Senate Republicans have rejected Democrats’ infrastructure spending proposals and climate policies. Could the two parties possibly find agreement on increased support for nuclear energy?

That question hung over the Nuclear Energy Institute’s virtual Nuclear Energy Assembly this week.

More than four decades after the Three Mile Island accident virtually ended the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S., NEI’s gathering came with the industry benefiting from some tail winds for a change.

While Republicans and Democrats in Congress are at loggerheads over everything from voting rights to gun control, members on both sides have expressed support for advanced nuclear generation designs that provide passive safety systems to eliminate the chance of a meltdown. (See Strong Bipartisan Support for Advanced Nuclear at Senate Hearing.) And some environmental groups that previously shunned nuclear power have concluded that it’s impossible to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury without it.

“Let me say it loud and clear: Carbon-free nuclear power is an absolutely critical part of our decarbonization equation,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in remarks before NEI on Tuesday. “And we’re not just talking the talk. The administration is ready to walk the walk, and nowhere is that more clear than in the president’s 2022 budget request for the Department of Energy. For example, it calls for a record $1.8 billion in funding for our nuclear energy program. That’s up 50% from just last year’s ask, which makes this our largest proposed investment ever. And we need every single cent of it to get nuclear energy where we need it to be.”

Granholm said the administration wants to first preserve the existing nuclear fleet, which generates 50% of the nation’s carbon-free electricity. The American Jobs Plan includes an allocated production credit for existing nuclear facilities, “which solves the nuclear plant retirement issue,” she said.

The administration is also seeking $245 million for the demonstration of two advanced reactors in the next six years and $305 million for further development of advanced designs by the mid-2030s.

“We need experts like yourselves standing up and speaking out if we’re going to get these proposals over the [goal] line,” Granholm said.

In her remarks opening the conference Monday, NEI CEO Maria Korsnick noted that nuclear power surpassed coal-fired electricity for the first time last year, making it the second-largest source of electricity in the U.S.

But she also mourned the loss of the Indian Point plant in New York, which shut down this year after 60 years of operation. “If the nuclear plants under threat this year are shut down, the lost carbon-free generation would be equivalent to all the renewables we deployed in 2019 across the entire country,” she said. “That isn’t decarbonizing. It’s throwing in the towel before the fight even begins.”

New Plants Coming

She also noted that Southern Co.’s Vogtle 3 reactor in Georgia is expected to go into commercial operation next year — albeit years behind schedule and billions over budget. “When completed, Vogtle 3 and 4 will be the first reactors of their kind in the United States. Together, they will produce more carbon-free electricity than all 7,200 wind turbines in the state of California,” she said.

NuScale Power, whose small modular reactor design won Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval in September, has announced deals to site its plants in Idaho and Washington state. (See Wash. PUD, NuScale Sign MOU to Explore Use of Small Reactors.)

Last week, officials announced that a shuttered Wyoming coal plant will be repurposed for a 345-MW advanced nuclear reactor that will also include molten-salt storage and provide jobs for the former coal plant’s workers. (See Wyoming Welcomes DOE-funded Advanced Nuclear Plant.)

“We’ve gone from concept to site selection. We’ve gone from design to demonstration. We’re not just talking about the next generation of nuclear technology; we’re actually beginning to build it,” Korsnick said. “With the continued progress and the right investments and policy choices, many of these designs can be online before this decade is out.”

Wendell Hibdon — director of energy and infrastructure for United Association, which represents plumbers and pipe fitters — said the idea of putting small modular reactors in former coal plants is an “absolutely great idea.”

“Using retired coal plants brings hope to the communities that are there. When they lose that plant, it’s not just the operators that lose jobs. It affects the whole community itself: the tax base of the community; suppliers for the powerhouse; people who haul coal. … It’s devastating for a community.”

New Allies

Nuclear has found some new and unexpected allies. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), “who makes  a speech every night on the Senate floor about climate change, [has] recognized that there’s no way to deal with climate change — particularly in an era of electrification — if we don’t keep the existing plants we have and we don’t build more,” former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said.

Officials from the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy also appeared at the conference to explain why they are backing nuclear power as part of the climate solution.

“We’re the bird organization. A lot of people have asked, ‘Why are you engaged in climate policy at all?’” said Sarah Greenberger, Audubon’s senior vice president of conservation policy. “But our science team has shown that two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of extinction by the end of the century because of a changing climate. So for us, addressing climate change — getting to net zero by the midcentury — is a critical part of our mission.”

Lynn Scarlett, chief external affairs officer at the Nature Conservancy, said being “science informed” is part of her group’s DNA.

“We have hundreds of scientists on staff. Our goals and our approach to things are data driven. So when we look at the challenge of where we are and where we need to go in terms of getting to a net-zero 2050 future, we realize that we’re going to need an all-of-the-above strategy.

“It’s true we’ve been very  supportive of renewables … but when we look at the big picture, to really get to that net-zero place, many, many different technologies need to be part of that picture simply from a data analysis standpoint. … We’ve done the math.”

Scarlett said that although her group supports carbon pricing and a clean energy standard, “we actually do not right now see a filibuster-proof pathway to big policy ambitions such as … carbon pricing of some sort, cap and trade, or even a clean energy standard.”

As a result, she said, her group is using a “try everything approach.”

“We’ve got to have R&D. We’ve got to have grid modernization. We’ve got to have the underpinnings and infrastructure that will allow these multiple tools to move forward. We do see a path forward — whether in the infrastructure bill or other venues for some of those building blocks to advance.”