Advanced Reactors: Turning the Corner
The next generation of nuclear reactors, collectively called “advanced reactors,” are making substantial progress towards commercialization and are poised to offer new tools to provide clean energy. These advanced reactors are an evolution of either today’s dominant reactor technology, light water reactors (LWRs), or non-LWR designs that have operated on an experimental and limited commercial basis since the 1960s but were never widely deployed.1
Today is a watershed moment in the advanced reactor space, with more than 30 commercial scale demonstrations of different designs in progress across the globe. These designs cut across technologies, sizes, and target applications. The timelines for these projects show that advanced nuclear energy can be operational in time to address the climate challenge, with commercial demonstrations in the 2020s, and then cost-reduction and large-scale rollout in the 2030s. These reactors are designed for mass production and to reduce construction risk through modularity, simplification of design, and a high-level of manufactured content. With shorter construction timeframes and lower construction risk, advanced reactors could quickly achieve cost reductions through technological learning.
[Blockierte Grafik: https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploa…ced%20Reactor%20Table.png]
The interactive map below shows the technology types, locations, and estimated completion dates of projects underway globally. Details can also be viewed in this chart.
United States
Last year marked monumental progress for advanced reactors across the United States. In May 2020, the Department of Energy (DOE) launched its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) which as of FY2021 has awarded $480 million in appropriated funding for advanced reactor projects. The program has three different development and demonstration pathways:
- Advanced Reactor Demonstrations: Awards for two operating full-scale advanced reactors by 2027. The DOE will invest a total of $3.2 billion over seven years for the TerraPower/GE-Hitachi Natrium sodium fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system, and the X-energy Xe-100 HTGR, with matching investment from industry.
- Risk Reduction Awards: Awards to support reactors under development that can be licensed and deployed over the next 10 to 14 years. The DOE expects to invest approximately $600 million over seven years. The five awardees are:
The Advanced Reactor Concepts 2020 (ARC 20) awards are an additional pathway supported by DOE to advance designs with potential to commercialize in the mid-2030s. The awardees are ARC Clean Energy which is developing a seismically isolated advanced sodium-cooled reactor; General Atomics for its 50 MWe fast modular reactor conceptual design; and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology group working on a horizontal HTGR concept. DOE is expected to invest $56 million over four years.
Congress also passed the Energy Act of 2020, tucked in the end-of-year omnibus bill, which included a monumental $6.6 billion in authorized funding for advanced nuclear energy. The bill authorized not only ARDP funding for the next five years, but also a program to support the commercial availability of domestic High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU), which is used in the composition of fuel for most advanced reactors and is necessary for large-scale deployment. Furthermore, the Energy Act of 2020 authorized programs focused on nuclear integrated energy systems, which are important to demonstrate nuclear technologies for non-electric applications such as hydrogen production, process heat, or desalination. While Congress will still need to appropriate funds toward these programs, the authorizations provide useful direction for DOE and a strong signal that advanced reactors are a bipartisan priority on Capitol Hill.
Key elements of the funding authorized for advanced nuclear in the Energy Act of 2020 are summarized below:
[Blockierte Grafik: https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploa…ear%20Funding%20Table.png]
So far, multiple ARDP awardees have announced demonstration sites in Richland, Washington; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; at a retiring coal plant in Wyoming; and at the Idaho National Laboratory.
In parallel to commercial demonstrations, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is pursuing Project Pele, which has the objective to design, build, and demonstrate a prototype mobile nuclear reactor by 2024. In March 2021, DoD announced it had selected BWX Technologies, Inc. and X-energy to complete the final design for their mobile nuclear reactor prototypes. After completing their final design in 2022, DoD may select one company to build their prototype and anticipates full power testing of the reactor by the end of 2023, and outdoor mobile testing at a DOE installation in 2024.
There were also significant advanced reactor licensing milestones in 2020. NuScale is working with the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) on the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) and received the first design certification for a small modular reactor (SMR) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in August 2020. The CFPP will be located at the Idaho National Lab (INL) and is expected to start operation in 2029. In 2020, DOE awarded up to $1.4 billion to support development of the project.
Oklo also submitted the first combined license application for an advanced reactor to the NRC. Oklo’s Aurora Powerhouse, a microreactor non-LWR design, is also to be constructed at the INL site and is expected to come online between 2023 and 2025.