[Senate Hearing 116-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER: ADVANCED REACTORS
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2019
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development,
Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-138, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Lamar Alexander (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Alexander, Kennedy, Hyde-Smith,
Feinstein, and Shaheen.
opening statement of senator lamar alexander
Senator Alexander. The Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development will please come to order. Today's hearing is to
discuss advanced nuclear reactors. Senator Feinstein and I each
have an opening statement and then I will recognize each
Senator for up to 5 minutes for an opening statement,
alternating between the Majority and the Minority in the order
in which they arrived. Then we will turn to Mr. Edward
McGinnis, who is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Nuclear Energy, for his testimony on behalf of the Department
of Energy, then to Dr. Thomas Zacharia, Director of the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, for his testimony, and finally Dr.
Christina Back, Vice President of Nuclear Technologies and
Materials at General Atomics, for her testimony.
Ms. Back. In California.
Senator Alexander. In California, excuse me.
[Laughter.]
Senator Alexander. I do not know how I avoided saying
that--in California, underscore. So at the conclusion of the
witnesses' testimony, I will then recognize Senators for 5
minutes of questions each, alternating between the Majority and
Minority in the order in which they arrived.
Every week Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island goes to the
Senate floor to deliver warnings about climate change. Last
year, he and I wrote a New York Times Op-ed together that said,
if you care about climate change it makes no sense to shut down
nuclear power plants because nuclear electricity provides 60
percent of our carbon-free electricity. But the real prospect
exists at the United States, which has led the world in the
peaceful years of nuclear energy, may find itself in the near
future without these emission-free nuclear reactors.
This morning comes from the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. It comes from individuals like Bill
Gates, and investors who want to build advanced reactors. This
hearing is to discuss perhaps the most promising way to ensure
a nuclear industry for America's future, and that is to
accelerate the development of advanced reactors--specifically
to deal with the single biggest obstacle facing this
development, which is, in one word, cost. One of the most
intriguing ways to reduce cost is 3D printing, which is a
conceptually simple process of using a computer model to join
materials one layer at a time to make complex objects. We will
hear more about that from Dr. Zacharia. In other words, the
computer program can create an auto tool--a tool to make an
auto part, or even a replica of a Ford Shelby Cobra. In fact,
in May 2017 the Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, drove a 3D
printed car--a Ford Shelby Cobra at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory.
The tantalizing question is, what if this 3D printing
process were used to build nuclear reactors? Could it
significantly reduce cost enough to make nuclear reactors
competitive, or nearly competitive, with natural gas? For
fiscal year 2019, Congress appropriated $30 million through the
Oak Ridge Laboratory to begin work to demonstrate that we can
build an entire nuclear reactor with 3D printing. This project
is called the Transformational Challenge Reactor. I will look
forward to hearing from Dr. Zacharia to tell us more about that
today.
Let us address for a moment this question of cost. We have
98 nuclear reactors in the United States. They are large
pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. They
have the capacity to generate between 600 and 3900 megawatts of
electricity--in other words they are big. They are licensed to
run for 40 years through the possibility of continuing to run,
in some cases, for up to 80 years. Right now we know that 12 of
our 98 nuclear reactors plan to shut down early by 2025, within
6 years before their licenses expire. And the reason they are
shutting down is primarily cost. They cost too much to operate
in competition with natural gas, and to some extent, Government
subsidized wind power. Chances are these reactors will not be
replaced with nuclear power for the same reason, cost.
Only two reactors are currently being built in the United
States, the Vogtle reactors in Georgia, while China is
currently building 15 reactors with a plan to construct an
additional 43. The cost of constructing the two reactors
underway in the United States is a total of $25 billion. But by
comparison, constructing two natural gas plants to produce
about the same amount of electricity would cost less than $2
billion. TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) recently built the
Allen Natural Gas Plant in Memphis for $975 million. It
produces about the same amount of electricity as one of the new
Vogtle reactors--each has a capacity of about 1100 megawatts.
The big nuclear reactors cost more than 10 times to build. They
last longer and their fuel is less expensive over time, but the
cost of construction is a massive barrier.
Advanced reactors, which use different fuels and different
coolants than today's existing light water reactors, provide
the opportunity to address some of these issues. They are
smaller. They can be built at lower cost. They cost less to
operate. They are potentially safer, and generate less nuclear
waste. The stakes here are very high. We have seen what
happened in Japan and Germany for different reasons. Their
major industrialized economies similar to ours lost their
emission-free, low cost, reliable nuclear electricity. Prices
went up. Pollution went up. Manufacturing became less
competitive in the global marketplace. That is where we are
headed in the United States in the next 10 years unless we
change something. The bottom line is, in order to expand
nuclear power in this country, we need to solve two problems.
First, we need to solve the nuclear waste stalemate,
something my colleague, Senator Feinstein, passionately cares
about--something we have been stuck in for the past 30 years. I
want to resolve the nuclear waste stalemate this year. I
support funding Yucca Mountain, and proceeding with plans to
allow used nuclear fuel to be stored at interim storage sites
and at private facilities. I want to move ahead on all fronts.
I expect President Trump will continue to request funding to
restart the licensing process for Yucca Mountain. To emphasize,
that licensing process only moves ahead so it can be
determined, officially, whether it is safe to continue with
Yucca Mountain, and I look forward to moving forward on all the
tracks, as I said, at once.
Second, we must address the high cost to build a new
nuclear plant. I believe the advanced reactors give us the
opportunity to do that. Today we will look at what types of
advanced reactors are being developed, how advanced reactors
will be different from existing reactors, and how those
differences will help overcome some of the challenges nuclear
power faces today, including size and the cost of
construction--how continuing to support existing reactors and
small modular reactors can help sustain our current nuclear
capability until advanced reactors can be built, what the
Department of Energy, our 17 national labs in the nuclear
industry, are doing to develop and build advanced reactors, and
will also consider what additional steps the Federal Government
needs to take to help develop and build advanced reactors that
exist today. In other words, can advanced reactors that cost
less to build and operate help us to avoid the higher cost of
electricity that Germany and Japan are seeing, while at the
same time offering a form of electricity that is emission-free?
Nuclear power must be part of our energy future, if we want a
future with clean, cheap, and reliable energy that can create
good jobs and keep America competitive in the global economy.
We hope to learn from the witnesses today what Congress can do
to support advanced reactors and help grow the nuclear industry
in the United States.
With that, I would like to recognize Senator Feinstein, our
Ranking Member, for her opening statement.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Lamar Alexander
Every week, Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island goes to the Senate
floor to deliver warnings about climate change.
Last year, he and I wrote a New York Times op-ed together saying
that if you care about climate change, it makes no sense to shut down
nuclear power plants because nuclear power provides 60 percent of our
carbon-free electricity.
But the real prospect exists that the United States, which has led
the world in the peaceful use of nuclear technology, may find itself in
the near future without these emission-free nuclear reactors.
This warning comes from the Center for Strategic and International
Studies and also Bill Gates and a group of investors who want to build
advanced reactors.
This hearing is to discuss perhaps the most promising way to assure
a nuclear industry for America's future, and that is to accelerate the
development of advanced reactors. And specifically, to deal with the
single biggest obstacle facing this development, which is one word--
cost.
One of the most intriguing ways to reduce cost is with 3D printing,
which is a conceptually simple process of using a computer model to
join materials, one layer at a time, to make complex objects.
In other words, a computer program can create an auto part, a tool
to make an auto part, or even a replica of a Ford Shelby Cobra. In
fact, in May 2017, the Secretary of Energy Rick Perry drove a 3D-
printed Ford Shelby Cobra at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The tantalizing question is, what if this 3D printing process were
used to build nuclear reactors? Could it significantly reduce the cost
enough to make nuclear reactors competitive with natural gas?
For fiscal year 2019, Congress appropriated $30 million to Oak
Ridge National Laboratory to begin work to demonstrate that we can
build an entire nuclear reactor with 3D printing. This project is
called the Transformational Challenge Reactor. I look forward to
hearing Dr. Zacharia from Oak Ridge National Laboratory tell us more
about that today.
Let's address for a moment the question of cost.
Our existing 98 reactors are large, pressurized water reactors and
boiling water reactors; they have the capacity to generate between 600
and 3900 megawatts of electricity; and they are licensed to run for 40
years, with the possibility of continuing to run some for 80 years.
Right now, we know that 12 of our 98 nuclear reactors plan to shut
down early by 2025--within 6 years--before their licenses expire. And
the reason they are shutting down early is primarily because of cost--
they cost too much to operate in competition with natural gas and, to
some extent, government subsidized wind power.
Chances are, these reactors won't be replaced with nuclear power
for the same reason--cost.
Only 2 reactors are currently being built in the United States (the
Vogtle reactors in Georgia), while China is currently building about 15
reactors, with a plan to construct an additional 43.
The cost of constructing the two reactors in the United States is
$25 billion. But by comparison, constructing two natural gas plants to
produce the same amount of electricity would cost less than $2 billion.
TVA recently built the Allen Natural Gas Plant in Memphis for $975
million, and it produces about the same amount of electricity as one of
the new Vogtle reactors will. (Each has a capacity of about 1,100
megawatts.)
The big nuclear reactors cost more than ten times to build. They
last longer and their fuel is less expensive over time, but the cost of
construction is a massive barrier.
Advanced reactors, which use different fuels and different coolants
than today's existing light water reactors, provide the opportunity to
address some of these issues: They are smaller and can be built at
lower cost; they cost less to operate; and they are potentially safer
and generate less nuclear waste.
The stakes are very high here. We have seen what happened in Japan
and Germany for different reasons. There, major industrialized
economies similar to ours lost their emission-free, low-cost, reliable
electricity. Prices went up, pollution went up, and manufacturing
became less competitive in the global marketplace. And that is where we
are headed in the next 10 years unless something changes.
The bottom line is--in order to expand nuclear power in this
country, we need to solve 2 problems:
First, we must solve the nuclear waste stalemate, which we have
been stuck in for the past 30 years.
I want to resolve the nuclear waste stalemate this year. I support
funding Yucca Mountain and proceeding with plans to allow used nuclear
fuel to be stored at interim storage sites and at private facilities. I
expect President Trump will continue to request funding to restart the
licensing process for Yucca Mountain, and I look forward to moving
forward on all tracks at the same time.
Second, we must address the high cost to build a new nuclear plant.
I believe advanced reactors give us a chance to do that.
Today we will look at: what types of advanced reactors are being
developed; how advanced reactors will be different than existing
reactors, and how those differences will help overcome some of the
challenges nuclear power faces today including size and the cost of
construction; how continuing to support existing reactors and small
modular reactors can help sustain our current nuclear capabilities
until advanced reactors can be built; what the Department of Energy,
our 17 national laboratories, and the nuclear industry are doing to
develop and build advanced reactors; and what additional steps the
Federal Government needs to take to help develop and build advanced
reactors that exist today.
In other words, can advanced reactors that cost less to build and
operate help us avoid the higher cost of electricity that Germany and
Japan are seeing, while at the same time offering a form of electricity
that is emission free?
Nuclear power must be part of our energy future if we want a future
with clean, cheap, and reliable energy that can create good jobs and
keep America competitive in a global economy.
We hope to learn from the witnesses today what Congress can do to
support advanced reactors and help grow the nuclear industry in the
United States.
With that, I would like to recognize Senator Feinstein, our
subcommittee's ranking member, for her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, and
thank you for holding this hearing. Once again, we are together
and I appreciate that.
Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge of our
times. We see firsthand in my State, a State of 40 plus million
people, how difficult it is to deal with drought, flooding, and
catastrophic wildfire that will only get worse as the climate
continues to change further.
The recent fire, the big fire up north that burned 15,000
homes, is the worst wildfire California has ever had, and this
is part of the reason my State has committed to eliminating net
carbon emissions by 2045 economy wide. As the chairman has
frequently noted, nuclear power is the largest source of
carbon-free power and could be a major part of this effort to
cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, the current fleet of
large-scale, light water reactors have at least three major
weaknesses.
For one, we have no solution for the disposal of highly
radioactive nuclear waste. Two, new nuclear power plants have
prohibitively high upfront end costs. And three, nuclear power
presents significant risks to the general public in the event
of a critical accident. If nuclear reactors are to have a
future and become a viable tool in combating climate change,
then, I believe, they must address these weaknesses.
There are now over 82,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored
at 77 reactor sites in 33 States, with the vast majority of
this still stored in deep storage pools. In California alone,
there are over 3,000 metric tons, which is to say more than
8,000 highly radioactive plutonium rods stored close to the
Pacific Ocean and major population centers in an earthquake
prone State. Mr. Chairman, you and I have worked for 6 years to
move this waste away from reactor sites. We have tried to
create a more robust nuclear waste system by supporting private
storage sites, Government storage sites, and creating a new
process for selecting a permanent disposal facility. The fact
is that waste storage must be solved if there is to be a future
for nuclear power. You have my promise to keep pushing on this
issue until we finally find a solution.
Mr. Chairman, 10 years ago this subcommittee was preparing
for the renaissance of nuclear power in the United States.
Today, we find ourselves in a very different position and that
renaissance has not come to pass. The two reactors in South
Carolina have been abandoned after massive cost overruns and
schedule delays. The two that remain under construction in
Georgia are estimated to cost twice their original estimate--an
eye-popping $30 billion. Construction is only continuing
because State Officials in Georgia have decided to charge
ordinary ratepayers with this whopping bill.
Mr. Chairman, we still live under the shadow of the
Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011. It caused the evacuation of
300,000 people and billions of dollars in economic and
environmental damage. Today, 8 years later, authorities in
Japan are still pumping water into the melted reactor cores--
after 8 years--in an effort to keep them cool until they can
decommission the plant. In response, U.S. industry, as required
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has taken steps to ensure
that equipment and procedures are in place in the event of a
severe accident. But the fact remains that today the reactor
fleet needs active intervention to maintain safety systems in
order to prevent a meltdown like we saw at Fukushima.
