New nuclear power units likely in US in next decade, despite challenges: experts

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."

'From science to industrialization'

Chris Mowry, CEO of Type One Energy, said his company is working to apply advanced three-dimensional printing methods, computational physics and high-temperature superconducting materials in developing commercially viable fusion power systems.

"If the industry and its stakeholders continue to ramp up investment in the space at anywhere near the rate that it has over the past four or five years, you'll see that first commercial pilot plant early next decade," Mowry said. "I think that the pacing items on fusion have shifted from science to industrialization of a set of technologies."

As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to allow nuclear fusion to progress under protocols similar to nuclear medicine, rather than nuclear power generation, Mowry said fusion system developers have less of a focus on meeting regulatory guidelines and instead, "trying to figure out how to translate large-format 3-D printing ... and make the equipment in my fusion power plant."