P.B. Lyons
United States Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.,
United States of America
I want to thank the IAEA, as well as the international and local organizing committees, for assembling this impressive group of conference attendees to share information and exchange ideas this week. I am honoured to be a part of this distinguished panel. I also want to thank our Japanese colleagues for their wonderful hospitality and for selecting the beautiful city of Kyoto as the venue.
This is an historic time of challenge and opportunity. President Obama is seeking to accelerate our nation’s transformation to a low carbon economy. He has set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. As we meet here in Kyoto, the site of another historic climate change discussion, President Obama is preparing to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, continuing his Administration’s commitment to tackling climate change and building a clean energy economy.
Four months ago, Dr. Warren “Pete” Miller was confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Soon afterwards, I joined Pete as his Principal Deputy.
In that short time, Pete and I have come to appreciate fully the enormous task we have before us. Transforming our economy from one reliant on fossil fuels to a low carbon future will take investments in energy efficiency and all forms of low carbon energy technologies, including nuclear energy. Our job is to assure that nuclear technologies can contribute to meeting this aggressive goal for reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Nuclear energy can contribute to the future energy supply in two basic areas:
(i) in its traditional role of generating electricity and (ii) as a source of process heat for industrial, petrochemical and desalination purposes. Within the Office of Nuclear Energy, we are now developing a roadmap that will help us in “meeting tomorrow’s energy needs” by addressing these two vital areas. We have established five strategic goals as the foundation on which to base our programmes:
(1) Extend the lifetime of existing reactors;
(2) Enable the building of the next and future generations of nuclear power plants;
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(3) Reduce the carbon footprint of the transportation and industrial sectors;
(4) Develop a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle;
(5) Understand and minimize proliferation risks.
The first goal is “extending the lifetime of existing reactors”. If we are planning for an increase in the contribution of nuclear power, it is of utmost importance that the existing reactors continue to operate safely and efficiently.
US nuclear power plants have maintained a 30 year record of exceptional safety and performance, achieving capacity factors above 90 per cent. As a result, the owners of almost all of these plants have either successfully obtained or are planning to apply for licence renewals that extend the length of their operating licence from 40 to 60 years.
We have launched a research effort aimed at providing, if possible, the technical basis for operating the existing US fleet beyond 60 years. Investment in long term, high risk, high reward research and development may provide the scientific foundation for plant owners to make investment decisions to prolong the economic lifetime of these valuable national strategic assets.
Our second goal is “enabling new plant construction”. Analyses of the climate change issue by independent organizations show that reducing carbon emissions will require a portfolio of technologies and that nuclear energy must be part of that portfolio. These studies project a need to build between 100 and 200 GW(e) of new nuclear generating capacity in the United States of America over the next 30 years.
We began our Nuclear Power 2010 programme seven years ago as a cost shared partnership involving both industry and government to reduce the financial and regulatory risks associated with building new advanced light water reactors (LWRs). These new designs were developed to further advance operational safety and economics when compared to the currently deployed reactors. The programme has done its part to clear the way for many new plants, with six to eight expected to be built by 2020.
One of the challenges facing our deployment of new plants is the availa-bility and cost of capital. Therefore, progress on loan guarantees is very important. Four new projects are currently under consideration for federal loan guarantees. We are hopeful that the first conditional nuclear loan guarantees will be announced before the end of the year.
The large plants now planned for the first wave of construction won’t be the only options considered by US utilities for operation in the 2020–2050 time frame. There is increasing interest in small modular reactors, which offer potential advantages in the way they are financed, manufactured, constructed and licensed. Some of these designs use LWR technologies, while some utilize fast
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Our third goal is to expand the low emission benefits of nuclear power beyond electricity production. Half of our nation’s carbon emissions come from the transportation and industrial sectors, but nuclear power has not played a significant role in these sectors. As the transportation sector begins to use more plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles, nuclear power can help meet the additional demand for low carbon electricity production.
In addition, harnessing nuclear power as a heat resource for industrial processes could enable nuclear power to increase significantly its current 8%
share of our total energy supply. Our goal is to generate low carbon, nuclear driven, process heat for industrial use. Perhaps we can use nuclear power as the heat source to produce unconventional transportation fuels cleanly from our domestic fossil resources or hydrogen to enable more effective use of biofuels.