Tomorrow's reactors must have enhanced safety features that
virtually can eliminate terrible events like Fukushima.
Bill Gates recently came into my office to talk about the
role nuclear energy could play in combating climate change. He
is actually building his own nuclear reactor, believe it or
not. It is his belief that advanced nuclear represents the most
promising chance to generate the carbon-free, base load
electricity. We will need to power our economy while also
eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. So, it comes to bear that
there are promising technologies and I am very proud of the
investments we have made through the Department of Energy to
pursue these opportunities. And there are many companies
developing advanced reactors, including Mr. Gates' company,
TerraPower, and I hope they can lead the way in this area.
I do agree that our research and development efforts should
include support for advanced nuclear technologies with a focus
on new materials, control systems, and advanced fuels that
enhance the safety of the current fleet. But I also believe
that new nuclear technologies must overcome the challenges of
an existing nuclear fleet if they are going to be a viable
solution. That means lower upfront costs, less nuclear waste,
and increased accident tolerance.
Mr. Chairman and members, I look forward to hearing from
our witnesses about how advanced nuclear reactors can resolve
some of these difficulties the nuclear industry faces, and help
us combat climate change at the same time. Thank you very much.
Senator Alexander. Thank you Senator Feinstein, and it is a
pleasure to begin another Congress working with you on this
subcommittee. We have had a terrific working relationship the
last several years and will continue with that. We will now
have opening statements from any Senators if they wish to make
them, and we will start with Senator Hyde-Smith, and then go to
Senator Shaheen, and then Senator Kennedy. Senator Hyde-Smith.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member. It is just an honor to join this committee--I look
forward to working with you. And today one of our witnesses is
a graduate of the University of Mississippi, Dr. Zacharia, so
welcome to D.C. as well--welcome to the meeting. Thank you.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Senator Hyde-Smith. Senator
Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will wave my
statement except to say that I am also a graduate of the
University of Mississippi.
[Laughter.]
Senator Alexander. Well, it is getting a little thick here.
[Laughter.]
Senator Alexander. Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. I am not a graduate of the University of
Mississippi, but it beats a small town.
[Laughter.]
Senator Alexander. And I want the audience to duly note
that all of the last three Senators all took note of Senator
Howard Baker's--the advice Senator Dirksen gave to his son-in-
law, Senator Howard Baker, after his maiden speech on the
Senate floor, which was way too long. He said, Senator Baker
perhaps you should occasionally enjoy the luxury of an
unexpressed thought----
[Laughter.]
Senator Alexander. And all three of those Senators followed
that rule very well.
[Laughter.]
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Office of Nuclear Energy
Senator Alexander. I will now recognize Mr. McGinnis to
provide his testimony on behalf of the Department of Energy.
Mr. McGinnis, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. EDWARD MCGINNIS, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY
Mr. McGinnis. Thank you very much. Chairman Alexander,
Ranking Member Feinstein, and members of the subcommittee, I am
very pleased to appear before you today to discuss the
profoundly important matter of advanced nuclear technology
development. Before I begin my formal testimony, however, I
would like to take a moment to commend Congress and in
particular members of this subcommittee for your leadership in
advancing nuclear energy as evidenced by the recent passage of
the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act late last year
and the Nuclear Energy Innovation Modernization Act, which was
just signed into law this past Monday. This Administration is
fully committed to nuclear energy as a vital component of our
Nation's energy system.
As the major source of reliable, resilient, and clean base
load electricity, nuclear energy is a very, very important
strategic national asset for the United States. It is an
essential element of our Nation's diverse energy portfolio,
helping to sustain the United States' economy and sustain our
national goals. A strong domestic nuclear industry enabled by
the existing nuclear fleet and enhanced by game-changing
advanced nuclear technologies is critical to our Nation's
energy security, national security, environmental
sustainability, and economic prosperity.
However, the nuclear energy sector is undergoing a major
transformative period of time due to a variety of factors that
include changing and very challenging market conditions, as was
mentioned, an aging fleet of a reactors, and a need for greater
nuclear energy product choices and innovative business
technology deployment models available to customers. We are
literally at a crossroads, in my humble opinion, with our
Nation's nuclear energy sector. And what we do the next few
years will be determinative for, not just us now, but also for
our children and their children from an economic, energy,
environmental, and national security standpoint.
Fortunately, there are literally dozens of U.S. nuclear
reactor design companies, some of whom are here today looking
to seize the opportunity as we work through advancing highly
innovative, small, scalable, flexible, versatile, and more
financeable nuclear reactors. These innovative concepts
comprise the full range of reactor sizes and types, including
advanced micro reactors, small modular reactors, and large
reactors based on designs ranging from light water, high
temperature gas, molten salt, and liquid metal fast cooled
reactors.
We are not only seeing game-changing and highly disruptive
advancements in the U.S. nuclear energy space, but also in the
advanced manufacturing area as well, as was mentioned. For
instance, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working with
Idaho National Laboratory and private industry to build the
world's first 3D printed, barrel size micro reactor. This
project, which we call the transformational challenge reactor
or TCR, aims to demonstrate the use of additive manufacturing
as a viable route to faster, cheaper, and better components in
nuclear applications. If we can demonstrate its use by printing
an entire reactor that achieves criticality and produces power,
we will have positioned ourselves to truly leapfrog current
manufacturing methods. That is what I call a game changer.
We are also working on addressing the need for a fast test
reactor capabilities, such as a reactor which would accelerate
innovation in advanced fuels and materials for U.S. nuclear
vendors and pave the path for the U.S. to achieve a global
leadership and advanced nuclear R&D by a reestablishing this
capability.
Furthermore, many advanced reactor concepts, including the
Department of Energy's Versatile Advanced Test Reactor, will
need high-assay low-enriched uranium, otherwise referred to as
HALEU, for which there is currently no commercially available
supply. That is one key reason why the Department recently
announced its intent to demonstrate the enrichment of HALEU
based on U.S. technology. DOE (Department of Energy) is working
with the Department of Defense to support micro reactors to
provide resilient and clean power for both commercial and
national security needs.
I firmly believe that with a focus on sustained,
collaborative, private-public partnership approach to support
early stage R&D, and by working closely and thoughtfully
together with key U.S. stakeholders, this committee, and all of
Congress, we can indeed revive, revitalized, and expand our
Nation's nuclear energy sector and restore our global nuclear
energy leadership. Thank you very much, and I will look forward
to taking any questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward G. McGinnis
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Members of the
Subcommittee, I am very pleased to appear before you today to discuss
the profoundly important matter of advanced nuclear technology
development.
As the major source of reliable, resilient and clean baseload
electricity, nuclear energy is a very important strategic national
asset for the United States. It is an essential element of our Nation's
diverse energy portfolio helping to sustain the U.S. economy and
support our national goals. A strong domestic nuclear industry enabled
by the existing nuclear fleet and enhanced by game-changing advanced
nuclear technologies is critical to our Nation's energy security,
national security, environmental sustainability and economic
prosperity.
Today, nuclear energy is the third largest source of domestic
electricity generation and is the largest source of clean energy. As
baseload electricity sources, nuclear power plants also contribute to
the reliability and resilience of the electric grid and can provide
price stability. From an energy attributes perspective, nuclear energy
is utterly unique. No other energy source provides 24/7, 365-day, 18-24
month full-power generation without stoppages for refueling than
nuclear power; and no other energy source has the density of power
provided by nuclear. To put the density of power in perspective, there
are approximately 8652 electricity generating plants, of all types, in
the United States providing electricity to our citizens and only 59 of
these plants are nuclear--less than 1 percent of the plants and only 10
percent of installed capacity; yet, providing 20 percent of all of our
Nation's electricity and almost 60 percent of our clean non-carbon-
emitting generation.
Nuclear power plants also serve as bedrocks and anchors to
communities across the country According to a Nuclear Energy Institute
fact sheet, nuclear energy supports almost half a million jobs. That
factsheet also indicates that the U.S. nuclear energy fleet is a
significant contributor to the U.S. economy, stating that it
contributes over $60 billion to our gross domestic product (GDP), $10
billion in Federal taxes and $2.2 billion in State taxes each year.\1\
Nuclear power plants drive local economies as well, often serving as
the largest employer and economic engine of small communities.
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\1\ https://www.nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources/
fact-sheets/nuclear-by-the-
numbers-20180412.pdf.
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The first commercial nuclear power plants came on-line in 1969 and
the average age of the nuclear fleet is now 38 years. Almost all of the
operating plants have received approval to conduct at least one
capacity uprate and to date; these uprates have contributed 8 gigawatts
electric (GWe) of additional nuclear capacity. Efficiency improvements
have also significantly increased the total amount of nuclear
generation, helping to keep nuclear energy at 20 percent of the
Nation's total electricity generation even though the total number of
nuclear units has decreased. This is a true testament of our Nation's
world-class plant operators, which consistently demonstrate the highest
capacity factors of any nuclear fleet in the world.
Of the operating nuclear reactors, 87 have received license
extensions to 60 years and another three have applications currently
under review or pending. Three plants (six reactors), Florida Power and
Light's Turkey Point (two reactors), Exelon's Peach Bottom (two
reactors) and Dominion's Surry (two reactors), have applied for a
subsequent license renewal to 80 years. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is currently reviewing these applications.
Dominion has also announced its intention to seek subsequent
license renewal for its North Anna plant (two reactors) in Virginia.
Unfortunately, since 2013, 7 reactors have retired prematurely
(i.e., prior to license expiration) and 12 more are scheduled to retire
as a result of historically low natural gas prices, and flat or
declining demand. While premature retirements have generally been
driven by market conditions, in other instances, State policies
contribute to the retirement of plants, such as in California (Diablo
Canyon), New York (Indian Point), and New Jersey (Oyster Creek). An
additional 7 reactors would be slated to retire prematurely had New
York and Illinois not included nuclear energy in their clean energy
policies. New Jersey and Connecticut have also taken similar steps to
ensure the continued operation of their nuclear power plants. It would
be incredibly harmful to U.S. energy security, economic prosperity, and
environmental sustainability if this shutdown trend were to grow. To
put the magnitude of this last point into perspective, a recent Brattle
Group study noted that the total generation lost from the 4 nuclear
power plants (5 reactors) that are scheduled to retire prematurely in
Pennsylvania and Ohio is considerably greater than all of the solar and
wind generation combined in PJM in 2017 (39 million Megawatt hour (MWh)
nuclear vs. 26 million MWh renewable in 2017).\2\ If we do not stop
this downward trajectory now, it may be too late to recover and realize
the benefits of advanced nuclear technologies in the future.
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\2\ https://www.nei.org/CorporateSite/media/filefolder/resources/
reports-and-briefs/Impacts_of_
Premature_Nuclear_Retirements_in_Ohio_and_Pennsylvania.pdf.
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Sustaining the current fleet of operating nuclear power plants is a
priority for the Nation because without a robust nuclear industry, we
will not be able to reestablish a strong pipeline of advanced nuclear
technologies and associated U.S.-based supply chains, nor maintain the
fuel cycle infrastructure and workforce necessary for a vibrant
civilian nuclear industry.
Even with all of these benefits, the nuclear energy sector is
undergoing a major transformative period of time due to a variety of
factors that include changing and very challenging market conditions,
an aging fleet of reactors, and an absence of nuclear energy product
choices and innovative business/technology deployment models available
to customers. The industry needs to identify and implement solutions
that enable nuclear power to maintain its critical role in the Nation's
energy mix in the future. We are literally at a cross-roads with our
Nation's nuclear energy sector, and what happens in the next few years
will be determinative for not just us, but for our children and their
children from an economic, energy, environmental, and national security
standpoint. Having led the Department of Energy's (DOE) international
nuclear energy cooperation for 11 years and served approximately 10
years prior to that working on global nuclear nonproliferation matters,
I can assure you that Russia and China are determined to become the
dominant nuclear suppliers in the world. This is far, far more than
just electrons on the grid, I can assure you.
We are down in the fourth quarter, but thanks to an incredible bow-
wave of highly innovative and disruptive U.S. nuclear technology
developers and game changing manufacturing approaches, the industry it
in the red zone and in a position to take the lead in a dramatic,
disruptive and transformational manner; not unlike what we have seen
with reusable rockets in aerospace, hydraulic fracturing and
directional drilling in the oil and gas sector, and smart phones in the
personal telecommunications sector.
Today, utility customers and communities around the United States,
who may be interested in acquiring nuclear energy's long-term clean and
reliable source of power for their communities, are faced with a rather
startling limited choice of only large or larger nuclear reactors
designed to produce over 1,000 megawatts (MW). These large reactors can
require more than 10 years to build before generating revenue from
power production. Additionally, many U.S. utilities and international
markets find these GW class reactors simply too large for their
electricity grids. As long as there are only large and larger reactors,
nuclear energy will remain constrained relative to its true market
potential.
So what do we see happening to respond to this lack of product
choice by those who otherwise would very much like to have the unique
attributes offered by nuclear energy? We see the market respond through
the emergence of dozens of U.S. nuclear reactor design companies
looking to seize this opportunity by advancing highly innovative small,
scalable, flexible, versatile and more financeable nuclear reactors.
These innovative concepts include small modular reactors (SMRs), micro
reactors, high temperature gas reactors, molten salt reactors, and
liquid metal fast reactors.
The flexibility offered by SMRs and many other advanced reactors
also enhance the ability to load follow and integrate with renewables
as integrated, or hybrid, energy systems. This is an important
evolution of nuclear energy as the grid continues to rely on higher
concentrations of variable and intermittent generation.
