I fully expected that the energy bill passed today by the House would offer little in the way of nuclear energy promotion. But, there do seem to be some good items tucked away in the bill. (Note: the link is to a slow-loading 1.4M text file.)

• Section 629 calls for a report on the feasibility of developing commercial nuclear power facilities at existing DoE sites -- which one might expect to take the wind out of NIMBY arguments.
• Section 638 creates a national low-enriched uranium stockpile, to be filled with home-grown LEU and "blended down" materials recovered from Russian weapons materials. Why do you suppose there would be a need for an LEU stockpile, unless...we were perhaps planning an expansion of nuclear power generation?
• Section 651 establishes a project to develop a new nuclear reactor design specifically geared towards the generation of hydrogen fuel -- a project which those pushing for a "hydrogen economy" will no doubt get wholeheartedly behind...it's a special gift from Congress just in time for Earth Day!
• Section 906 declares that it is "policy of the United States to conduct research, development, demonstration, and commercial application to provide for the scientific, engineering, and commercial infrastructure necessary to ensure that the United States is competitive with other nations in providing fusion energy for its own needs and the needs of other nations, including by demonstrating electric power or hydrogen production for the United States energy grid utilizing fusion energy at the earliest date possible", and sets the terms for U.S. participation in ITER.
• Section 948 calls for a program to develop cleaner, safer fuel recycling technologies.
• Section 951 directs the Secretary of Energy to carry out the Nuclear Power 2010 program to develop fuel, fuel processing, and reactor technologies required to deploy new nuclear plants in the U.S. by 2010.
• Section 952 also directs the Secretary to develop a technology and R&D plan for evaluating next-generation nuclear power technologies.
• Interestingly, Section 958 actually calls for the construction of a next-generation nuclear power plant based on the research and development called for in the preceding sections:

  The program shall culminate in the construction and operation of the demonstration plant based on a design selected by the Secretary in accordance with procedures described in the plan required by section 960(c). The demonstration plant shall be located and constructed within the United States and shall be operational, and capable of demonstrating the commercial production of electricity, by December 31, 2015.

  Hmm...

With the ongoing program to develop new nuclear power sources for space applications, I'm mildly surprised that there wasn't at least some mention of space nuclear power. But, I guess the fact that nuclear power is a part of the national energy policy at all is cause enough for celebration.

(The text can also be found at the Library of Congress' Thomas server, conveniently indexed by section, but unfortunately the LoC has gone out of its way to avoid providing permanent links to the bills archived there.)

Posted by T.L. James on April 22, 2005 12:01 AM