Now is the time to do all that we can to reduce carbon emissions.

Energy experts, climate advocates and policymakers have been pushing for action, and the Biden administration has taken this urgent moment to heart with an ambitious goal to decarbonize the power sector by 2035.

After rejoining the Paris Agreement on his first day in office and signaling his commitment to addressing climate change, President Biden released the American Jobs Plan last week—a measure addressing infrastructure that includes major investment to reduce carbon emissions. And later this month, the U.S. will host an international climate summit to spur global leaders towards more aggressive carbon-reduction goals.

A Clean Energy Future Requires Every Tool We Have

Reaching our climate goals will require taking advantage of every carbon-free technology we have.

“We're going to need a lot of tools if where we want to get is zero-carbon,” said Melissa Lott, director of research at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. She spoke on a panel as part of NEI’s State of the Nuclear Energy Industry event.

In a clean energy system, wind and solar will play important roles as renewable resources. But when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, they will need support in the form of a reliable, carbon-free electricity source like nuclear energy.

“The U.S. leads the world in producing a proven, carbon-free, scalable source of electricity, that enjoys bipartisan support,” NEI President and Chief Executive Officer Maria Korsnick said in her State of the Nuclear Energy Industry remarks.

“That source is nuclear energy. And there’s no more serious debate: it’s the key to making our climate commitments work.”

Nuclear energy provides more than half of our nation’s carbon-free energy. It’s always available around-the-clock, a reliable part of our critical infrastructure.

And it’s not just America’s 94 operating reactors that are so valuable to our future; innovators are hard at work developing advanced reactors that will generate clean electricity, provide good-paying jobs as the U.S. transitions from fossil fuels, and help decarbonize other sectors of the economy through additional applications beyond electricity.

We Must Keep Innovating and We Can’t Lose Ground

We must continue pursuing energy innovation, as many of the technologies that will help us reach a carbon-free future are being developed today.

Late last year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced nearly $3.9 billion in funding through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, helping to establish a pipeline of advanced nuclear technologies that are set to become available in the late 2020s or early 2030s. Building on this momentum, Biden’s American Jobs Plan will help the American economy transition to clean energy with even more funding for research and development.

"We need to deploy and we need to innovate,” said Lott. “We need to do both things if we want to get to a full solution. That's very clear in the research."

In addition, measures that provide value for carbon-free electricity will be important to maintain the progress we’ve made in reducing emissions. Biden’s infrastructure plan also provides for a national clean energy mandate that will include nuclear energy, according to National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy. This will be vital for nuclear reactors facing premature shutdown, as closing these plants would make decarbonizing by 2035 an even harder task.

“Rule number one is when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging, so retiring assets that generate power without emitting CO2, that doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Paul Chodak—executive vice president of generation at American Electric Power—at the State of the Nuclear Energy Industry panel.

Nuclear Is Essential to a Carbon-Free Future

The threat that climate change poses is clear: We must reduce emissions as quickly as possible across the economy to avoid it. Policymakers are working to put America in position to meet this moment and, as the largest provider of carbon-free energy around-the-clock and with new innovations on the horizon, nuclear energy is the ideal partner to wind and solar in this endeavor.

“Now is the time to get to work,” said Korsnick. “Now is the time to make nuclear energy the carbon-free core of our clean energy system.”