The innovative design features of advanced reactors also enable new
opportunities for power plant siting. SMRs and micro reactors are being
considered for microgrids, remote locations, or even data centers and
military bases. It is envisioned that many of these reactors could also
be placed near or in population centers, with little to no emergency-
planning zone (EPZ)--something the NRC is currently evaluating. In
fact, the NRC staff is already reviewing one major innovation that
would exempt the NuScale design from the requirement to have safety-
related electrical power for its primary safety systems. In the event
of a loss of offsite power or loss of coolant, the reactor is designed
to not need such power and to passively shut down safely on its own.
This advancement has the added advantage of allowing this type of
reactor to provide black start capability. The implications to
distributed generation and resiliency are frankly enormous.
The innovative design features of advanced reactors also enable new
opportunities for power plant siting. SMRs and micro reactors are being
considered for microgrids, remote locations, or even data centers and
military bases.
Another class of reactors that is really generating considerable
interest are micro reactors which typically range from approximately 1-
10 MW. Both stationary and transportable designs are being developed.
Due to their unique designs, micro reactors may well be the first
advanced non-light water reactors to be commercially available. And if
we think a 1 MW reactor is insignificant, we should think again. A 1 MW
micro reactor can provide round-the- clock clean electricity for up to
10 years to over a 1,000 homes.
We are not only seeing game changing and highly disruptive
advancements in the U.S. nuclear reactor design space, but also in the
advanced manufacturing area as well. For instance, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL) is working with INL and private industry to build the
world's first 3-D printed barrel sized micro reactor. This project,
which we call the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR), aims to
demonstrate the use of additive manufacturing as a viable route to
faster, cheaper, and better components in nuclear applications. If we
can demonstrate its use by printing an entire reactor that achieves
criticality and produces power, we will have positioned ourselves to
truly leap frog current manufacturing methods! This is what I call a
game changer.
Finally, the U.S. industry is leading multiple advanced nuclear
fuels development efforts with some of the design components already
being tested in U.S. commercial reactors. These designs offer real
potential for substantially improved economics and safety margins for
our existing fleet and advanced reactors as well.
I hope what I have said thus far gives the Subcommittee a sense of
the tremendous opportunity facing the United States due to the bow-wave
of U.S. advanced nuclear companies, and the historic demand and need
for new and innovative nuclear energy products and services. Now I'd
like to shift the discussion a bit to discuss the role the Office of
Nuclear Energy plays in supporting the development of these concepts.
Government support through early-stage R&D can help stimulate the
nuclear industry as it works to address particularly high-risk
fundamental technical challenges. Utilizing our greatest strengths, the
Department is mobilizing its world-class capabilities, and supporting
targeted early-stage research and development (R&D) partnerships
between academia, the national laboratories and the U.S. nuclear
industry.
One recent action we have undertaken to better support innovative
technology developers was the release of a multi-year funding
opportunity announcement (FOA) to support early- stage R&D of advanced
nuclear energy technologies for application in the existing fleet and
also advanced reactor designs. This industry FOA is intended to provide
efficient, versatile and flexible ways by which DOE can effectively
implement R&D partnerships to support our
U.S. nuclear industry. This FOA is a key element of the Gateway for
Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN), providing cost-shared support
to the domestic nuclear industry for early- stage nuclear R&D. In only
its first year, 15 awards have been made under this innovative FOA,
totaling approximately $80 million in DOE investment.
GAIN was launched a couple of years ago and has revolutionized the
way my office works with industry. Through GAIN, NE is working closely
with the private sector to establish effective private-public
partnerships focused on accelerating the development innovative nuclear
technologies. The support of the Department of Energy and its world-
class laboratories is essential to the U.S. nuclear industry as it
works to bring forth new innovative technologies and approaches.
The Department is also focusing on infrastructure needs to develop
advanced nuclear technologies. We have assessed our national
infrastructure across our national laboratory complex, universities and
industrial research centers and have taken action to provide our
technology developers with the capabilities they need. For example, in
November, 2017, the Department restarted the Transient Reactor Test
Facility (TREAT) at INL. This facility is needed as part of the
material and fuels qualification processes. Furthermore, we are working
to address the need for a fast test reactor. Such a reactor would
accelerate innovation in advanced fuels and materials for U.S. nuclear
vendors and pave the path to U.S. global leadership in advanced nuclear
R&D by reestablishing this capability. Requirements have been developed
and an R&D plan has been created. The fiscal year 2019 appropriation of
$65 million will help us continue to move forward with this project to
regain a necessary capability to test and validate advanced fuels and
materials so that American innovators can develop cutting edge
technology here in the United States.
Furthermore, many advanced reactor concepts currently under
development, will need high- assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), for
which there is currently no commercially available supply in the world.
HALEU is uranium that is enriched between 5 to 20 percent U-235. NE is
very familiar with this issue and is now working to demonstrate
domestic HALEU production capability. The Department believes that it
is particularly important at this moment in time for the new class of
U.S. advanced reactors, including micro reactors, attempting to get to
market that a domestic demonstrated HALEU production capability be
demonstrated, given there is no domestic HALEU production capability
and many of the advanced reactors will require HALEU fuel.
The Department is also exploring other innovative and collaborative
approaches to support our Nation's evolving electricity grid. One such
area is our collaborative work with the Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy on integrated energy systems, also referred to as
hybrid energy systems. Optimization of nuclear and variable renewables
could be a very important way to meet clean electricity needs, and it
could also prove to be a disruptive step-change improvement for non-
electric markets as well. By integrating with variable generation,
nuclear plants can increase operational flexibility and provide process
heat for industrial applications, hydrogen production, or desalination
and wastewater treatment, thereby increasing revenue generation and the
overall economics of nuclear power.
There are other actions the Federal Government and industry can
take to enable first movers and help create market opportunities.
Federal, State and private sector policies and mandates helped create
market opportunity for early deployment of renewable energy
technologies.
The benefits of that market creation are now being realized in the
form of cost reductions and increased penetration. Google's recent
decision to include nuclear in their 100 percent clean energy goal is
definitely a step in the right direction. DOE is also working with the
Department of Defense to develop requirements for, and components of, a
pilot program for micro reactors to provide resilience for national
security infrastructure.
The Administration is fully committed to nuclear energy as a vital
component of our Nation's energy system. I firmly believe that with a
focused and sustained collaborative private-public partnership approach
to support early-stage R&D, and by working closely and thoughtfully
together with key U.S. stakeholders, this Committee and all of
Congress, we can indeed revive, revitalize, and expand our Nation's
nuclear energy sector and restore our global nuclear energy leadership.
By leveraging our national laboratory system, and enabling innovative
thinking across academia and the private sector, we can support
industry's development of a new and highly innovative class of U.S.
advanced nuclear reactors, an innovative and responsive nuclear energy
supply chain, and advanced nuclear energy fuel cycle technologies,
positioning the U.S. for continued energy dominance in the 21st
century. By taking these actions, we can help ensure that future
American generations continue to benefit, as we have, from this
emission-free, reliable, and secure power source for our Nation.
Thank you very much and I look forward to answering your questions.
NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES
Senator Alexander. Thank you. Mr. McGinnis. Dr. Zacharia,
welcome.
STATEMENT OF DR. THOMAS ZACHARIA, DIRECTOR, OAK RIDGE
NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Zacharia. Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Feinstein,
and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity
to appear before you today.
My name is Thomas Zacharia and I am Director of Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in November. In November 1943 at ORNL, the
world's first continuously operating nuclear reactor went
critical just 9 months after construction began, and it
produced the world's first nuclear electricity in 1948.
Building and operating this reactor drew on the Nation's best
talent and the state of the art in Science, Technology, and
Engineering. ORNL, the laboratory that evolved around the
reactor, has been a major contributor to the development and
deployment of both navel and commercial nuclear power reactors.
ORNL continues to pursue advances in nuclear energy, but with
tools far beyond those available in 1943.
The resources available to ORNL, thanks to investment made
by the Nation, include remarkable capabilities in neutron
sciences, material science and engineering, advanced
manufacturing, sensors high performance computing, and
artificial intelligence in combination with unparalleled assets
in nuclear science and engineering. Through our
transformational reactor platform, we are applying these
resources and those of our partners to deliver advances that
could transform the nuclear power industry. But today, by far
the largest non-CO2 producing nuclear energy sources at risk,
in the next 7 years 12 reactors are scheduled to retire. Many
more will follow starting in the early 2030s. Today's fleet
could essentially be gone in 35 years. Meanwhile, other nations
are expanding their nuclear power, often with help from China
and Russia. We are falling behind the rest of the world in a
field that we pioneered.
A major challenge is cost, as was already pointed out by
both the chairman and the ranking member. The U.S. nuclear
industry is searching for ways to modernize nuclear technology
and increase its adoption, but it relies largely on materials,
manufacturing methods, and designs that have changed very
little in the past 50 years. Let me emphasize, the TCR approach
does not compete with a small modular reactor and other
advanced reactors, but strives to change the manufacturing
paradigm.
The goal of our TCR platform is to enable the
revitalization of U.S. nuclear power by exploiting 21st century
materials and manufacturing processes, and accelerating the
certification and qualification of new components and systems
for safe and reliable operation. The result will be a fully
validated platform that can be used to dramatically reduce the
cost of advanced nuclear technologies, put these technologies
to work, while maintaining and enhancing safety, simplifying
operations, and meeting regulatory requirements. We are already
engaged in designing and fabricating prototype core sections
using resources at ORNL that were previously applied to the
development of additively manufactured fuel nozzles for GE
aircraft engines. GE now has a 3D printed engine that powers a
12-person business aircraft that will go into full production
in 2020, consolidating 855 parts to just 12 and reducing the
design cycle from 12 years to just 2 years.
Advances in advanced manufacturing make it possible to
design parts that are impossible to fabricate using
conventional methods, to produce these parts in days, or even
hours, and then to modify designs and production processes in
response to the results of characterization or testing, all at
a cost far below that of conventional manufacturing. TCR team
members are leveraging these advances to design, fabricate, and
test the core of a nuclear micro reactor. Before you are two
prototypes--one sitting on my table and there is one that is
behind you that demonstrate the power of TCR. They will also
create a digital twin of each physical part of the reactor
core. They will use data analytics to extract and evaluate
detailed information about each part, and they will build a
digital platform that brings this information together to
codify the science behind additively manufactured nuclear
components and systems, and provide a sound basis for their
qualification and certification.
We are currently working with the DOE Office of Nuclear
Energy to finalize the plan Congress requested for the TCR. We
expect that the TCR platform to culminate in the operation of a
micro reactor within 60 months. This is an aggressive schedule
and producing a 3D printed nuclear reactor in 5 years--it is an
audacious goal. But reflecting on the 75th Anniversary of the
first criticality of the graphite reactor, we are inspired by
recalling that the first demonstration of a nuclear chain
reaction had taken place less than a year earlier, and that the
Manhattan Project realized its ultimate goal less than 2 years
later.
Using the tools that we have today, we can build on this
legacy to accelerate the deployment of clean, reliable,
resilient, safe, and affordable nuclear power for the Nation.
The platform can shape a new approach to the design,
manufacturing, licensing, and operation.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I will be
happy to answer any questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas Zacharia
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Feinstein, and members of the
Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. It
is an honor to provide this testimony on the future of nuclear energy
and the work of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and its partners
to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear reactor technology.
introduction
My name is Thomas Zacharia, and I am director of ORNL, which
recently celebrated an important anniversary. On November 4, 1943, the
world's first continuously operating nuclear reactor went critical,
just 9 months after construction began in the hills of Tennessee.
The X-10 Graphite Reactor quickly achieved its mission of
demonstrating plutonium production for the Manhattan Project. When the
war ended, it became a key resource for nuclear energy research and
development (R&D). In fact, the first nuclear electricity was produced
at Oak Ridge in 1948, when heat from the Graphite Reactor was harnessed
to drive a toy steam engine, generating enough electricity to light a
flashlight bulb.
The construction and operation of the Graphite Reactor drew upon
the Nation's best intellect and the state of the art in science,
technology, and engineering. The national laboratory that evolved
around the reactor has been a major contributor to the development and
deployment of both naval and commercial nuclear power reactors.
Researchers at ORNL continue to work with the nuclear industry to
ensure and expand the availability of this important carbon-free energy
source.
Today, however, we have tools far beyond the imagination of the
Manhattan Project scientists and engineers. The resources available to
ORNL, thanks to investments made by the Nation, include remarkable
capabilities in materials science and engineering, advanced
manufacturing, instrumentation and control (I&C) systems, high-
performance computing, and artificial intelligence, in combination with
unparalleled assets in nuclear science and engineering.
We are confident that focusing these resources and those of our
partners on the development and deployment of advanced reactor
technologies can have a transformational impact on the challenges
facing the Nation's nuclear power industry. Our new approach to
providing clean, reliable, resilient, and affordable nuclear power for
the Nation is called the Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR.
why tcr?
Commercial nuclear power plants provide about 18 percent of the
electricity in the United States, and they are by far the largest non-
CO2-producing assets in the national power portfolio. Nuclear power
should be an essential element of our low-carbon energy strategy. The
U.S. nuclear industry faces challenges, however, in the age of the
existing nuclear fleet and the complications of adding new nuclear
assets to the mix.
Twelve of the Nation's currently operating power reactors,
representing a combined capacity of 11.7 gigawatts, are scheduled to
retire within the next 7 years. A wave of additional retirements is
expected in the early 2030s, and the current fleet could essentially be
gone by the middle 2050s. Economic pressures could accelerate this
decline in nuclear generating capacity.
Since the mid-2000s, the nuclear industry has been looking for ways
to modernize nuclear technology and increase its adoption. The
principal challenge to the expansion of nuclear power in the United
States is the high capital cost of new reactors, which is driven
primarily by the costs associated with specialized materials,
fabrication of unique components, and construction.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has built several large natural gas
combined cycle units in recent years; as a rough rule of thumb, a 1000-
megawatt natural gas combined cycle plant can be built for about $1
billion. This provides a price point for any advanced nuclear reactor
to be economically competitive.
