State news (Credit: LevittownNow.com file photo.)
As the nation responds to soaring demands for power and sharp spikes in electricity costs, a new generation of nuclear reactors could provide a solution to the need for clean, sustainable energy sources, the state House Energy Committee heard Monday.
The panel is set to vote on legislation that would give state regulators the ability to set appropriate fees for operators of small modular reactors (SMR) and micro reactors that, according to experts who testified, require less space, are easier to build and are inherently safer than plants built decades ago.
House Bill 2017 would amend Pennsylvania’s Radiation Safety Act to include definitions of small modular reactors and micro reactors and provides the state Department of Environmental Protection discretion to lower fees for the smaller power plants. The committee is expected to vote on the bill Tuesday.
Allison Krager Hahn, technical advisor for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that while the technology used in SMRs has been proven for decades to be safe and reliable, the biggest challenges are on the business side of operations.
“Right now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is going through a complete overhaul of its processes to understand where they can be more efficient — not less safe, to be clear — to be able to move these licenses through much quicker,” Hahn said.
Most states are also preparing for the future of nuclear power by establishing feasibility studies and incentives for the development of SMRs and the supply chain and workforce building them will require. The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association representing members in the commercial nuclear industry, is tracking more than 350 pieces of legislation in 46 states, she said.
In Indiana, for example, Gov. Mike Braun signed three pieces of legislation this year that create a 20% tax credit for manufacturing SMRs and let public utilities ask for permission from utility regulators to spend money on SMRs and recover their costs before getting certificates of public convenience and necessity.
In written testimony, Hahn said one of the aspects states must consider is how to separate SMRs and micro reactors from large-scale nuclear reactors for regulatory purposes.
Under current Pennsylvania law, entities with NRC approval to build a nuclear reactor must pay the commonwealth $650,000 and operators are required to pay $100,000 a year per reactor unit.
Companies must also pay a $250,000 fee to produce nuclear fuel and $500 to $1,000 per shipment of fuel or nuclear waste.
Allowing the DEP to establish separate fees for SMRs and micro reactors “is a great first step,” Hahn said.
SMRs are smaller than large-scale reactors such as those at Three Mile Island (which is reopening as the Crane Clean Energy Center) in Dauphin County and Limerick in Montgomery County.
Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. has developed an SMR design based on its successful AP1000 reactor, which is the latest design produced in the United States. It employs a cooling system that uses the natural circulation of water via convection and gravity to keep the reactor core at a safe temperature in the event of a power failure.
Most existing reactors rely on outside electrical supplies or diesel generators to ensure that the plant’s cooling system continues to operate in the event of an emergency.
Westinghouse’s AP300 is a scaled down version that can be produced in modules in a factory setting, significantly improving quality assurance. That also reduces the risk of construction delays and cost overruns that have negatively impacted recent nuclear power plant projects, according to Sola Talabi, president of Pittsburgh Technical, an engineering consulting firm that has evaluated SMR designs.
The new generation of SMRs and advanced reactors are designed to be safer than the designs involved in historical failures, such as Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Chernobyl. Those accidents were caused by the loss of cooling water that caused the melt-down or partial melt-down of the reactors’ radioactive cores, Talabi said.
SMRs and microreactors eliminate the need for an active cooling system in an emergency, Mary Kurasch, who oversees the SMR development program for Westinghouse.
“The systems rely on gravity, natural circulation and convection to bring the plant to a safe shutdown condition and keep that plant in a safe shutdown condition without any external or human intervention or external power,” Kurasch said.
