Infrastructure bill will invest in a clean energy future
Department of Energy | 11/9/2021
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The Department of Energy recently released a fact sheet, excerpted below, on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is a long-overdue investment in our nation’s infrastructure, workers, families, and competitiveness. A key piece in President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, the infrastructure deal includes more than $62 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to deliver a more equitable clean energy future for the American people by doing the following:
- Investing in American manufacturing and workers.
- Expanding access to energy efficiency and clean energy for families, communities and businesses.
- Delivering reliable, clean, and affordable power to more Americans.
- Building the technologies of tomorrow through clean energy demonstrations.
Highlighting the latter two items, the Infrastructure Deal will impact DOE's nuclear facilities and adjacent frontline communities.
Delivering Reliable, Clean, and Affordable Power to More Americans
Our nation already gets 27% of its power from decades-old nuclear and hydropower facilities. These are critical sources of clean power—but as they get older and more expensive to maintain, we risk losing these major sources of pollution-free energy and good-paying jobs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal provides funding to ensure that we can keep these clean energy sources online.
The infrastructure deal will:
- Allocate $6 billion for the Civilian Nuclear Credit program to prevent premature retirement of existing zero-carbon nuclear plants, helping to save thousands of good-paying union jobs across the country. The program is available for plants that would otherwise retire and are certified as safe to continue operations and prioritizes plants that use domestically produced fuel.
Building the Technologies of Tomorrow through Clean Energy Demonstrations
While the technologies needed to decarbonize most of our economy are both available and affordable thanks in part to decades of technology development led by DOE, further innovation is a critical component of meeting the President’s goals of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035 and a net-zero-carbon economy by 2050. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, America’s scientists and researchers will have the resources they need to demonstrate these clean energy
breakthroughs and prove them out at scale.
The infrastructure deal will:
- Provide $21.5 billion in funding for clean energy demonstrations and research hubs focused on next generation technologies needed to achieve our goal of net-zero by 2050, including:
- $8 billion for clean hydrogen, which will turbo-charge our progress toward heavy trucking and industrial sectors that run without producing carbon pollution.
- $2.5 billion for advanced nuclear, which would provide 24/7 clean electricity and create good-paying jobs.
- $1 billion for demonstration projects in rural areas and $500 million for demonstration projects in economically hard-hit communities.
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"CAPITALIZING ON A NEW ERA OF CLEANUP
SUCCESS"
December 7-9, 2021
Hilton Alexandria Mark Center
Alexandria, Virginia
If you have already registered for the Workshop, you will not need to re-register. If you need to register, please click here. If you have questions, please contact Autumn Bogus at abogus@la-inc.com or (865)
300-1061.
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OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENGAGEMENT
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NOVEMBER 8-12
The RemPlex Global Summit, to be held virtually Nov. 8-12, is being organized in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Summit is hosted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). This IAEA-PNNL cooperation supports the Summit objectives of promoting knowledge transfer, collaboration, and networking to address challenges to successful remediation and long-term stewardship of
contaminated sites worldwide.
NOVEMBER 15
Roy G. Post Foundation Scholarships in amounts of $5,000 for undergraduate and graduate students will be awarded at the WM2022 Tuesday Honors & Awards Luncheon. Apply now.
NOVEMBER 18
DOE recently issued the Draft Waste Incidental to Reprocessing Evaluation for the Test Bed Initiative Demonstration (Draft WIR Evaluation) concerning a proposed 2,000-gallon demonstration of the Test Bed Initiative for technical review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and to obtain input from the public during a 90-day public comment period that began November 5,
2021.
A virtual public meeting on the Draft WIR Evaluation will be held on November 18, 2021. After consultation with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and considering comments from States, Tribal Nations, stakeholders and the public, DOE plans to prepare a Final WIR Evaluation.
To access the commenting and meeting details, please click here.
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Senators probe nuclear priorities: HALEU, hydrogen, reactor siting, and more
Nuclear News | 11/5/2021
As Congress awaited key votes on spending bills that include production tax credits for at-risk plants and a new amendment adding $500 million in supplemental funding over five years to increase the availability of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a Full Committee Hearing On Potential Non-Electric Applications Of Civilian Nuclear Energy. Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.V.), chairman of the committee,
emphasized that “advanced nuclear reactors hold enormous potential to provide opportunity to communities across the country with zero-emission baseload power” and made it clear he expects new reactors to replace retiring coal plants in his home state of West Virginia.
Speaking before the committee were Shannon Bragg-Sitton of Idaho National Laboratory, Paul Chodak III of American Electric Power, and Michael J. Guastella of the Council of Radionuclides and Radiopharmaceuticals.
Bringing advanced reactors to the commercial sector “requires us to develop and demonstrate those technologies and get to the finish line by deploying those technologies at scale such that we can bring costs down and make them cost competitive, and producing these multiple product streams will be a part of that cost competitiveness,” Bragg-Sitton said. “When we look to build out of additional resources, we often look to just the electric sector and we make
decisions based on the costs of that electricity. But bringing back that conversation on leveling the playing field—part of that is looking at all the assets these technologies bring to the forefront. Renewables will play a role, but most of those renewables provide only electricity, and that's only part of our energy use. These advanced reactors offer additional opportunities for heat and electricity that can support such a wide array of industrial applications and chemical
manufacturing.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) questioned Bragg-Sitton on HALEU supply and Department of Energy efforts to support its availability through research and development.
“We know how to do it,” Bragg-Sitton said. “This is something that we can do at our national laboratories and working with our fuel fabricators here in the United States, and it is essential that we have a domestic supply of this resource. It provides us the opportunity to build these advanced reactors that can be put in smaller packages and operate more efficiently.”
She added, “What do we need to do to make sure that we have that resource available? We need to make sure we put the investment in to establish that supply chain. The demand wasn't necessarily there from the commercial sector previously, and now that we see this very large interest growing in the private sector to develop and deploy these technologies, now we're beginning to have that demand for HALEU, and we need to put the investment in to develop the capability to
fabricate."
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Read about DOE's High Level Waste Interpretation
Have questions about DOE’s recent high-level waste (HLW) interpretation? Download ECA’s Key Points and FAQs on the issue to better understand what ECA believes are the potential benefits of implementation.
Interested in learning more? Read the ECA report “Making Informed Decisions on DOE's Proposed High Level Waste Definition” at www.energyca.org/publications
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Stay Current on Activities in the DOE World
Read the latest edition of the ECA Bulletin, a regular newsletter providing a detailed brief of ECA activities, legislative news, and major events from across the DOE complex. Have suggestions for future editions? Email bulletin@energyca.org.
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Learn More about Cleanup Sites with ECA's DOE Site Profiles
ECA's new site profiles detail DOE's 13 active Environmental Management cleanup sites and national laboratories, highlighting their history, missions, and priorities. The profiles are a key source for media, stakeholders, and the public to learn more about DOE site activities, contractors, advisory boards, and their surrounding local governments.
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