The Nation's only current reactor construction project is the
Vogtle expansion project in Georgia. In 2008, the estimated cost of
this project to add two new 1,215-megawatt pressurized water reactors
to an existing plant was $14.3 billion, and the reactors were scheduled
to come on line in 2016 and 2017. Ten years later, the cost has nearly
doubled, and completion of the first reactor is still more than 2 years
away.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are being considered because of their
smaller footprints, lower capital risk, less demanding security
requirements, efficiency of modular construction in the factory, and
other advantages. We do not yet have clear pricing on SMR deployment
and operation. The TCR approach has the potential to make SMRs more
price competitive with other current energy options, including
renewable energy.
The goal of the TCR program is to enable the revitalization of the
Nation's capabilities in nuclear power by substantially reducing the
cost and accelerating the deployment of new reactors. To realize this
goal, the program will combine the latest innovations in materials,
manufacturing, and machine learning to enable the rapid and economical
production of nuclear energy systems that are not limited by the
constraints of conventional manufacturing and pre-1970s materials, but
that demonstrably meet or exceed the rigorous standards that ensure the
safety of nuclear power.
The country's current approach to nuclear energy development and
deployment relies largely on materials, manufacturing methods, and
designs that were innovative in the 1950s and 1960s, but no longer
represent the state of the art. Many of the ``advanced'' reactors now
being proposed are evolutionary concepts that do not take full
advantage of recent breakthroughs in science and technology.
The TCR program will address these challenges by developing and
demonstrating the disruptive capability needed (1) to create, deploy,
and operate innovative nuclear energy systems that exploit 21st century
materials and manufacturing processes and (2) to accelerate the
certification and qualification of nuclear components and systems for
safe and reliable operation by coupling advanced materials and
manufacturing with forefront I&C, data analytics, and machine learning.
The program exploits the exceptional skills and resources available
at ORNL and other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national
laboratories, including the specialized facilities needed to support
the development, testing, and qualification of nuclear energy systems.
It also draws on collaborations with academia and industry to implement
this new approach to nuclear power.
In particular, ORNL is working closely with Argonne National
Laboratory (ANL), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and BWX
Technologies, Inc. (BWXT), one of the Nation's leading nuclear
manufacturers. Our team has prepared an aggressive plan to establish
and demonstrate a blueprint for combining advanced manufacturing, data
science, and materials science to enable advanced nuclear energy
systems. The availability of this fully validated blueprint will
dramatically reduce the deployment costs and timelines of nuclear
energy components and systems, while maintaining and enhancing safety,
simplifying operations, and meeting regulatory requirements.
why now?
Around the world, other nations are expanding their nuclear power
programs to meet rising demands for electricity and reduce their carbon
emissions. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Power
Reactor Information System,\3\ China has 46 nuclear power reactors in
operation, with another 11 reactors under construction. In India, 22
reactors are in operation and 7 are under construction. Japan restarted
five of its existing power reactors in 2018. Nations in the process of
adding nuclear power capacity to their energy mix include Bangladesh,
Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. State-owned Chinese and Russian
companies are selling nuclear power plants to other countries.
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\3\ Power Reactor Information System, ``The Database on Nuclear
Power Reactors,'' available on line at https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/
home.aspx (accessed 2 January 2019).
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In the United States, the nuclear energy sector is contending not
only with the high cost of manufacturing and deploying new reactors and
the aging of our current fleet of nuclear power plants, but also with
the lack of a clear pathway for disposal of nuclear waste and a
complicated regulatory framework that needs updating to support the
deployment of advanced nuclear energy technologies. This combination of
factors has sharply constrained the development of commercial nuclear
energy in the United States. As a result, we are now falling behind the
rest of the world in a field that we pioneered.
The decision by Congress to allocate $30 million to the TCR program
in fiscal year 2019 enables us to begin shaping a new approach to the
challenges of reactor design, manufacturing, licensing, and operation.
The TCR program is a key to securing our ability to provide clean,
reliable, resilient, and affordable nuclear power for the Nation, with
benefits to the environment and our national and economic security.
why ornl?
ORNL is DOE's largest science and energy laboratory, with an R&D
portfolio that spans the range from fundamental science to
demonstration and deployment of breakthrough technologies for clean
energy and national security. Our mission explicitly includes both
scientific discovery and innovation, so we place a high value on
translational R&D--the coordination of our basic research and applied
technology programs to accelerate the deployment of solutions to
compelling national problems. Our ability to mobilize multidisciplinary
teams and to form partnerships with universities, industry, and other
national laboratories is a vital asset in this regard.
I have briefly mentioned ORNL's strengths in computing, materials,
manufacturing, I&C, and nuclear science and engineering. Our assets
include DOE's largest materials R&D program, which supports three
scientific user facilities focused on understanding, developing, and
exploiting materials (the Spallation Neutron Source, the High Flux
Isotope Reactor, and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences); the
Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), which hosts the world's
most powerful supercomputer, Summit, as well as growing capabilities in
artificial intelligence and machine learning; the Manufacturing
Demonstration Facility sponsored by the Advanced Manufacturing Office
in DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; and an
extensive program in nuclear energy R&D, supported by specialized
facilities and highly skilled staff.
By way of illustrating our ability to deliver on the TCR program
goals, here are a few examples of how we have deployed these assets to
solve problems in nuclear energy.
Developing New Materials for Nuclear Applications
For the past six decades, the fuel rods in commercial nuclear power
plants have been sheathed with corrosion-resistant zirconium alloys.
Under normal operating conditions, this cladding material performs
well, but a loss of active cooling in the reactor core can have severe
consequences, as we saw at Fukushima in 2011. In response to Fukushima,
DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy initiated an aggressive R&D program to
identify accident-tolerant fuel system technologies. Beginning in
fiscal year 2012, ORNL worked with General Electric to develop an iron-
based alloy as a replacement cladding material. By mobilizing a team of
experts in nuclear engineering, materials science, radiation effects,
corrosion, thermomechanics, and alloy fabrication, we were able to
produce and test this new alloy, called ``IronClad,'' in 6 years-- much
faster than the traditional approach to materials development, which
can take twenty years or more. In February 2018, a non-fueled test
assembly made with IronClad was placed in Unit 1 at Southern Nuclear's
Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant near Baxley, Georgia. This brings us a
step closer to deploying a technology that will make our existing
reactors even safer than they are today.
Using Additive Manufacturing to Produce Reactor Components
ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor is one of the world's leading
research reactors. It is equipped with a set of control elements (an
inner cylinder and four curved outer plates) that surround the reactor
core. These control elements consist primarily of an aluminum alloy
that contains embedded neutron-absorbing materials. They last about 8
years, and fabrication of new ones is both expensive ($3 million per
set) and time-intensive (2--3 years).
A team of ORNL researchers undertook the production of these
components using ultrasonic additive manufacturing (UAM). They
developed an integrated segment production process and verified the
properties of the new components using x-ray radiography, optical
microscopy, neutron irradiation, and neutronics analysis. The results
demonstrate that UAM offers the potential for significant savings in
the cost and time required to produce new HFIR control elements.
Developing Embedded Sensors and Controls
Many of the measurement systems used in today's nuclear power
plants are based on the same instruments and methods used in the
Graphite Reactor in 1943. DOE's Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies
(NEET) initiative supports the development of advanced instrumentation
that can operate in the harsh environment of a nuclear reactor. At ORNL
and other national laboratories, NEET-sponsored research is leading to
new sensors and controls that can be embedded in the components of a
nuclear power plant. The TCR program will leverage these efforts to
develop and demonstrate how such sensors can be incorporated into
reactors, and thereby provide additional operational insights into
these harsh environments.
Predicting Nuclear Reactor Performance
Since 2010, ORNL has led a partnership that is working to
confidently predict the performance of nuclear reactors through
science-based modeling and simulation. The Consortium for Advanced
Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) takes advantage of ORNL's
leadership-class computers and exceptional strengths in nuclear science
and engineering. It also draws on the resources of a formidable set of
core partners: three national laboratories (Idaho, Los Alamos, and
Sandia), three research universities with strong nuclear engineering
programs (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina
State University, and the University of Michigan), and three partners
from the nuclear power industry (the Electric Power Research Institute,
the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Westinghouse).
CASL has connected fundamental research and technology development
to develop VERA, a Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications that
can simulate the operation of a nuclear power plant. When the Tennessee
Valley Authority started up its Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor in 2016, VERA
was used to perform hour-by-hour simulations of the new plant's first 6
months, with predictions providing important data to support the
achievement of full-power operations. The results of the simulations
agreed closely with the actual operational data--directly demonstrating
the predictive capabilities of VERA. In addition, Westinghouse used
VERA to simulate the startup of its new AP1000 pressurized water
reactor, confirming its engineering calculations.
CASL is also collaborating with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) on the use of high- fidelity, advanced modeling and simulation
tools in the regulatory environment, with an emphasis in fiscal year
2019 on the use of these tools in a licensing environment for accident-
tolerant fuel.
Integrating Advanced Software and Additive Manufacturing of Reactor
Components
ORNL and BWXT are already working together to develop a process for
nuclear design and manufacturing through the integration of advanced
software with additive manufacturing processes. We are leveraging a
combination of in situ process monitoring technologies, modeling, and
data analytics (1) to rapidly develop the processing conditions for
materials used in reactor core and other primary system components and
(2) to demonstrate component-level qualification, leading to
certification of nuclear materials configured in complex geometries.
This project is supported by a $5.4 million cost-share award from
DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy.
Developing the Workforce Needed to Support Advanced Nuclear Energy
The design, construction, and operation of nuclear power plants
requires a specialized workforce, and the advent of advanced reactor
technologies will expand the need for highly skilled workers, who are
already in short supply. Several DOE and ORNL programs directly address
this need. At ORNL, we are particularly proud of our work with area
community colleges and universities to provide students with the
industry-recognized credentials and degrees that they need to work in
advanced manufacturing. Our Nuclear Engineering Science Laboratory
Synthesis program brings nearly 50 students to ORNL each year for
internships. In partnership with the University of Tennessee, we offer
an interdisciplinary graduate education program in nuclear energy. The
Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, which we
lead for DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, is supporting the development
of a new generation of reactor designers, scientists, and nuclear power
professionals. In addition, we are currently assisting two early-career
entrepreneurs in the development of an advanced nuclear reactor through
our Innovation Crossroads program, which is supported by DOE's Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
what will tcr accomplish?
During the next 5 years, the TCR program will design, fabricate,
and test the core of a nuclear microreactor, first in a non-nuclear
demonstration, and then in a nuclear demonstration. The core will
consist of an integrated fuel and cladding structure with embedded
cooling channels and sensors for monitoring performance. During the
non-nuclear demonstration phase (Phase 1), the core design will evolve
as the TCR team works through fabrication, assembly, analysis, and
testing of the components of a surrogate core. This illustrates one of
the key advantages of additive manufacturing: the ability to design a
part that would be impossible to fabricate using conventional
techniques, produce it in days or even hours, and then modify the
design or the manufacturing process in response to the results of
characterization or testing, all at a cost dramatically lower than that
of conventional manufacturing.
We are already engaged in designing and fabricating prototype core
sections, using resources at ORNL that were previously applied to the
development of additively manufactured fuel nozzles for GE aircraft
engines. These components can now be manufactured as a single piece,
instead of a complex assembly of 20 pieces, resulting in fuel nozzles
that weigh 25 percent less, cost 30 percent less, and are 5 times as
durable. These fuel nozzles went from a concept 5 years ago to a
reality today.
In addition, GE has now demonstrated a fully functional 3D-printed
jet engine. More than a third of the components in GE's Advanced
Turboprop (ATP) engine, rated at 1,300 shaft horsepower, will be built
through additive manufacturing methods. The engine will power Textron
Aviation's upcoming 10-person business aircraft, the Cessna Denali. It
is going through flight tests this year and will go into full-scale
production in 2020. The design went from 855 parts to 12 and the design
cycle was reduced from 10 years to 2 years. These innovations are
fundamentally changing the aerospace industry.
Additive manufacturing has delivered similar cost savings,
efficiency improvements, and energy savings for land-based gas turbines
and in the defense industry. The TCR project will demonstrate the same
kinds of advances for the nuclear industry.
In parallel with core development and fabrication, the TCR team
will develop a ``digital twin'' of each physical part of the core.
These digital twins will have access to all of the data streams
captured before, during and after the manufacturing, characterization,
and testing of each part, and to the results of sophisticated
monitoring of parts in operation. Data analytics will be applied to
extract information from these large-volume data streams, and a digital
platform that consists of and connects all of these data streams will
codify the science behind additively manufactured nuclear components
and systems, providing a sound basis for their qualification,
certification, and eventual licensing for operation.
The nuclear demonstration phase (Phase 2) builds on the results of
the non-nuclear demonstration and includes nuclear core production,
employing the advanced manufacturing processes and digital platform
developed during Phase 1; nuclear fuel production and delivery; reactor
system design, development, and assembly; and the initiation of nuclear
testing of a full- temperature critical operating core. The development
of the digital platform will be extended in Phase 2 as new materials
and technologies are designed, manufactured, and incorporated into the
nuclear core. Our expectation is that the TCR program will culminate in
the operation of a microreactor within 60 months.
The results of the TCR program will provide a fully validated
``blueprint'' for combining advanced manufacturing, materials science,
and machine learning to enable advanced nuclear energy systems. This
blueprint offers a pathway to substantial improvements in nuclear
manufacturing and to simplification of the supply chain.
