Two of the government’s top decision makers on nuclear energy again asked the nuclear energy industry for its help to get their goals for nuclear power across the finish line at a trade conference Monday.
The Joe Biden administration “can launch more nuclear projects across the country, we can power more communities with clean energy, we can create millions more jobs and we can make enormous progress on our very bold climate goals, but this is really a matter of ‘we,’” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on Monday at the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS) annual conference, held virtually this year.
Granholm stressed the role of industry in helping the Biden team achieve its nuclear energy goals — namely, the administration’s $1.89 billion budget request for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the proposed American Jobs Plan with its $750 million in credits for the existing nuclear fleet.
The energy secretary also reiterated some of her biggest talking points: that the administration plans to put $20 million towards an interim storage site for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel using the occasionally controversial consent based siting approach; and that the Department of Energy is doing “everything [it] can” to prevent more existing nuclear reactors from shutting down.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson, also speaking at Monday’s conference, asked for industry’s cooperation in his agency’s push to develop the Part 53 framework for regulating advanced reactor technology. Hanson said that NRC had “received some criticism” on the rulemaking. “I would urge everyone to be patient,” he said.
Granholm’s and Hanson’s addresses to ANS Monday were the duo’s second appearance at a nuclear industry trade conference in as many weeks. Both spoke at the Nuclear Energy Institute’s annual event last week, also in virtual format.
