile, the United States is lagging behind internationally in nuclear power development. With the Vogtle reactor now complete, the number of other projects under construction in the United States is literally zero. Compare this to other countries.
The Biden administration has long recognized this problem and has sought to stimulate the U.S. nuclear industry. The Inflation Control Act allocates billions of dollars to develop new nuclear plants and keep existing ones running. The administration is also dangling hundreds of millions of dollars to companies developing advanced nuclear technologies that are expected to be cheaper, safer and produce less radioactive waste. Importantly, the Department of Energy is working to accelerate production of enriched uranium, needed to fuel advanced nuclear reactors.
The advance bill currently addresses a major obstacle for nuclear projects: the arduous Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process.
The soon-to-go legislation will bolster the NRC's chronically understaffed staffing and also work to streamline the agency's permitting process, including by lowering burdensome fees companies must pay in the review process and helping smaller, more innovative companies enter the market.
The bill also directs the NRC to more quickly license nuclear power plants at retired fossil fuel facilities. This is just common sense. Retrofitting former coal-fired power plants that are already on the grid can save construction costs and avoid lengthy site reviews. It also brings jobs back to communities that have lost them. A 2022 Department of Energy study identified more than 300 retired or operating fossil fuel facilities that could be converted into nuclear power plants.
Another clever change: the law would speed up the approval process for reactor designs already reviewed by the Atomic Energy Agency, addressing one of the reasons the industry has struggled to build new reactors: developers' tendency to try to reinvent the wheel, thereby driving up costs.
The bill contains other good stuff, including investments in the workforce to run new nuclear power plants and regulatory changes to make it easier for the United States to export technology to our allies.
Still, none of these provisions guarantee a nuclear energy revival in the United States. Much depends on whether advanced nuclear technology becomes commercially viable. So far, attempts to build such technology in the United States have failed. Late last year, the most promising project, the NuScale advanced reactor in Idaho, was canceled due to rising costs, leading nuclear opponents to declare advanced nuclear energy a dead end.
This is defeatism. Advanced nuclear technology is not theoretical. China already has advanced reactors operating commercially. As American engineers come up with their own viable designs (and many are trying), the next step will be to replicate them at a lower cost.
The challenge is not to choose between solar, wind and nuclear, but to maximize the benefits of all clean energy sources. Because solar and wind require large amounts of land, nuclear plants are often a better alternative to fossil fuel power plants.
The more common objections to nuclear power are already answered — nuclear waste can be safely stored on-site in dry storage, for example. And concerns that expanding nuclear power might pose the risk of nuclear proliferation only underscore the need for the United States to remain even more committed to nuclear energy. It should be the United States, not our adversaries, that leads the world in this technology.
Oddly, Biden has barely touted his support for nuclear energy, but by not touting it, he may have avoided the kind of political drama that has marred other clean-energy efforts.
Either way, his legacy is valuable for much more than just improving policy. It also combats the pessimism that has led to hopelessness about tackling climate change. There's no telling how much clean energy could be generated by combining the ingenuity of American scientists with effective catalysts for change.