For example, if parts can be rapidly and reliably produced using
advanced manufacturing-- especially unique parts that are expensive to
design and fabricate using conventional techniques--then we can remove
the need to maintain an inventory of parts, shorten the duration of
plant outages associated with replacement part production (and
potential delivery delays), and avoid the stagnation of part designs
and the difficulties of introducing new materials for ``standard''
parts. The direct involvement of industry in the TCR program will
facilitate the translation of the program's innovations to practice.
closing remarks
The Transformational Challenge Reactor program has an audacious
goal and an aggressive schedule. Nevertheless, as we reflect on the
75th anniversary of first criticality at the Graphite Reactor in
November 1943, we are inspired by recalling that the first
demonstration of a nuclear chain reaction had taken place less than a
year earlier, and that the Manhattan Project realized its goal less
than 2 years later.
With the knowledge and tools available to us today, we have both an
opportunity and a responsibility to accelerate the development and
deployment of clean, reliable, resilient, and affordable nuclear power
for the Nation. The TCR program can shape a new approach to the design,
manufacturing, licensing, and operation of nuclear reactors for which:
--design constraints can be relaxed, and increased complexity can be
achieved--because we can build them,
--more efficient regulatory approaches can be used--because of the
depth of understanding gained while building them,
--operational envelopes are widened--because we have deep insights
into real-time and predictive performance,
--a rapid innovation cycle is achievable--because we can quickly
demonstrate concepts,
--flexible and scalable solutions can be deployed--because the
technology approaches can be rapidly adapted to new designs,
and
--autonomous operation is achievable--because we can adapt approaches
already in use to enhance reliability and performance, reduce
operator workload, and increase safety margins.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I welcome your
questions on this important topic.
Senator Alexander. The question we had--what is this?
[Laughter.]
Dr. Zacharia. So, Senator Alexander that is a prototype. It
took less than a week to additively manufacture. We had two
designs we came up with and what you see--
Senator Alexander. Prototype of what?
Dr. Zacharia. Prototype of this battle reactor that we are
hoping to deploy. The Transformational Challenge Reactor
Platform will take a design and take it directly from a CAD
drawing to a 3D printer that builds that reactor 30 micron
layer at a time. The advantage is that you will see some
channels on the outside--those are conformal cooling channels
that is wrapped around. There is no way you can manufacture
that in any other way, other than additive manufacturing. This
allows this reactor to take advantage of this turnaround time.
The idea that you can think up of a design and actually
build a prototype within a week--granted this is aluminum 6061,
we will then now go to steel and super alloys, and ultimately
refractory metals. That is the platform that is the power of
this Transformational Challenge Reactor Platform. While we
build this thing a layer by layer, we can also collect complete
data of the quality of each layer, so that when the reactor is
built, we have a complete data set of how this reactor is
built. We can then import it into a digital twin, so that when
the reactor is operating, we can compare the behavior of the
reactor with this digital twin to ensure that it is operating
safely.
Senator Alexander. Thank you. We will come back to that.
Dr. Back from California.
[Laughter.]
Senator Alexander. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF DR. CHRISTINA BACK, VICE PRESIDENT,
NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGIES AND MATERIALS, ENERGY
GROUP GENERAL ATOMICS
Dr. Back. Thank you. I am proudly from California. Yes.
Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Feinstein, thank you for
inviting me. America is losing one of its most important
sources of clean electricity generation at the very time when
clean energy has become more important than ever. The largest
single source of clean electricity generation, has been
discussed over 50 percent, is nuclear energy. Yet, year-by-year
plants are being shut down. If we want to ensure that our
electricity becomes cleaner, we must bring new advanced
reactors online now. This means we must substantially reduce
the cost of power produced by nuclear reactors that can
generate less nuclear waste and even reuse existing waste. It
also means that the U.S. needs to make long-term R&D
investments now to help develop the new technology.
Robust nuclear power is critical for our national and
energy security. If the U.S. is going to lead, we need to have
substantial and sustained Federal funding to develop new, non-
light water reactors that meet all of the criteria that this
subcommittee first established in the fiscal year 2014 Energy
and Water Appropriations Bill--namely to dramatically improve
nuclear power performance, including sustainability, economics,
safety, and proliferation resistance. General Atomics is
committed to meeting all of the subcommittee's goals through
out nuclear reactor, the Energy Multiplier Module, EM2.
In our 60 years of experience building and designing
innovative reactors, we have deployed 66 TRIGA reactors that
are so safe that some are sited at hospitals. We have built the
first commercial high temperature helium gas cooled reactor and
now we are also designing an ultra-safe micro reactor. EM2 uses
materials engineered for extreme conditions and new energy
efficient conversion technologies to produce electricity at a
much more attractive cost. It would be even safer than existing
reactors, increase thermal efficiency by at least 60 percent
over water cooled reactors to make nuclear energy much more
economically competitive, convert nuclear waste from a
liability into an asset by reusing that fuel, decrease
significantly the required upfront capital cost by
standardizing production in factories and transporting it to
sites, significantly reduce the proliferation risks associated
with nuclear power production, and allow flexibility to be
sited at locations without large bodies of water. EM2 could
truly revolutionize the industry.
Progress requires judicious investments to reduce the
uncertainties of using new reactor materials and technologies.
These investments will enable the U.S. to leapfrog to reactors
with significantly higher conversion efficiencies. GA believes
in this revolutionary transformation so strongly that we have
been investing in an engineered silicon carbide composite
material, that we call SiGA, which unlike metals does not melt
at extremely high temperatures. DOE can play a critical role in
incorporating these innovative technologies into the next
generation of nuclear reactors.
However, we are up against a real challenge. With the
present limited funding, there is enormous pressure to build
something now, instead of investing in the disruptive
technologies that can make nuclear power much more competitive.
It is as if we had decided to make small incremental changes in
rotary telephones instead of embracing the advances in
technology that make today's smartphones like this possible,
which almost everybody has. We think, in our view that it would
be of great help if the subcommittee would consider funding a
small number of new technology reactor concepts, each starting
at about $10 million and growing to $30 million annually over
about 5 years. This level would allow further development of
these concepts to determine whether they will fulfill their
promise, and whether then to proceed to a truly advanced pilot
plant. Any recipients would have to pay their required cost
share. Their funding would continue or terminate depending on
their progress. And it is also important to fund the DOE and
NRC to achieve efficient and timely licensing.
To help, GA has started on a budding effort called
Accelerated Fuel Qualification, a methodology which brings
together modeling and simulations. Support is growing among all
the stakeholders, and I am convinced that this integrated
approach will complement the licensing process to make it more
efficient while improving upon safety. We have received small
levels of assistance from DOE for which we are grateful, and
now we need your support to ensure these exciting, new,
disruptive technologies are not left behind in the rush to
build reactors whose performance fall short of being game
changers.
Thank you for the creation of and continued support of the
Accident Tolerant Fuel Program. It enables GA to develop light
water reactor fuel rods with EM2, SiGA material that will
extend the life of current reactors by reducing their operating
costs, and enhance their safety by making Fukushima like events
even more unlikely. This ATF work in turn, has contributed to
advancing out EM2 project.
In closing, I believe that the threshold of developing and
demonstrating advanced materials and technologies that can make
energy attractive again is on the threshold of happening now,
and again, we are on the cusp of making a change in nuclear
energy. Thank you very much. I am happy to take any questions.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Christina Back, Ph.D.
Chairman Alexander and Senator Feinstein, thank you for inviting me
to speak on advanced nuclear reactors.
America is losing one of its most important sources of clean
electricity generation at the very time that diverse and reliable clean
energy sources have become more important than ever.
The largest single source of carbon-free electricity generation--
more than 50 percent in the U.S.--is nuclear energy. Yet, year by year,
more nuclear plants are being shut down.
If we want to ensure that our electricity grid remains as clean, if
not cleaner, than it is today, then we must make sure that we bring new
nuclear power plants online. That means the U.S. must reduce
substantially the cost of future nuclear reactor systems that can not
only generate less waste, but even consume existing nuclear waste.
It also means that the U.S. now needs to make long-term investments
to help develop the new technology. We cannot get where we need to go
by using 60-year-old water-cooled reactor technology. The U.S. should
be in the forefront of exploiting the technological advances that have
occurred since then.
A robust nuclear power industry is important for the national and
energy security of our country. If the U.S. is going to lead the world
into a future of nuclear power, we must develop advanced reactors based
on new technologies that meet all of the criteria you established in
the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations bill: namely, that
they would ``dramatically improve nuclear power performance including
sustainability, economics, and safety and proliferation resistance.''
General Atomics has an extraordinarily talented staff that has
designed and developed reactors optimized for particular needs. We
developed the TRIGA reactor for non-power applications such as neutron
radiography and for training future generations of nuclear scientists
and engineers. Sixty-six were sold throughout the world, and they are
so safe that they are even sited at hospitals. We also demonstrated the
first commercial high temperature gas-cooled reactor showing the
advantages of helium gas instead of water as a coolant. More recently,
we are designing an ultra-safe and transportable very small modular
reactor (vSMR), or micro-reactor, that is suitable for DoD
installations where electricity costs are very high, and energy
security is of paramount importance.
By incorporating scientific advances of the last 60 years, GA's
future nuclear reactor builds on our decades of experience with helium
reactors. We call it the Energy Multiplier Module, EM,\2\ and it uses
materials engineered for extreme conditions, and new technologies to
efficiently convert heat to electricity. This reactor is designed to
accomplish all of the Subcommittee's goals for advanced reactors.
Specifically, EM\2\ at either its full scale of 265 MWe per
reactor, or demonstration scale of 50 MWe would:
--Be even safer than existing LWRs, by further reducing the risk of
Fukushima-like events
--Increase thermal efficiency by at least 60 percent over current and
projected water-cooled reactors. We believe this increase in
efficiency will be the driver in cutting nuclear electricity
costs by nearly half, making them much more competitive with
coal and natural gas
--Convert nuclear waste from a liability into an asset by using it as
part of the fuel used by this new reactor. This capability can
effectively eliminate the argument that nuclear waste
represents an insoluble problem
--Decrease significantly the upfront capital required to build a
reactor by making small modular reactors that could be
manufactured in factories, transported to the site, and brought
online within 5 years
--Significantly reduce the proliferation risks associated with
nuclear power production, and
--Enormously increase the number of locations suitable for reactors
by making it possible for them to be sited away from large
bodies of water
If we are able to successfully demonstrate this reactor, we will
truly revolutionize this industry!
The key to progress today is to make judicious investments to
reduce the uncertainties of using new reactor materials and new
technologies, thus enabling the U.S. to leapfrog to significantly
higher power generating efficiencies. As an example, GA's engineered
silicon carbide composite material, named SiGATM, is a ceramic fuel rod
material that does not melt and qualitatively improves the resistance
to intense high temperature and neutron radiation conditions. Another
key technology meriting serious investment is new high uranium-density
fuels to improve fuel efficiency. Capitalizing on new technologies will
require development work and DOE can play a leading role in shepherding
the next generation of nuclear reactors.
With all of these rapidly advancing technologies, the reactor for
tomorrow is not the reactor of today. A sustained amount of funding is
needed before we, or anyone else, could decide to build a pilot plant.
Our reactor concept may not be the only one that aims to meet the
Subcommittee's goals. Thus we recommend that you encourage the
development of any reactor concept that can meet all of this
Subcommittee's objectives.
However, we're up against a real challenge--there is enormous
pressure to build a reactor as soon as possible, using only existing
technologies. If we do not make the investments NOW in new materials
and innovative technologies, we will be missing out. It's as if we
decided to make small incremental changes to rotary phones instead of
embracing advances in microelectronics that make possible today's
smartphones, which all of us seem to have.
In our view, it would be of great help if the Subcommittee would
consider funding a small number of new technology advanced reactor
concepts, each in the range of $10-$30 million annually for 4-5 years.
This level would allow further development of these concepts to
determine whether they can fulfill their promise. Any recipients would
have to pay their required cost share. Funding would continue, or
terminate, depending on their progress.
Also, the traditional methodology of licensing which relies only on
experimental data is outdated, and needlessly long and expensive.
Today, with better understanding of the underlying science, and the
speed of modern computing, normal and off-normal operations can be
quickly simulated for many scenarios to assess and quantify risk. This
has led to a budding effort named Accelerated Fuel Qualification (AFQ).
AFQ is a methodology that brings together modeling and simulation, with
targeted experiments, to assess the materials and their performance. I
am convinced this integrated approach can modernize licensing to reduce
time and cost, without sacrificing safety. This methodology is used in
other disciplines and must be embraced.
To facilitate a timely deployment of new reactor materials and
technologies, it would be important to fund the DOE and NRC to develop
and implement this AFQ methodology. This support could start at about
$15 million for the first 2 years, growing to about $50 million 5 years
out. This effort would involve industry, academia, and the National
Labs.
We have received small levels of assistance from DOE for which we
are grateful. Now we need your support to ensure that these new,
exciting longer-range, technologies are not left behind in the rush to
build reactors whose performance may fall short of becoming game
changers.
We thank you for the creation of, and continued support for, the
Accident Tolerant Fuel Program. GA now is applying our EM\2\ silicon
carbide technologies to develop fuel rods for the current LWR fleet.
These ATF SiGA rods facilitate LWR lifetime extensions and enhance
their safety by making Fukushima-like events even more unlikely.
In closing, I believe we are on the threshold of developing and
demonstrating advanced materials and technologies that can make nuclear
energy attractive once again. Please come to San Diego and visit our
laboratories to see how these materials can transform the nuclear
industry.
Again, thank you for inviting us today. I am happy to answer any of
your questions.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Dr. Back. We will now go to a
round of 5 minute questions and may I--I have something I am
supposed to say here before I do that. Without objection, we
will include the full written statements of all of our
witnesses as part of the record. Now, Dr. Zacharia--I just have
5 minutes so let me--I want to make sure we know what we are
talking about here. This is a slice of an advanced reactor or
what would be an advanced reactor--it is about this size,
right?
