Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the happy task of moving a piece of bipartisan legislation that has been cleared on both sides of the aisle. I am particularly pleased to be doing it in front of the Presiding Officer because the Presiding Officer and I and Senator Heitkamp and others worked so hard on the Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage Act, which provides a means of encouraging carbon capture technologies to develop. This is a related bill that I joined with Senator Crapo on to advance. Senator Crapo has been our lead on this bill. The bill will encourage innovation in the nuclear industry. So it is a great pleasure for me to be here, and I am very honored that my distinguished colleague Senator Crapo has joined me on the floor.

153, S. 97.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, it has been the Senator from Idaho whose leadership has driven this bill forward more than anything else, and I express my great appreciation to him for the opportunity to work with him to accomplish this success.

Like Senator Crapo, I want to recognize our colleagues in this effort, Senators Risch, Booker, Durbin, and Murkowski. I particularly thank Senator Murkowski because she is the chair of the Senate Energy Committee, and she and Senator Cantwell together cleared this bill, so we could bring it to the floor, and gave it the blessing of their committee.

I also thank Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, who has been a strong supporter of our efforts at nuclear modernization, and I ask unanimous consent that a U.S. News & World Report editorial, which Senator Crapo wrote with Senator Inhofe, Senator Booker, and me, be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

I thank Senator Alexander from Tennessee--the home of Oak Ridge, the other National Lab that focuses so much in this area--who has been a constant advocate and has been very interested in all things nuclear for a very long time.

This bill, the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, has been so well summarized by Senator Crapo that I will not go back and resummarize it, but I will emphasize that it is our intention that it provide an opening for nuclear innovation into next-generation, third- generation, even fourth-generation nuclear technologies, with the goal that we can compete effectively internationally to be the producers of clean and safe nuclear energy, with the hope--and at this point I think it is somewhere between a hope and a prospect--that this technology will develop to the point where we can begin to look at our existing nuclear waste stockpile and use these new technologies to turn hazardous and dangerous nuclear waste, for which we have no present plan, into something that is valuable and can help create energy. We need to work on how to price that because, at present, there is no mechanism that provides any value to someone who might have a solution to that problem for lifting this cost off of our books. But that is something Senator Crapo, Senator Alexander, Senator Inhofe, Senator Booker, Senator Murkowski, and I can continue to work on. That, I think, is a really valuable prospect in all of this, and it is one of the things that moves me to do this.

Let me close by thanking Senator Crapo for also working with me on NEIMA, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, which we are still working to get passed but which we hope will get passed. It parallels very nicely with this legislation because what that would do is get the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to update its permitting process to accommodate new technologies.

When I am asked what I mean by that, I use a very rough example, which is that the current light water reactor permitting process makes about as much sense as the test for these new technologies as taking a Tesla and having it pass the DMV carburetor requirements. It is a new technology; it requires a different testing regime. Our other bill would authorize and require the NRC to update and work with the innovation community to make sure that when these things are ready for permitting, permitting is, in fact, ready for them.

News & World Report, July 11, 2016] The New Nuclear Renaissance (By Jim Inhofe, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mike Crapo and Cory Booker)

There has been a groundswell of activity and investment in recent years surrounding advanced nuclear reactors. A dynamic group of nuclear engineers and scientists are chasing the future--and racing against China and Russia--to develop innovative reactor designs. These technologies hold enormous promise to provide clean, safe, affordable, and reliable energy, not just for our country, but for the world. These innovators have a vision for the future, and they charge ahead backed by more than $1 billion in private capital. The future of nuclear energy is bright.

Some would argue that we have been here before. In 2005, Congress passed incentives to encourage a ``nuclear renaissance'' amid high natural gas prices. The industry stood ready to build a large number of modern light-water reactors, improved versions of existing nuclear technology.

But reality fell short of expectations and the result was only five new nuclear plants, with a price tag of $8 billion to $10 billion each. Now, in an age of low-cost natural gas, it is becoming harder for the nearly 100 existing reactors to compete. The Energy Information Administration calculates that electricity generation from a new nuclear plant would cost about 25 percent more than electricity from a new gas- fired combined- cycle power plant. This is causing some nuclear energy companies to scale back their operations. For instance, Chicago-based Exelon Corporation announced just a few weeks ago that it would shutter two of its nuclear plants in Illinois in the coming years, citing pressure from natural gas as a major factor.

So this begs the question: Will this new wave of innovative reactors live up to its promise? Investors think so, and so do we. For starters, these advanced reactors differ significantly from their predecessors. Rather than water, they use materials like molten salt or noble gasses as coolants. Most are considered ``walk away safe,'' since they are designed to use the laws of physics, rather than equipment, to prevent accidents. If a natural disaster strikes, for instance, these reactors would simply shut down, substantially reducing the threat of a a meltdown. Many are designed to be small and modular, so they could be built in factories with construction costs that are a fraction of their big, custom-built forerunners. Small reactors could also be plugged into future micro-grid systems without requiring extensive transmission infrastructure. Some of these new reactor technologies could actually help to reduce the amount of nuclear waste we've accumulated through the years by using that waste as fuel. That could alleviate a major challenge facing the industry. And of course, all of this would be achieved without any air pollution.

Nuclear energy used to be just another partisan issue. Thankfully, that is changing. The four of us represent opposite ends of the political spectrum in the Senate, but we are all pulling in the same direction, backing various pieces of legislation to promote advanced nuclear innovation and development. One bill would open the doors of our national laboratories to entrepreneurs and their innovative new companies to develop public-private partnerships with the potential to bring new ideas to market. Another bill looks to build a sensible regulatory framework to allow diverse advanced reactor concepts to go from the drawing board to reality.

These bills have been moving through Congress and are garnering broad bipartisan support. The Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act recently passed the Senate as part of a bipartisan energy bill, on an 87-4 vote. The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act was approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on a 17- 3 vote.

Though we may come to this issue for different reasons, our end goal is the same. We want to promote new technologies that provide cleaner energy and get them built by and for Americans. We can't take a back seat as China and Russia build test reactors and lure away American innovators. This new nuclear renaissance is primed for success. It has broad bipartisan support in Congress, serious private capital investment and the ability to help address environmental challenges--all while encouraging American innovation. The world is heading into a new age of nuclear energy, and the United States must lead the way.

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