ANALYSIS: FY2020 Spending Bill Points to Nuclear Resurgence

By Dr. Rita Baranwal
Former Assistant Secretary for Office of Nuclear Energy

President Donald Trump recently signed off on the FY2020 spending bill, which includes nearly $1.5 billion for nuclear energy research.

That number is up $167 million over the previous fiscal year and all I can say is “let’s go!”

We have the bipartisan support. We have the technology. We have the expertise.

Now it’s time to get something built—and we need to do it with a sense of urgency!

Demonstrating Advanced Nuclear

Under the new spending bill, our office will receive $230 million to start a new demonstration program for advanced reactors. This includes $160 million to build two reactors that can be operational within the next five to seven years.

We’ll leverage our National Reactor Innovation Center to efficiently test and assess these technologies and engage the world-renowned capabilities of our national labs to move these reactors from blueprints to reality.

We also plan to fund up to five additional teams to help reduce the risk of developing their reactor designs.

This will ultimately prove, once again, that nobody innovates nuclear technology better than the United States!

Fueling the Future

Many of these advanced reactor designs will require a higher enriched fuel to achieve smaller plant sizes, better fuel utilization and longer core life.

That’s why we are looking into a variety of ways to provide high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to support the testing and demonstration of these technologies.

We’ll dedicate $8 million to recycle excess U.S. government nuclear fuel in the near-term and are working toward a long-term solution by demonstrating 16 advanced centrifuge machines that can enrich uranium up to HALEU levels (up to 19.75%).

This sends a strong message that the Department of Energy (DOE) is all in on new nuclear.

The Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle

To better understand the nuclear fuel cycle of advanced reactors, DOE will also work with the National Academy of Sciences to study specific disposal and storage requirements. This includes exploring the feasibility of recycling used fuel, which I believe can be better utilized to reduce the amount of nuclear waste over time.

More than 90% of the potential energy still remains in our commercial used fuel. This resource could be consumed to operate new reactor designs that are currently under development.

Accident Tolerant Fuels

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