Finance, policy and environmental factors favor the development of several new nuclear generation units over the next decade in the US, but challenges persist, experts said June 11 during a panel discussion at the Edison Electric Institute's 2023 conference in Austin, Texas.
At the end of the panel, moderator Jim Schaefer, senior managing director for the energy sector at
Guggenheim Partners, said, "By 2033, there will be three [new] working third-generation reactors, there'll be four working fourth-generation reactors, and there'll be three functional fusion reactors."
That prediction faces several hurdles, however.
An offer of as much as $300 billion in nuclear financing remains untouched, said panelist Julie
Kozeracki, US Department Energy senior advisor for loan programs.
'Stuck in stalemate'
"The industry is stuck in a stalemate, where utilities are staring at reactor developers, reactor developers are staring at the suppliers, and no one is really ready to move or make real capital decisions about
building new nuclear," Kozeracki said. "There are two big things that we have to get right in order to break through that, and one of those is establishing the mandate for clean firm power, and the fact is that we just don't have many good options for it."
Nuclear power should not be compared with coal or natural gas or renewables in themselves, Kozeracki said, but also combined with the means of providing power that is both firm – e.g., including long-duration energy storage for renewables – and clean – e.g., including carbon capture for fossil fuels.
"When you look at the competitor set for your clean, firm options, I actually see nuclear as having
a pretty good competitive shot at, for example, 200 GW of that 700 or 800 GW of clean, firm capacity that we're going to have to add to the grid by 2050," Kozeracki said.
The second significant step that must be taken to break the nuclear stalemate, Kozeracki said, "is a committed order book of new nuclear deployments."
"What's essential here is you need a critical mass of call it five to 10 orders for an individual design," because only at that scale does the cost per MW of capacity fall dramatically, Kozeracki said.
From coal to nuclear
Chris Levesque, TerraPower president and CEO, said his company is working with PacifiCorp, a western US power company owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and DOE to develop a Natrium advanced nuclear demonstration project at the site of a coal-fired power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, which is slated for retirement. As a joint TeraPower/GE Hitachi project, the Natrium sodium fast reactor is coupled with molten
salt-based energy storage to boost the ability to serve demand over longer time periods.
TerraPower and PacifiCorp are studying the possibility of adding up to five additional commercial units by 2035, the companies said in a news release Oct. 27.
"We're preparing to put the first Natrium reactor online in 2030," Levesque said June 11.
However, Levesque said that as Russia and China are pushing hard for the development and expansion of their nuclear power sector, the US federal government should provide a similar commitment.
"The commercial stalemate is all about the fact that a national investment is needed," Levesque said. "If we're going to be on par with China and Russia and make clean energy, a national investment is needed. If I look at the regulated utilities folks in this crowd, you
do not believe that it's you're job to make regional ratepayers make national investments."
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