Dr. Zacharia. It is a slice of the core of a reactor. It is
intended to prove that the Transformational Challenge Platform,
which is the idea of additive manufacturing----
Senator Alexander. Yes, I got that. So this is a slice of--
--
Dr. Zacharia. Correct.
Senator Alexander. Should it go all the way around like
that, it would be taller.
Dr. Zacharia. That is correct.
Senator Alexander. And what is the material used?
Dr. Zacharia. This is, right now, aluminum 6061.
Senator Alexander. And would that be the material that one
might use for an advanced reactor?
Dr. Zacharia. No, Senator. This is just to show that we can
actually do this.
Senator Alexander. Okay.
Dr. Zacharia. We will be doing it in----
Senator Alexander. And the reason you actually do it, just
to get our minds around it--it is simple in concept, which
basically you take a material----
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Alexander [continuing]. Like aluminum 6061 in this
case?
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Alexander. And you put it through a tube and then
the computer gives it directions and you build it layer-by-
layer-by-layer, right?
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Alexander. So if you build a reactor you would use
a different material and you would build it layer-by-layer-by-
layer. Now, I think you said that normal machine tools could
not build this, is that correct?
Dr. Zacharia. That is correct.
Senator Alexander. And why is that?
Dr. Zacharia. If you turned the piece around, you will see
what looks like cooling channels on the side. If you think
about it, you cannot--it is not the big holes. It is the small
channels that you see on the side.
Senator Alexander. Yes.
Dr. Zacharia. If you think about a block of metal, you will
not be able to drill a hole without destroying the piece of
metal. So by building it layer-by-layer, you can build in
channels that are very close to the fuel that takes away the
heat very efficient.
Senator Alexander. So your argument would be that 3D
printing can build something that normal manufacturing
processes cannot. Also this--how much cheaper would it be to
build something like this compared with today's normal
manufacturing processes? Any way to measure that?
Dr. Zacharia. Our example in other areas shows that it is
an order of magnitude cheaper, in some instances, because we
are using designs that simply could not be used, and also we
are combining a number of components. So in my oral testimony I
said for GE aircraft engine, we were able to reduce the parts
from 855 to 12. So in a nuclear environment, you are only
certifying 12 components, in this particular example, instead
of 855.
Senator Alexander. So you mean maybe cut in half--when you
say an order of magnitude, what was that?
Dr. Zacharia. 10 times.
Senator Alexander. 10 times----
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Alexander. Maybe 10 times----
Dr. Zacharia. Maybe 10 times--so that is what is needed to
be cost-competitive with natural gas combined cycles.
Senator Alexander. How many megawatts would a reactor of
this approximate size produce?
Dr. Zacharia. We are currently designing this for a single
digit megawatt reactor.
Senator Alexander. One megawatt, or four, or five.
Dr. Zacharia. Yes one--it could be one to five megawatts
and the reason is, once proven, you can then take it to much
higher power.
Senator Alexander. This is about the size though of a
reactor that might be used in a submarine or a hospital or some
other places, is that right?
Dr. Zacharia. Or forward basis. I mean that had lots of
interest from DOD for micro reactors. So a number of
applications for 5 to 10 to 20 megawatt reactors for a small
township.
Senator Alexander. But could it be used to build a--I
believe Bill Gates TerraPower reactor is a big reactor, right?
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Alexander. It would produce hundreds of megawatts.
Could you--does this offer some advantages to his technology or
to the other various advanced reactor technologies that are
probably in the audience today?
Dr. Zacharia. Yes Senator, we believe that it will help
small modular reactors as well as any other advanced reactors,
to varying degrees. And so, we plan to make this platform
available to all advanced reactor concept manufacturers.
Senator Alexander. And how many are you working with today?
Dr. Zacharia. Right now, we are actually focusing on
demonstrating that this can be used for nuclear reactors. We
had a workshop, as typically labs do. We invited everybody. We
already had one workshop that exposed this technology to
everybody. We have work to do ourselves, and we will work in
partnership with others.
Senator Alexander. And in 20 seconds, you have the fastest
computers in the world, for the moment, at Oak Ridge. Is
computer modeling one other way to reduce costs for advanced
reactors?
Dr. Zacharia. Absolutely, Senator. The computer models are
used to come up with this innovative designs and optimize the
design. That is how--and then we will make sure that the
advances are applied to the manufacturing process.
Senator Alexander. Thank you. Dr. Zacharia. Senator
Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. To continue with what the chairman is
saying, the rods are uranium rods. Is that correct?
Dr. Zacharia. Yes, Senator.
Senator Feinstein. And what is the waste and where does it
go? And how does it--is it more waste or less waste?
Dr. Zacharia. So, because it opens up the design space, we
can actually use high burner fuel to where you would minimize--
the potential for minimizing the waste excess. So that is the
advantage that opening up the design space offers.
Senator Feinstein. Well, explain that a little bit. How
does it work and how much does it reduce?
Dr. Zacharia. So, this is right now a prototype design. If
you go to high burner, it has a potential of designing a
reactor that could actually have 80 to 90 percent of burn up,
out of fuel, so that the spent fuel is actually much lower
radioactivity so that it can be easily----
Senator Feinstein. No, I am not--I am sorry. I am very much
a layperson.
Dr. Zacharia. Okay.
Senator Feinstein. I do not understand what you have just
said.
Dr. Zacharia. What it means is that if you think of the
efficiency in terms of how much the fuel burns up in a reactor
can be improved with new designs, and so our hope is that it
will reduce the waste.
Senator Feinstein. By how----
Dr. Zacharia. It is too early Senator to give you a figure
and so that is why we, as part of this program, will be able to
give you a better definitive answer.
Senator Feinstein. Yes because I really worry, you know, I
go down to Southern, California, Edison and I look at their
water pool and I see thousands of rods----
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Feinstein. And I go to PG&E and they are in casks
that can travel, and there is no place to put them.
Dr. Zacharia. Yes.
Senator Feinstein. And so my view is, you know, what are we
doing? Why are we doing this before we know what we can do with
the waste and where we can put it? And it just piles up. If you
go to Southern California Edison, it is 6 million people right
around it. And it is on the ocean right above the beach. And it
is really concerning.
So my view of this is--and you are all brilliant people--
but my view is, you know, I represent the ground where the
waste goes and stays for a millennium. And I am not eager to
cover California's ground with this stuff. Particularly, with
the problems that can be associated with it--which I won't go
into now. So, what is the advantage exactly of an advanced
reactor? How much waste does it cut back on? How do you take
care of that waste? What does it produce that is economic? Can
you answer those questions?
Dr. Zacharia. So Senator Feinstein, I think let me clarify.
The TCR program is not building a new reactor. The intent is
not to build an advanced reactor. The intent is to build a new
manufacturing paradigm to include modeling and simulation so
that any new advanced reactor concepts can take advantage of
this manufacturing paradigm to one reduce the cost, to insure
that the concern that you have expressed--that is to ensure
that we can, actually before a reactor is manufactured, we can
ensure that--to answer the question, how much waste will it
generate? What is the safety and what are the costs? So the
goal is to create a manufacturing methodology using advanced
computation and additive manufacturing to ensure that any
advanced reactor concepts can be validated before it is
actually manufactured--to address your concerns that you just
expressed.
Senator Feinstein. So all this is about developing a
manufacturing technique for something that will do what?
Dr. Zacharia. This is a manufacturing technique to help
produce an advanced reactor to ensure that it validates the
concerns that you have expressed, which is cost, safety, and
minimizing spent nuclear fuel. And so we have the ability to
first, take the advanced reactor concept, validate it, and then
manufacture it.
Senator Feinstein. How does it minimize waste? And what
percent, from a conventional reactor, would the waste be
reduced? Say, take one of the reactors in California.
Dr. Zacharia. Senator, the specific reactor, you know--
probably the best way to answer that is that specific reactor
design will have a certain target and basically this capability
will allow us to manufacture the reactor to that. So perhaps--
--
Dr. Back. Yes. I would like to maybe step in----
Senator Feinstein. Sure.
Dr. Back. I think that there is a very important----
Senator Feinstein. Could you speak in the mic?
Dr. Back. Thank you. I just would like to step in and make
an important clarification which Thomas is trying to mention,
which is there is a difference between the manufacturing
methods and the technologies that are really advancing reactors
to be the next generation, to be able to burn waste, to be able
to reuse its own waste, as well as burn existing waste--and
actually we are not burning it, we are actually consuming it so
that, in the end, you would not have long-lived geological
waste.
Senator Feinstein. Well, do you really believe that a
reactor will eat its own waste?
Dr. Back. Yes. Yes, we have a design in the energy
multiplier module and this ties back to the fact that there are
reactor concepts that need development, to show what we have
already calculated in an overall sense, to do calculations in
much more detail--to do preliminary reactor designs--that will
show that the new technologies like higher power efficiency
conversion, higher temperatures using materials like the
silicon carbide cladding--which is actually not a metal but it
is a ceramic and it does not melt--these kinds of changes in
advanced reactors will really make the difference between being
able to eat its own waste, as well as consume the existing
waste. Those technologies need to be proved out and it is
different than the manufacturing process, which is important
for the cost.
Senator Feinstein. How much did we put in for this? Is this
the $30 million?
Dr. Back. Yes we----
Senator Alexander. Yes. Yes, Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Okay.
Dr. Back. So we would burn up an EM2 at 80 percent of the
waste compared to what usual, typical light water reactor, and
then we would continue to reformulate that into the new fuel
for the next cycle, and we would continue to consume that
waste.
Senator Alexander. We need to go to the other Senators----
Senator Feinstein. Yes.
Senator Alexander. Then we will come back and have plenty
of time for other questions. Senator Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all of
you for being here today. Dr. Back, how much money are you
asking for? Just give me a figure.
Dr. Back. Yes, as I mentioned in the testimony, we think an
appropriate amount, which would be subject to your impression--
--
Senator Kennedy. Just give me a figure, if you would.
Dr. Back [continuing]. Would be $10 to $30 million for each
of 5 years to develop the concept----
Senator Kennedy. So what is the total amount? Just give me
a figure, if you would.
Dr. Back. $10 million.
Senator Kennedy. Total?
Dr. Back. No. We said to prove out the concepts, to show
that these higher efficient conversion efficiencies--
Senator Kennedy. Dr. Back, please just give me a figure,
how much money you are asking for.
Dr. Back. We believe that the total cost of a first demo
reactor would be something like $1.6 billion because we would
take advantage of small modular reactor constructions----
Senator Kennedy. Dr. Back.
Dr. Back. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. I am really trying to understand and
follow you all.
Dr. Back. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. But you are asking for a lot of money----
Dr. Back. In a phased approach, sir.
Senator Kennedy. How much money are you asking us to put in
the budget?
Dr. Back. That is what I put in my testimony, which is----
Senator Kennedy. I have not read your testimony.
Dr. Back. So $10 to $30 million each year for 5 years to
develop these concepts to show that we can consume the waste
and that we can use existing nuclear----
Senator Kennedy. Okay. And you do not know yet whether you
can build an advanced reactor or not. This is just to see if
you can build it.
Dr. Back. No, there are new materials that are developed.
This is an example of a fuel rod that is made of ceramics that
will be inserted----
Senator Kennedy. Dr. Back, let me stop you a second.
Dr. Back. Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. And I am really not trying to be
rude, but I made a New Year's resolution. And my New Year's
resolution is that I am not going to sit through any more
hearings when people are asking me for money unless they are
prepared to explain to me why. Now, I am not as smart as you
and I am certainly not a nuclear physicist, but I haven't the
slightest idea what you all are talking about. I hope that
thing there is not radioactive.
[Laughter.]
Senator Kennedy. Just answer my questions, condescend to me
for a second. You are not talking about building an advanced
reactor, you are talking about seeing if you can build one, is
that right?
Dr. Back. There is a phased approach----
Senator Kennedy. No?
Dr. Back. There is a phased approach----
Senator Kennedy. See I am not even in the ballpark and I am
already through half my time.
Mr. McGinnis. If I may Senator, we have well over 20
advanced reactor companies seeking to develop at different
stages of development. General Atomics is that one stage of
development where they are working on their design to
infeasibility. We have other advanced reactors, including micro
reactors, some of which, such as Oklo in Silicon Valley.
Senator Kennedy. Well, then what are you asking money for?
Mr. McGinnis. The beauty is some of the companies are not
asking for a single dime for their development. They are asking
you----
Senator Kennedy. Then what are you asking for?
Mr. McGinnis. I am sorry sir?
Senator Kennedy. What are you asking for? Because I am
going to run out of 5 minutes. And I am here to tell you, I
mean I am really not trying to be rude, and I am the new kid on
the block. But I was born at night but not last night, and I
have been to a bunch of these, and I need six gazillion
dollars, but I do not want to explain to you why, and if you
ask questions that means you are not as smart as me. I can see
I am not as smart as you, but I think it is incumbent upon you
all to explain to us what you want and what you want it for.
Mr. McGinnis. Sir, I am in the Office of Nuclear Energy,
Department of Energy, and if I may, this manufacturing
technique, which we have lost in the United States largely--the
reactors down in Georgia being built right now, the reactor
pressure vessels had to be fabricated in South Korea because we
have lost our capability to manufacture. So we are in the
process of trying to reconstitute, re-established with advanced
reactors, advanced manufacturing, and advanced fuels all at
once because we have little to no time left.
Senator Kennedy. Can you answer this for me?
Mr. McGinnis. Yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy. Why is an advanced reactor better than a
conventional reactor?
Mr. McGinnis. Because----
Senator Kennedy. Like you are talking to a 10th grader.
