The U.S. should develop a series of scientific criteria that can be used to extend the operating lifetimes of nuclear power plants through the middle of the century, the Department of Energy’s lead nuclear power official said Wednesday.
“If we would like our existing fleet to make it to 2050, we should establish a scientific basis through which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission might … award license extensions, perhaps as high as 100 years,” Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said Wednesday at an event hosted by Purdue University’s School of Nuclear Engineering.
Some of the country’s existing nuclear plants have already applied with NRC for license extensions allowing them to run for a total of 80 years, Huff said. According to the commission’s website, facilities such as Florida’s Turkey Point plant, which opened in 1970, and Pennsylvania’s Peach Bottom plant, which opened in 1967, have been authorized to operate until 2033.
While NRC is “not ready yet” to renew nuclear operating licenses out to 100 years, Huff said that “the science we do today could contribute to some of these reactors being online in 2050.” She cited the structural integrity of reactor pressure vessels and digitization of plant instrumentation as some of the scientific challenges standing in the way of such extensions..
DOE’s role in the license renewal process, Huff said, is to “support the research and development” that helps NRC review extensions. “It’s the job of the NRC to determine whether it’s safe,” she said.
Huff also stressed the need to keep the country’s existing reactor fleet from closing for economic reasons. “We absolutely must find ways to keep those plants up and running,” she said.
DOE is preparing to open applications for its second round of bailouts under its roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program, aimed at propping up the aging nuclear fleet. The agency in November awarded roughly $1.1 billion to California’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant, which was slated to close in 2025.
The agency is also overseeing a tax credit for nuclear power operators, made law under August’s Inflation Reduction Act.
“In order to grow, we cannot shrink,” Huff said Wednesday.
