Despite completing the necessary environmental studies and issuing a record of decision, the VTR
program has no funding this fiscal year. DOE has requested only $45 million for FYY2023 for what is expected to be at least a $3 billion effort to build the test reactor but only if Congress eventually appropriates funds toward that end.
The Department of Energy has chosen a
300 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor design to build a multibillion-dollar test nuclear reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) that could help develop fuels, technologies, and materials for advanced nuclear reactors. This policy milestone completes the legal requirements for a formal record of decision based on a final environmental impact statement.
The PRISM reactor, which is the technology basis for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR), is based on the EBR-II, an integral sodium-cooled fast reactor prototype that operated at the Argonne West National
Laboratory in Idaho from 1963 to 1994. It is the only sodium-cooled reactor to date to have successfully completed the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission pre-application review process. In 2018 INL selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH) PRISM technology for the VTR.
The Versatile Test Reactor, or VTR, will provide a source of fast neutrons for testing and evaluating nuclear fuels, materials,
sensors and instrumentation to support the development of advanced reactor technologies. Such facilities are available in only a few locations worldwide, and the US has not operated one in more than 20 years.
FEIS & ROD for VTR
The DOE has issued a record of decision for the EIS, formally documenting its plan to build the VTR at INL. The record of decision also includes establishing facilities at the same site for
the post-irradiation examination of test products and management of spent VTR driver fuel.
“The VTR will provide US researchers
from industry, academia, and our national laboratories with a critical tool for developing transformational technologies that will expand nuclear energy’s contribution to abundant, carbon-free energy,” assistant secretary for nuclear energy Kathryn Huff said. (VTR Fact Sheet)
Project Costs & Future Funding
The VTR project did not get any money from Congress during fiscal year 2022. DOE had multiple opportunities to make its case to Congress, but somehow never quite got the message in place that would convince the Senate Appropriations Committee to write the checks for this fiscal year. DOE submitted a modest funding proposal of $45 million for fiscal year 2023.
If Congress eventually provides funding, once built it would be the first fast nuclear test reactor to operate in the US in nearly three decades. Initial
costs estimates, for a plant that won’t break ground in the near-term, range from $3 billion to double that amount or more. Every year that DOE and Congress kick the can down the road is another step up in cost escalation for a completed facility.
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