Senators push bills to expand nuclear power development

Inside reactor at Columbia Generating Station. Photo Energy Northwest

Senators, including the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, are pushing legislation aimed at spurring a revival in nuclear power plant construction.

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), head of the energy panel, said November 16 that he plans to introduce a bill that would require the Department of Energy to license demonstration "modular" reactors - with generating capacity of 350 megawatts or less.

Bingaman's planned bill would be a companion to Senator Mark Udall's (D-Colorado) legislation directing DOE to develop a research strategy for lowering the costs of nuclear power, including research into smaller, modular reactors.

In a November 16 speech to the American Nuclear Society, Bingaman called on Congress to remove "first-mover" risks that hinder nuclear power development, including expanded loan guarantees designed to dampen financing risks.

Meanwhile, Senators Jim Webb (D-Virginia) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) on November 17  introduced a bill to appropriate $10 billion to leverage $100 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear and other low-carbon energy technology, and to spend $10 billion over the next 10 years on nuclear power skills training, plant life extension, and development of solar, biofuels, and other low-carbon energy sources.

The Webb-Alexander bill would direct DOE to carry out five "mini-Manhattan projects" to study carbon capture technologies, non-ethanol biofuels, electric vehicles and electricity storage, solar power, and "Generation IV" nuclear reactors capable of reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel.

The Northwest has one operating commercial nuclear power plant, the 1,150-megawatt Columbia Generating Station, located near the TriCities in Washington.