Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

Nuclear Energy Is the One Thing Congress Can Agree On

Environmentalists, however, still aren’t sold on the ADVANCE Act.

A nuclear power plant.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

While climate change policy is typically heavily polarized along party lines, nuclear energy policy is not. The ADVANCE Act, which would reform the nuclear regulatory policy to encourage the development of advanced nuclear reactors, passed the Senate today, by a vote of 88-2, preparing it for an almost certain presidential signature.

The bill has been floating around Congress for about a year and is the product of bipartisanship within the relevant committees, a notable departure from increasingly top-down legislating in Washington. The House of Representatives has its own nuclear regulatory bill, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, which the House overwhelmingly voted for in February.

The resulting bill — a.k.a. the one that just passed — is a compromise between the House bill and the ADVANCE Act originally introduced in 2023, has been stapled to the “Fire Grants and Safety Act,” a bipartisan bill that reauthorizes a gaggle of federal firefighting programs that has already passed the House.

The nuclear piece of it is designed to align the Nuclear Regulatory Commission around so-called “advanced” nuclear reactors, a catch-all term that covers a number of designs and concepts that are typically smaller than the existing light water reactor fleet and would, ideally, be largely factory-built to reduce costs. So far, the NRC has only approved one advanced reactor design, put forward by the nuclear startup NuScale, but plans to actually build it fell through due to escalating costs. Another advanced nuclear project, Bill-Gates-backed TerraPower, has started construction ahead of receiving approval from the NRC.

The ADVANCE Act would eliminate some fees for applicants going through the NRC approval process; instruct the NRC to develop specific rules for “microreactors,” which might only have 20 or so megawatts of capacity and could be used for single sites or rural areas; establish prizes for advanced reactors; and “streamline” the NRC process for advanced nuclear reactors. That last bit would involve beefing up the Commission with additional staffing, change its mission statement to be more supportive of nuclear energy’s benefits (as opposed to merely its risks), and come up with a way to make it easier to develop nuclear reactors on brownfield sites such as decommissioned coal plants.

The Nuclear Energy Institute said in a statement in April that the bill would “improve our ability to get more nuclear reactors approved and on the grid more quickly.” That is exactly what some environmental groups are unhappy about, however. “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s apparent embrace of new nuclear energy development represents a stark betrayal of the clean, safe renewable energy options like wind and solar that he claims to champion,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement last week.

The ADVANCE Act is just one of a flurry of legislative and executive actions to support the nuclear energy industry. Nuclear power qualifies for a number of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and the beefed up Loan Programs Office has committed up to $1.5 billion for the re-opening of the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan.

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Gargantuan Solar Project in Nevada Appears to Be Moving Forward

The Esmeralda 7 project is another sign that Trump’s solar freeze is over.

Solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Esmeralda 7 solar project, a collection of proposed solar farms and batteries that would encompass tens of thousands of acres of federal public lands in western Nevada, appears to be moving towards the end of its federal permitting process.

The farms developed by NextEra, Invenergy, Arevia, ConnectGen, and others together would add up to 6,200 megawatts of solar generation capacity, making it the largest solar project in already solar-rich Nevada.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

Trump Tries to Kill New York’s Empire Wind Project

For the first time, his administration targets an offshore wind project already under construction.

Wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration will try to stop work on Empire Wind, an offshore wind project by Equinor south of Long Island that was going through active construction, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted to X on Wednesday.

Burgum announced that he directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to “halt all construction activities on the Empire Wind Project until further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”

Keep reading...Show less
Sparks

Republicans Asked For an Offshore Wind Exposé. They Got a Letdown Instead.

“NOAA Fisheries does not anticipate any death or serious injury to whales from offshore wind related actions.”

Offshore wind.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A group of Republican lawmakers were hoping a new report released Monday would give them fresh ammunition in their fight against offshore wind development. Instead, they got … pretty much nothing. But they’re milking it anyway.

The report in question originated with a spate of whale deaths in early 2023. Though the deaths had no known connection to the nascent industry, they fueled a GOP campaign to shut down the renewable energy revolution that was taking place up and down the East Coast. New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith joined with three of his colleagues to solicit the Government Accountability Office to launch an investigation into the impacts of offshore wind on the environment, maritime safety, military operations, commercial fishing, and other concerns.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow