John C. Zink, Ph.D., P.E., Contributing Editor
Retired admiral Skip Bowman, president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), outlined the nuclear industry’s public policy needs to the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee in testimony September 13. Specifically, Bowman asked legislators to address licensing and financial issues as well as the still-unsettled nuclear waste situation. Bowman pointed out that U.S. demand for electricity is expected to increase by 45 percent over the next 25 years and that both environmental and fossil fuel supply issues point to the need for new nuclear capacity. However, the industry needs the legislators’ cooperation.
First, Bowman urged Congress to continue the government’s part of the funding for the next generation of nuclear plants. This cooperative effort between industry and government, the Nuclear Power 2010 (NP2010) program, supports the detailed design and engineering work necessary for the first two of the next-generation power plants. NP2010 addresses the industry’s chicken-and-egg problem. Although the basic designs have been approved, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs design details before it can license a particular next-generation plant; but an individual company can’t afford the expense of a detailed design without knowing the plant is licensable. NEI regards the NP2010 program as the “cornerstone on which much of the nuclear renaissance rests.” The industry has accelerated its spending on NP2010 and would like Congress to likewise accelerate government spending on the program.
Second, Bowman expressed the industry’s concern that considerable risk remains in the NRC licensing process. Although the licensing process was overhauled in 1992, the new process has not yet been exercised. Now, just when the first new plant licensing submittals are expected, NRC is making extensive and substantive changes to the process. As Bowman testified, “This approach places the industry in a difficult situation: Attempting to develop new plant license applications while NRC is rewriting the regulatory guidance governing those applications.” He urged appropriate congressional oversight to make sure the nuclear licensing process moves forward expeditiously.
Third, the NEI representative expressed concern about companies’ ability to finance any major new power generation projects, including clean coal and nuclear plants. He noted that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides loan guarantees for power plant construction. Bowman was quick to point out that this program is not a subsidy, but rather a financing tool “modeled on the successful financing techniques already employed by the federal government (through such agencies as the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp.).” However, DOE recently disappointed the industry by publishing project implementation guidelines, which include a $2 billion project cap. This effectively eliminates large projects such as nuclear plants and integrated gasification-combined cycle coal plants. Again, NEI urged congressional oversight to rectify this situation and to make sure the program has implementing regulations that will ensure the eligibility of energy projects which require large investments.
Finally, NEI urged Congress to fix the nuclear waste disposal mess. Predictably, this included strong support for the Yucca Mountain project; surprisingly, it also included a strong pitch for nuclear fuel recycle.
While complimenting DOE on finally establishing a schedule for the Yucca Mountain waste repository, the industry representative pointed out that nuclear customers have paid more than $28 billion for waste disposal they have not yet received. He also noted that the 2017 scheduled opening now puts the project 18 years behind schedule. In the meantime, Bowman asserted, the government should take title to existing spent fuel and move it to centralized federal facilities. The industry regards this as “a political imperative to retrieve some measure of confidence in the federal government’s waste management program.”
Admiral Bowman called for several specific pieces of nuclear waste-related legislation. The first proposal is that Congress remove the statutory 70,000-metric-ton limit placed on the capacity of the Yucca Mountain repository and allow the technical facts to govern how much waste can be emplaced there. The second is a “statutory finding of waste confidence.” Such legislation would spare owners of new nuclear projects from having to litigate the same nuclear waste issue over and over again in each individual licensing proceeding.
Finally, in supporting nuclear fuel recycling, NEI notes that worldwide nuclear energy capacity will nearly double over the next 25 years. This implies that for both economic and environmental reasons, the “throw-away” fuel cycle is neither prudent nor sustainable for the long term. Although the administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative addresses this concern, the NEI representative expressed the need for broader bipartisan and long-term support for this program. He urged that “a reprocessing/recycling program must be flexible enough to accommodate technological successes and failures (and there will be both), with clearly-defined success criteria, decision points and exit strategies.”
Although the long-awaited nuclear power renaissance may be near, it is clear the industry needs help to overcome some significant non-technical obstacles.