Reprocessing and Recycling: The Outlook and Impact on New Nuclear Development

September 28, 2023

The Biden Administration has awarded funding for projects led by universities, private companies and natural laboratories to develop technologies to advance used nuclear fuel recycling, reduce the volume of high-level waste requiring permanent disposal, and provide safe domestic advanced reactor fuel stocks.  Similarly, in Congress there is bipartisan support for exploring the potential for fuel recycling to establish a domestic industry to supply and enrich uranium, to increase our energy independence and reduce our reliance on Russia.  But this is not the first time the U.S. has considered reprocessing and there have been multiple starts and stops for multiple reasons. How is the landscape different today? What is the potential for closing the fuel cycle in the U.S.?  What would the impact be for advanced nuclear development?  What is the timeline?

ECA hosted  "Reprocessing and Recycling: The Outlook and Impact on New Nuclear Development" on Thursday, September 28, 2023, from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Eastern with experts Paul Murray and Josh Jarrell, Senior Technical Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability Program from the Idaho National Laboratories.

Reach out to Faith Sanchez, ECA Program Manager (faiths@energyca.org) with any questions. 

ECA New Nuclear Initiative Virtual Event: The Investor Outlook on Advanced Nuclear Development

October 6, 2022

As part of our New Nuclear Initiative, ECA continued a conversation with Jim Schaefer, Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Securities, on the investor outlook for advanced nuclear development. Jim was a featured speaker this summer at the ECA Forum on New Nuclear Development in Salt Lake City, and provided additional input in light of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

In addition to Jim, ECA hosted Steve Comello from the EFI Foundation, the 501c3 arm of the Energy Futures Initiative. EFI and the EFI Foundation - founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz - are organizations dedicated to harnessing the power of technology and policy innovation to accelerate the clean energy transition.

Please click here to access the presentation slides.

ECA Briefing with the Nuclear Innovation Alliance on Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technology: A Primer

October 5, 2021

ECA’s New Nuclear Initiative aims to help communities become knowledgeable about - and in many ways driven by - the nuclear missions they already host, be an integral part of the nuclear future. In partnership with the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, this webinar provides a briefing on Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technology: A Primer.

Engaging Energy Communities in Advanced Nuclear Demonstration Projects

May 4, 2021

Presentations from the webinar:

Christine King and Ashley Finan, GAIN and NRIC presentation

David Hart, Demonstration Project Portfolio presentation

Olu Omotowa, Terrapower presentation

Materials referenced on the webinar:

From Christine King, Director, Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) Initiative

The Energy Calculator - a great interactive tool that is not too complicated that can help to see the consequences of your choices on the supply and the demand side. The nice thing about this tool is the math is handled on the back end seamlessly. There is a little intro video that goes with it as well. https://gain.ornl.gov/#/

  1. GAIN is also working on public documents that help explain these kinds of reactors.

    1. Fast Reactors: https://gain.inl.gov/SiteAssets/Fast%20Reactors/FRInfoSheet18May20_EPL-GAIN.pdf

    2. High Temperature Gas: https://gain.inl.gov/SiteAssets/HTGR/HTRInfoSheet-18May20_EPL-GAIN.pdf

    3. Molten Salt: https://gain.inl.gov/SiteAssets/MoltenSaltReactor/MSR-InfoSheet_18May20_EPL-GAIN.pdf

  2. GAIN on microreactors: https://gain.inl.gov/SitePages/MicroreactorProgram.aspx

  3. GAIN maintains two directories (in process of being updated): advanced reactor developers and supply chain https://gain.inl.gov/SitePages/Industry.aspx and university directory https://gain.inl.gov/SitePages/UniversityEngagement.aspx

  4. GAIN monitors state level trends.

    1. Webinar: https://gain.inl.gov/SitePages/GAINWebinarSeries.aspx

    2. State Summary reports:

      1. Washington

      2. Arizona

      3. Colorado

      4. Wyoming

      5. Minnesota

      6. North Dakota

From David Hart, Senior Fellow, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

  1. More and Better: Building and Managing a Federal Energy Demonstration Project Portfolio

From Jason Herbert, Director of Government Affairs and Advanced Reactor Communications, Energy Northwest

  1. Washington Department of Commerce’s webpage on the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA), signed into law in 2019, that has helped to create an environment conducive to advanced nuclear development.

    1. https://www.commerce.wa.gov/growing-the-economy/energy/ceta/

Building the Nuclear Energy Future

December 16, 2020