The Senate sent one of the most significant pro-nuclear energy bills in recent history to President Joe Biden's desk this week, but the bill alone is unlikely to spur a nuclear renaissance in the U.S. The ADVANCE Act passed the Senate on Tuesday by a strong 88-2 bipartisan vote to the applause of pro-nuclear organizations who described the bill as a major step forward for America's energy future.
The bill is a first step toward freeing up a nuclear industry that has long been shackled, but it does not address some impediments the industry faces, according to nuclear energy experts.
The bill is designed to bring down the costs of nuclear licensing, create new opportunities for old industrial sites to eventually be converted to host reactors and give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission more staffers and resources to execute their mission, according to the office of Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a key architect of the bill.
John Starkey, the director of public policy for the American Nuclear Society, told the DCNF that the bill is a "Step in the right direction," but probably will not be enough to singlehandedly usher in a nuclear renaissance.
The average nuclear reactor is about 42 years old, while licensing rules limit their lifespans to an upper limit ranging from 40 to 80 years, according to EIA. Nuclear power capacity grew rapidly between roughly 1967 and 1997, but it has generally stayed flat since then, according to the EIA. Only a handful of new nuclear reactors have come online in the past twenty years, but nuclear generally remains a more reliable low-carbon source of power than solar and wind, an important consideration when taking stock of the Biden administration's goals to decarbonize the U.S. power sector by 2035 and the overall economy by 2050.
The Biden administration signed onto a pledge at last year's United Nations climate summit to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, and has also extended "Billions and billions and billions" of dollars to spur a nuclear revival in the U.S., as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at a nuclear energy conference in June.
"Clearly, ADVANCE, and the recent White House efforts on behalf of nuclear energy represent a push to accelerate new nuclear deployment in the United States that we haven't seen since I was a boy," Echols told the DCNF. The DOE did not respond immediately to a request for comment, and the NRC declined to comment because the legislation has yet to be signed into law.
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