Our fourth goal, the one that is most closely related to the purpose of this conference, is “developing a sustainable fuel cycle”. To support a large expansion of nuclear energy, we must develop a fuel cycle that is economic, safe, secure and environmentally friendly.
President Obama and Secretary Chu believe we can provide better technical solutions than our current once-through fuel cycle. As a result, we’re working on a targeted research and development programme studying the back end of the fuel cycle to improve significantly the management of used nuclear fuel. We have refocused this effort on science based, goal oriented research and development that integrates theory, experiment and high performance modelling and simulation to explore alternative fuel cycles and game changing technologies that may produce less used nuclear fuel and lower the long lived actinide content of the final wastes.
We have made great strides in our understanding of various approaches to processing used fuel. But further advances in technology may require that we change the way we think about nuclear material. We will be supporting innovation and creativity to maximize the energy we extract from new fuel. Using safe and secure dry cask storage, we have time to explore various options and arrive at a decision.
Our plan is to perform research and development and develop technologies to demonstrate the best approach in each of three back end strategies:
(1) The first strategy will involve research on the once-through fuel cycle to understand the limits of increasing burnup, both in LWRs and in new reactor types, and the performance of that spent fuel in different geological media.
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(2) The second strategy for a modified open cycle would involve some limited processing of used fuel to enable the production of ultra-high burnup fuels that would be disposed of after irradiation. Fast reactor technology will probably be a part of this strategy.
(3) The final strategy is a full recycle approach with extensive processing to remove some elements from the used fuel, reuse some of them in fast reactors, possibly transmute others and minimize the volume and toxicity of the final waste products.
These first two strategies are likely to involve fast reactor technology. With this technology, nearly 58 years ago on 20 December 1951, the Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-I) provided the first useful electricity from nuclear energy, powering four light bulbs in the Idaho desert. This provided the first evidence of the enormous potential for fast reactor technology to satisfy future energy needs.
However, with the shutdown of the EBR-II in 1994, the USA is without an operating fast reactor. Our infrastructure to support fast reactor development has continued to deteriorate.
Although we have shifted our efforts in the fast reactor area away from accelerated commercial deployment, fast reactor technologies clearly have promise. We will continue to explore innovative technologies for fast reactors to reduce costs, improve performance, enhance safety and better manage nuclear waste and fuel resources.
Our fuel cycle research and development efforts will be guided by the goal of enabling a national decision to deploy a complete waste management system by 2050. This time frame allows us to advance the state of the art in each of these strategies and demonstrate technologies by 2030. Of course, no matter what our research and development produces, we cannot forget that the nation must ultimately have at least one geological repository.
Our final imperative is related to non-proliferation, “to understand and minimize proliferation risks”. Internationally, there is a surge of interest in nuclear power. Many countries with no previous experience with nuclear power are planning to establish civilian nuclear power programmes. The international community requires that control systems be in place to prevent proliferation and other security threats.
Former IAEA Director General M. ElBaradei provided global leadership on approaches to assured fuel supplies that avoid the need for many countries to construct enrichment or reprocessing facilities. We can ensure that nations have access to fresh nuclear fuel through the use of multilateral fuel supply assurances, international fuel banks and multinational used fuel ‘take back’ strategies.
This approach was confirmed at the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Ministerial Meeting in Beijing in October 2009, where the Executive Committee
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Cradle-to-grave nuclear fuel management could be one important element of this framework.” Such a framework is a priority of the USA and will be critical as we simultaneously address the challenges of climate change, energy security and non-proliferation.
To support the investigations required to meet these five imperatives, the Department of Energy retains expertise and capabilities specifically suited to nuclear energy research, development and demonstration. By working with industry, involving our nation’s universities and cooperating with international organizations, we leverage capabilities, share facilities and more effectively advance technology development. As we continue to pursue advanced fuel cycle technologies, international collaborations are a must. Nuclear technology development and demonstrations are too costly for a single nation to fund alone.
In conclusion, meeting tomorrow’s energy needs, both in the USA and around the globe, presents both challenges and opportunities. The Department of Energy has defined an agenda to support the effective deployment of safe, clean and secure nuclear energy, both domestically and internationally, to help secure tomorrow’s global energy needs.
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