Mr. McGinnis. Couple things, one is walk away safe. We have
these reactors that are under development. Senator mentioned
from California the safety issues. We have a reactor going
through the NRC, first time in our history, where they have
already been checked out and affirmed, and that is it can shut
down without any electronic pumps or motors or any human
intervention. That is revolutionary for a reactor class. It
will shut down if we have a complete loss of power or loss of
coolant, number one. Number two, these new advanced reactors
are flexible, more financeable, and the core life--Senator with
regards to the volume of waste, we have right now 18 to 24
months is the refueling cycle for U.S. reactors. Every time you
pull it out, that is going to disposition with the high-level
waste. We have reactors, such as TerraPower, Bill Gates'
company, where it is a breed and burn, where these reactor
course can go 10, 20, maybe 30 years. That means you are not
pulling on more fuel----
Senator Kennedy. Okay. I am out of time, okay. I am only
speaking for me and I really do appreciate you coming, but I
can tell you I am not going to vote to spend a single solitary
dime until you are willing to send me something so I can
understand what you are talking about. Okay. And this is
taxpayer money we are spending and I do not have the slightest
idea what you are talking about.
Mr. McGinnis. Senator, we would be happy to do that----
Senator Kennedy. And this hasn't been helpful to me. I do
not mean to be rude, okay. I do not know whether you are
asking--I do not know the advantage of an advanced over
conventional. I do not know whether you are asking to build one
of the things, to study one of the things, to eat one of the
things. I do not have the slightest idea what you are asking
for.
Dr. Back. Senator, we----
Senator Kennedy. And I do know--I do sense it is a lot of
money. I am sorry I went over Mr. Chairman.
Senator Alexander. Well, we will have plenty of time for
other questions or other time, if the Senator has time, for you
to explain further what you are doing.
Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to
get a clarification. Dr. Zacharia, was this particular part
built with a 3D printer?
Dr. Zacharia. Yes, ma'am. Yes Senator.
Senator Shaheen. That wasn't clear to me. I share the
perspective that the chairman raised that if we are going to
address climate change, we cannot take all of our nuclear power
out of commission. In New England 30 percent of our power comes
from nuclear, and we are already seeing the effects of shutting
down Pilgrim in Massachusetts and Vermont Yankee in Vermont--
but where I think we haven't elaborated clearly is that cost is
a huge issue and one of the reasons cost is an issue is because
safety is a big concern.
You know, the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New
Hampshire, one of the last nuclear plants licensed in the
United States, the cost increased dramatically because Three
Mile Island happened in the middle of that construction. We
were on a path, I thought, towards more support for nuclear
power until Fukushima happened, and what we have not done, and
I appreciate that the case you are making is that we can get
there through the developments we are making in nuclear
technology, but the concern that the public has is about
safety--with respect to nuclear power. And until we can answer
those concerns, I think it is going to be really hard to get
the increased investment that we need, to address some of these
nuclear concerns.
So as you point out, we really have to make the case that
what you are proposing is going to address those safety
concerns and the waste issue. And I want to go to one of those
particular concerns in New Hampshire because what we have seen
in New Hampshire's--the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, has
encountered issues around concrete degradation due to the
chemical process called alkali-silica reaction or ASR. And the
effects of ASR have led to cracks in multiple reactor safety
structures, and concerns from my constituents about the
operational safety and security of the plant--and it is a
particular concern because Seabrook has applied for an
extension of its license--so, can you talk about, I guess this
is for you, Mr. McGinnis, what the Office of Nuclear Energy is
doing to address the effects of ASR and whether my constituents
should be concerned about safety issues with respect to that.
Mr. McGinnis. Thank you very much. We work closely with the
NRC, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that oversees Seabrook
Nuclear Power Plant, and we bring all of our assets from all 17
national labs to bear, as they are the lead, as they need it.
We use high performance computing for modeling of the actual
aging and the materials of the components in the existing light
water reactor. We have some very successful efforts. We are
using our test reactors to test the materials that are in those
reactors. We have strong confidence and we have a robust
program and what is called the Light Water Reactor
Sustainability Program, supporting the life extensions to
ensure that we fully, fully understand the out year behavior of
those components for--the top priority is safety, with economic
certainly, but priority is safety.
And I would like to say that I do feel responsible for not
being as clear and explaining where we are with regards to
nuclear energy and why, as a Senator said, why is it that we
are saying that we need support. The gravity of the situation
with regards to 20 percent of our electricity, equal the one
out of every five home in the country, nuclear powers is
providing that electricity. There was one report CSIS that said
they are predicting that the fleet could disappear within the
next 20 or 30 years. We have a fleet that is 39 years old. It
has got to be replaced. We do not have anything equivalent to
the clean base load that we have with nuclear, or we would see
what is happening in Germany happen here.
We are accelerating because time is not our friend. We used
to think that we had the 2030s to bring in advanced reactors.
With the premature shut down on the plants happening now, and
the market challenges, we have concluded we have got to open up
the advanced pipeline in the 2020s or we are not going to have
a nuclear industry in the future.
Senator Shaheen. Okay. I appreciate that. But on the safety
concerns, I think the NRC and your office would be much more
convincing if a decision were made about the extension of that
Seabrook license after the public hearing were held where there
is an opportunity for arguments rather than before. And right
now, what the NRC is planning is a decision before the hearing.
So a decision, I think, at the end of next month and a hearing
that happened sometime in June. I think that is just the
opposite of what it should happen. If we are going to convince
the public that we are really listening to their concerns and
we are going to be responsive to those concerns, then we got to
give them an opportunity to have their concerns answered. So I
would urge you to take a look at that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Alexander. Thanks, Senator Shaheen. We will begin a
second round of questions. Mr. McGinnis, let me give you an
opportunity to do this. The purpose of the hearing is to
introduce to the Senate some of the ideas for advanced reactors
over the next several years, and a particular manufacturing
technology, 3D printing, which might help improve the cost and
safety of advanced reactors. If you had to say in a few words
what your goals are for the Department in terms of advanced
reactors over the next 3 to 5 years, what would that be?
Mr. McGinnis. Enable the industry, the great innovators
that we see right now, get into the market, and get into the
market soonest. That is the number one priority to support
leveraging our technical capabilities, which are still world-
class unsurpassed by others. We have a global nuclear market
that directly implicates our domestic market, where we are we
are being out competed by----
Senator Alexander. Let me get a little bit more specific.
So you have seen, you said, more than 20 types of advanced
reactors. Give me a few examples of the kind of improvements in
safety and costs that we might be able to see in the advanced
reactor designs and models that you know about, and the
Department is working on.
Mr. McGinnis. Yes, sir. Good point. The NuScale advanced
reactor, this is a light water reactor, but it is also
advanced, is going through the NRC right now and being
validated from a safety perspective. That is going to directly
translate, in my view, into an improved economics because you
will no longer need redundant double, triple sensors throughout
the reactor for the primary safety system because you have a
right reactor that will then naturally shut down on its own. So
we have an advance----
Senator Alexander. So that is the reactor that we have
funded for the last 4 or 5 years, right?
Mr. McGinnis. We have been partnering with them. We have a
number of others that we are definitely partnering with,
including GA with X-energy and others for light water----
Senator Alexander. Any examples of the kind of improvements
they would offer in safety and in cost, other than the 3D
printing?
Mr. McGinnis. Yes, major examples. So let's say Tennessee
Valley Authority, they are looking at NuScale right now at
Clinch River Site. With the new safety systems, with these
reactors shut downs on their own, they no longer need a 10-mile
emergency-planning zone. They can now be sited much closer to
the power generation needs. The costs associated with
maintaining the outer planning zones, the cost of maintaining
those sensors, will significantly go down. So the idea of
having a passively safe reactor that can shut down on its own,
that can be distributed in different locations, and then the
flexibility centered around costs. We were talking about how do
we, bring down the cost--one of the biggest causes,
construction and up front. These are modular reactors one bite
at a time rather than trying to build a thousand megawatt
reactor all at once, taking much longer as Idaho National Lab
NuScale is the first location for that site, they have a design
with 12 small modulars in one reactor----
Senator Alexander. One advantage is smaller?
Mr. McGinnis. So yes, and one bite at a time.
Senator Alexander. Do most of the advanced reactors designs
that you have seen, are they smaller than the large reactors
that we have today?
Mr. McGinnis. Most of them, not all. Bill Gates' TerraPower
is larger, but the point is that you can scale up. You can
build the smaller module and add it, so NuScale design consists
of 12 different 60-megawatt electric reactor units. So that
means it is a 720-megawatt electric, which is large. And then
you have others like GA and others like TerraPower, where they
can be larger or smaller, and I will defer to Dr. Back on that,
but the point is we lack product choice right now. The
utilities cannot handle----
Senator Alexander. So they could be larger or they could be
smaller.
Mr. McGinnis. Right. So we----
Senator Alexander. It could be safer for reasons that you
have identified?
Mr. McGinnis. Yes.
Senator Alexander. They could be located in areas that were
more convenient or reduce cost?
Mr. McGinnis. Exactly.
Senator Alexander. They could be built with manufacturing
techniques that are new and that were not used for the previous
models. All of those are--they could use less nuclear fuel than
then existing models? All of those could be advantages of new
designs, correct?
Mr. McGinnis. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, in their load
following, so we are already doing R&D work with the support of
this subcommittee, pairing nuclear with wind and solar, and
that is a promising area as well. So the versatility is very
important. This is an entirely new class of reactors that are
coming in. That is the point.
Senator Alexander. My time is up. Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Well, I mean, I am so frustrated. Every
time I think I know something, everything has changed and I
know nothing. And I know the danger and I live on the Pacific
Coast, and we are the rim of fire for the world, with
earthquake, as you know--just goes right around the Pacific
Ocean. And I have been struck by the Japanese problem. And now
we have a whole new thing again. It is as if nothing ever lasts
long enough to really be able to evaluate it. I don't know. I
know I must not make sense to you, but I try to understand it.
I am not stupid. I have got these facilities in my State and I
go there, and I look in the spent fuel pools and I sort of
think, oh my God, you know, I can't believe this, all the rods
and there they are, hot. And, you know, I read about your Noble
and you read about what happened in Japan--Chernobyl is a
wreck.
Matter of fact, I just read something and had--it is
totally vacant with an apartment and there is a little vestige
of a curtain wafting out after all these years in the breeze,
and I think, you know, what is the future and that is why I
have tended to come to believe that it is small. That the small
modular reactors really might be the way to go, and then I
hear, well the really not economic unless you group them and
the most economic is you have to group four. I don't know
whether there is any truth in that, but that is what I have
been hearing. Could you comment?
Mr. McGinnis. Yes, thank you very much. It depends on the
application. A micro reactor such as that could be printed
here, a 1-megawatt electric, may sound like a tiny reactor--
that can power a thousand homes. In Alaska, Senator Murkowski's
State, that is a huge deal. So the point about bringing in
product choice, small micros, small modular, scalable, some
large--there is still a future for large reactors--but I would
say that we work day in and out with industry, in the Office of
Nuclear Energy, and everybody wants an absolute, clear pathway
for disposition, while we are concurrently bringing in an
entirely new advanced class of reactors that bring an entirely
new proposition value situation.
So we believe that moving forward and stopping to kick the
can on disposition is vitally important, while we move forward
on interim storage. And so we are working to bring an entirely
new class, entirely new choices of safety, economics,
flexibility, pairing up with wind and solar, while we proceed--
you know, we put in a request for disposition.
Senator Feinstein. Somehow, in my mind, the world is more
secure with the smaller reactor. And we have all these
problems, with terror, with guns, with other things, and from a
very practical--and Senator Kennedy is very bright man, you
know. I'll tell--what is this degree you----
Senator Kennedy. Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Vanderbilt.
Senator Feinstein. Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Vanderbilt.
So he is not stupid. I know you are smart. I am medium smart,
and I really wrestle with this from a moral point of view
because if you go back to the Manhattan Project, you know, it
is smart men putting something together that launches the
country into a whole new sort of ballistic world. And if I am
going to help launch anything with my little vote, I want to
know it is safe and it is practical, and it is going to work,
and it is cost-effective, and yet it keeps changing in front of
me. So I think that we have to come to grips with that and in a
field that is dynamic, that has to have a lot of money--sure,
you are fine if you are Bill Gates, you know, I talked with
him. He is, you know, very enthusiastic. Well, he can do it. He
is a billionaire, but for most of us, it is casting a vote in a
committee and crossing our fingers that nothing is going to
happen that is bad, with this stuff.
Mr. McGinnis. I can just say that we are blessed to have a
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I have worked----
Senator Feinstein. Yes, I agree with that.
Mr. McGinnis [continuing]. Much of my career
internationally. There is no other safety authority with the
standards and the stringent approach that the U.S. NRC has. I
rest well at night knowing that as an independent agency, they
are our toughest reviewers. And my colleagues can talk about
that. Certainly first----
Senator Feinstein. What does the NRC think of this?
Mr. McGinnis. Thomas----
Dr. Zacharia. Senator Feinstein, this is, as I mentioned
before, if I can use an analogy you mentioned California, an
earthquake. In simple terms, one can design a building to
withstand earthquake, but it has to be buildable, right? So
architects come up with a design for a structure that can
withstand fire and earthquake, but it has to be buildable with
appropriate materials and appropriate construction tools. What
you are looking at is really innovation, not in the design by
an architect of an earthquake-proof building, but really
innovation in how you build it. Because if you can open up the
construction mechanisms for building something then the
architect has much more opportunity to design a building that
is earthquake-proof. That is what you are seeing.
So I think the goal of bringing the Prototype today was not
to say that that is the reactor that we should be building. In
fact, the goal of showing you the Prototype is to convince--if
you were saying that your architect now has much more freedom
to come up with a design, because we believe that this
manufacturing or this building technique will allow you to
design a reactor that is safer. It is also much more cost-
effective because we are combining many, many parts into one,
and it will have detailed information so that we can work with
NRC to come up with a licensing regime that will be----
Senator Feinstein. Is this it?
Dr. Back. No, that is----
Senator Feinstein. No, that is yours. Do you have a
picture?
Dr. Zacharia. No. I do not have one with me.
Senator Feinstein. You know, I just we have been doing this
for so many years, and I just get to the point where I
understand which was the small modular reactor and, you know,
maybe that is a good idea, you know, maybe it can be done
right. Maybe we can be safe with it, and then all of a sudden
there is something new and all we need is one big accident.
Senator Shaheen was right.
Dr. Zacharia. So Senator--yes, go ahead.
Dr. Back. If I may, I would like to come back to your
concerns. What you listed was, no disposal, nuclear that has
very high upfront cost, and significant risks and accidents. So
I think we are looking past the point here and we are not
getting to the issue, which is we are addressing those issues
at General Atomics. We have worked with the same design for 9
years. This is the energy multiplier module. That is the
picture you are showing----
Senator Feinstein. Yes, I think I see it.
Dr. Back. And we fundamentally believe in these new
materials, which are ceramics that do not melt. This would not
have allowed Three Mile Island to happen because of the
behavior. It does not have the exothermic interaction that
created the Fukushima hydrogen explosion. We are testing this
now in the Idaho National Lab as part of the Accident Tolerant
Fuel Program, which actually thanks to you was started right
after Fukushima. For the costs, the EM2, Energy Multiplier
Module, uses helium as a gas coolant because----
Senator Feinstein. What is this?
Dr. Back. This is a manufacturing process----
Senator Feinstein. What is the EM2?
Dr. Back. EM2 is the Energy Multiplier Module and it uses a
power conversion technology that allows you to have a
conversion efficiency, which is 33 percent for a light water
reactor today to 53 percent. For the same amount of heat, you
get that much more, 60 percent more electricity. That brings
down the cost, as well as other manufacturing processes, of one
of which this is the atom added manufacturing. The important
part about small modular reactors is that you are reducing the
components so they can be manufactured in a factory, which
means you can have all of the cost controls and you put out
large components that are then assembled on site--that is a
huge reason that we would reduce the cost for any small modular
reactor. And for EM2, we thought very hard about that. Then for
the----
Senator Feinstein. How much does it reduce cost?
Dr. Back. So we think the cost for a plant would be $1.6
billion, far cry from the $8 million that was the original
Vogtle--far cry from $25 million, which is now the escalated
cost. So we have tried to make a much more compact unit. We are
using a high efficiency power conversion so we do not lose all
that heat just out into the air. These are technologies that
need to be developed in a reactor design, not a manufacturing
process. That is why we are requesting funds for concepts on
the order of $10 million in phase, to evaluate, make sure those
technologies are really--I want to come back to the waste
issue. We are using a type of reactor that is fundamentally
different and can consume the existing waste that exists, as
well as reuse its own fuel after it has gone through a 30-year
life cycle, and we continue to consume it and use its fuel.
Current nuclear reactors are very inefficient and we can
improve that in enormous amount. And we are able to then get
down to waste that is actually not requiring geological
disposal. But that requires a new technology that needs to be
proofed out. And we want to do this. We are excited about doing
this. We have been working on it for 9 years. We believe in
these changes----
Senator Feinstein. What do you say about this? What does
the Department say about that?
Mr. McGinnis. That is one of the linchpins of us bringing
in an entirely new class of reactors. The fuels that Dr. Back
was mentioning, we are funding three different industry
consortia to develop fuel rods as was just shown, and we are
testing them now. One is actually a test. There is a pin in
Hatch Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia, right now. The utilities
are very eager to get this, because it gives better
performance. It can withstand much higher levels of heat, and
they can follow load, go up and down a little bit more, or
significantly more, with their power generation. It gives them
an opportunity to have greater economics while also having
broader safety parameters.
Senator Feinstein. Is this where it automatically turns
off, if you are set talking about that.
Mr. McGinnis. Some of the new reactors, such as NuScale,
could use this very same fuel, and also have a passive safety
system that can shut down. The new reactor systems that----
Senator Feinstein. Shouldn't we require that of any
Government funded effort? That it have a safety system to shut
down?
Mr. McGinnis. Well, all the reactors have a safety system
to shut down, be sure of that. The difference is----
Senator Feinstein. Then what is the difference?
Mr. McGinnis. This new class of reactors that are coming
in, many of them would not require any human intervention. If
you had a complete loss of power, you do not have to worry
about starting up the generators to get secondary power. The
reactor is designed in a way where it will just cool itself
down and go to a steady state of shut down and that's what we
are working on.
Senator Feinstein. And you believe that?
Mr. McGinnis. And the NRC has already validated it. It is a
very exciting moment that we are witnessing in the U.S. nuclear
sector right now. I cannot emphasize just how dramatic of a
change we are witnessing. It is not just General Atomics. A
little bit further on the timeline, we have reactors going
through, now, the NRC licensing or about to go through that is
going to be transformative. From the idea of having walkaway
safe reactors that are load following, you can pair.
We will still have a future with large reactors such as
Bill Gates'. That is a breeding burn and his point is, you are
going to have far, far less, far less high-level waste that has
to be put in a repository, just like GA. You are reducing the
amount of waste, high-level waste that you will have to be dis-
positioning. So if you have a reactor that is refueling every
18 to 24 months, that means you are bringing in new fuel every
18 to 24 months. These new reactors, some of them go 20 to 30
years without refueling. You have much less waste and you are
getting more out of that waste, out of the fuel when you are
burning it.
Senator Feinstein. Are these the small advanced modular
reactors that you just commented on?
Mr. McGinnis. They are both. They can be both--the
attributes that I mentioned here are both small and also in the
new advanced larger reactors. We have these new features and
both classes of reactors coming in.
Senator Feinstein. That sounds interesting. Yes.
Senator Alexander. I think it is interesting, and I thank
all of you for your comment. I mean, what we see here, Senator
Feinstein, is that several years ago we agreed, sort of pursued
two paths. One was to redouble our efforts to solve the nuclear
waste stalemate. That is an essential thing to do. And we also
funded a small modular reactor design, which is a NuScale
design, which I guess is in his fifth or sixth year of
partnership with the Department.
But what we are talking about here is an entire new class
of reactors, which we call advanced reactors. And there are
many different designs. And it has attracted a lot of
attention. And the goal, of course, would be to see if we could
avoid the problem that is looming, that we completely lose our
capacity to produce nuclear power, which would deprive us of
our single most important source of carbon-free, emission-free
electricity, as well as reliable electricity. And Dr. Zacharia
has brought today a way of building those reactors that could
be useful for some of the models to significantly reduce their
cost. It is not a reactor, it is just a way of building----
Dr. Zacharia. That is correct.
Senator Alexander. An approved design--once there is an
approved design. And the reduction could be, you said I
believe, as much as 10 times in the reduction of cost. Then you
have talked about, Mr. McGinnis and Dr. Back, you have talked
about other advances in safety, in flexibility in size,
flexibility of location. You have talked about new ways of
producing power that produce much less used nuclear fuel--all
of those things. You have talked about, well, that is pretty
much the summary of what you have talked about.
And what we have appropriated $30 million for this year, is
to allow you to examine all these designs and move them along
and what we have to consider is whether the United States wants
to invest taxpayer dollars over the next few years in pushing
ahead one or more of these designs so that we have a nuclear
industry over the next 30 years. So that is where I see things
going. Let me ask you this Mr. McGinnis, do we have any design
certifications submitted to you or to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission yet? And if we do not, when do you expect them to be
submitted?
Mr. McGinnis: So in addition to the NuScale design that is
going through the NRC, we have a nonlight water advanced
reactor that is in pre-discussions with the NRC, poised to
submit probably soon called X-energy. It is a high
temperature----
Senator Alexander. So that would be the first advanced
reactor design submitted to the NRC?
Mr. McGinnis. Well, let me step back. Actually, I believe
the first nonlight water that is an advanced reactor is going
to be a micro reactor, in my view, and it could happen within
12 months from now, and it very possibly could----
Senator Alexander. But we have none now?
Mr. McGinnis. We none going through the submitted form
right now.
Senator Alexander. So we are talking about a new generation
of advanced reactors which are yet to be submitted to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission for design certification?
Mr. McGinnis. Yes, but we could see that as soon as this
year. With first the micro reactors had have many of the same
attributes as the larger advanced reactors. NRC now has new
advanced reactor guidelines DOE developed, and they have taken
most of them as we develop them. So we could be witnessing the
Nation's first advanced non light water reactor going through
the NRC within a year. And then shortly after, and that would
be a micro reactor probably--and their construction time is
much shorter, and DOD, and also industry are very interested in
that. And lastly is X-energy and other----
Senator Alexander. Senator Feinstein, when you say micro--
--
Senator Feinstein. What do you mean?
Senator Alexander . How many megawatts?
Mr. McGinnis. A micro reactor could be one megawatt
electric, five megawatt electric. Legislation has defined it up
to 50 megawatt electric, but I would say about 1 to 5 to 10
megawatt electric. It could be the size that can fit in a semi-
tractor trailer container----
Senator Alexander. So we have the existing reactors. We
have 98?
Mr. McGinnis. 98 units operating right now.
Senator Alexander. We have the NuScale design, which we
have been in partnership with the NRC in the Department for the
last several years to try to--that is call the advanced modular
reactor.
Mr. McGinnis. Yes.
Senator Alexander. And we have a new generation of advanced
reactors, which are being developed, you just mentioned, as
many as 20 different efforts going on there, maybe more, and
those are beginning to be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to see if those designs are safe----
Mr. McGinnis. Yes.
Senator Alexander. And whether they will work and can be
constructed. So those are to come and, you say, coming very
quickly.
Mr. McGinnis. Yes and just one example, I just returned
from West Texas. The Energy Water Nexus is unbelievably
challenging.
Senator Alexander. What does that mean?
Senator Feinstein. Yes.
Mr. McGinnis. So with regards to the water requirements in
the energy industry, whether it is oil and gas or other
industry. They are looking for ways----
Senator Alexander. You mean how much water you use?
Mr. McGinnis. How much water is being produced out of the,
for example, the oil industry. And so they are looking for an
economic way to treat and desalinate and process the water so
it could be reusable. So X-energy, for example, is working with
industry in West Texas to potentially have a small modular high
temperature gas reactor that can treat the wastewater so it can
be reusable.
Senator Alexander. So one use of a micro reactor would be
to treat wastewater to produce more oil and gas?
Mr. McGinnis. Right. Micro or small modular, such as X-
energy. It is an exciting area that can have a solution for
sustainability, water nexus----
Senator Alexander. Or it might be used in a military site,
or it might be used in a remote site in Alaska----
Mr. McGinnis. Absolutely.
Senator Alexander. Or it might be used in a hospital, or a
community, depending upon the design and whether that design is
approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--it is something
that is safe and practical.
Mr. McGinnis. Exactly. Multi-purpose----
Senator Alexander. In all these cases nothing gets done
unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves safety.
Senator Feinstein. Yes. Well, I mean, we had plenty of
accidents with approved safety.
Senator Alexander. Well, but just to be clear, no one has
ever been hurt in the United States by a reactor.
Senator Feinstein. God willing, yes.
Senator Alexander. That is better than any other form of
energy. So, well this has been very, very interesting----
Senator Feinstein. Really has.
Senator Alexander. And I thank all of you for coming and it
helps--I remember Dr. Zacharia that I suppose over the last 40
years, I have been to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory 40
times and just like Senator Kennedy, I have a Phi Beta Kappa
degree from Vanderbilt and it took me twenty times to
understand anything that was going on. But now I think I
understand it a little better. It is helpful to us and it is
helpful to the public, I think, to hear what the department is
doing with advanced reactors and we will need to consider your
recommendations. I have seen the additive manufacturing
research at the Oak Ridge Laboratory, truly astonishing.
Secretary Feinstein, Senator Perry drove a car built in this
way----
Senator Feinstein. Is that right?
Senator Alexander. Which is little hard to grasp when you
first hear about it, but it worked. And you have people coming
from all over the country there to do research for how they
might be able to build an auto tool or a tool or some other
manufactured part using this lower cost way of manufacturing.
Senator Feinstein, do you have any other comment?
Senator Feinstein. No, I do not. Except, I thought for a
layperson, I find this so fascinating, and yet so intimidating.
And one of the problems for me is the change, Dr. Zacharia, is
that every year it is something new and then something bad
happens and everything stops. And I don't know. I find this is
a very hard area of human endeavor because there is so much
fear associated with it and, to some extent I guess, safety can
never really be guaranteed. There is always something, but I
thank you all very much.
Senator Alexander. Thank you.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Senator Feinstein. My concern
is--I am very impressed with our safety record in the nuclear
industry, both in the military area, where Admiral Rick told
every captain of a submarine that if you ever have a problem
with your reactor your career is over and so we have never had
a problem. We have never had a death, let's just say that, from
any since the 1950s, and the record is very, very good. What my
concern is, what we said at the start, is that we have led the
world in this technology. I was in China recently. They have
plans to build more than 40 new reactors. And everybody will be
building reactors around the world, or many countries will, and
United States will not be. Just at the time, as Senator
Whitehouse and I said in our Op-ed in the New York Times, there
is growing concern about climate change and this is our major
source of carbon-free electricity.
So it makes no sense to shut down the reactors we have, and
to me it makes no sense not to investigate these interesting
new ideas about advanced reactors, which have the potential to
give us flexibility in size, in design, and location, and cost
a lot less, and be safer, and produce less waste than what we
have today. So this is encouraging to me and I appreciate your
coming and I look forward to future discussions.
The hearing record will remain open for 10 days. Senators
may submit additional information or questions for the record
within that time if they would like. The subcommittee requests
all responses to questions for the record be provided within 30
days of receipt.
CONCLUSION OF HEARING
Thank you for being here. The committee will stand
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:08 p.m., Wednesday, January 16, the
hearing was concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to
reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]