In 2022, Congress passed the single most important piece of legislation for nuclear in decades: the Inflation Reduction Act. What does this mean for our nation’s largest source of carbon-free energy? And what legislative support is needed next to ensure nuclear is able to power the grid of the future? We ask the expert, NEI’s Vice President of Government Affairs Beverly Marshall.
Have you seen any major shifts in sentiment towards nuclear at the federal level recently?
In the last couple of years, we have experienced increased support. We have seen it at the state level, the federal level, as well as the international level. And we’ve also seen it in parts of the country that hadn’t necessarily had an interest in nuclear energy prior to recent years. Some examples of those are Wyoming or Montana or Alaska. So, we now recognize there is broad acceptance of nuclear as a clear energy source in our effort to reach the climate goals that we have set as a country and as a globe. So, in addition to climate change, there’s interest in innovation and energy security, and all of those things combined have created this massive bipartisan support that we really experienced in the last two years.
What kind of support has nuclear seen at the federal level over the past year?
Nuclear energy has seen increased support at the federal level, and that has manifested itself in several ways. Congress took advantage of the momentum that we have seen around the country for nuclear energy, and they passed several laws just in the last two years, in fact. In addition to that, we have seen increases in annual appropriations for many years in the past, and they passed the infrastructure bill that included lots of support for nuclear energy. They passed the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the one that received the most attention and, perhaps, included the biggest benefit to the industry. That bill alone included billions of dollars that would benefit the industry, both the existing fleet and the new reactor community. This is in addition to the dozens and dozens of bills that were introduced that were unfinished items in the Congress. They include such things as critical minerals, permitting and siting, regulatory efficiency bills, and other things that were introduced by members who support nuclear energy.
How, specifically, will the Inflation Reduction Act impact the nuclear industry?
The Inflation Reduction Act will have perhaps one of the most significant impacts on the industry of any bill that became a law in many, many, many years. It includes a first ever production tax credit for the existing fleet, it includes a production tax credit for clean electricity, or alternatively an investment tax credit for that industry, it included tax credits for hydrogen, and all of these are direct payments so they would be benefits available to tax exempt entities, as well, and those are important parts of the industry, as well. In addition, it included things like loan guarantee expansion, $700 million for HALEU, so a broad array of benefits to the industry that added up to billions of dollars. And all of this will allow the existing fleet to be preserved, and it will also allow substantial opportunities for the future of the industry, as SMRs and other advanced technologies are deployed in the near future and into the 2030s.
Now that the IRA has been signed into law, what does nuclear need next at the federal level?
The most urgent need at the federal level for the industry at the moment is a reliable fuel supply. The Russian invasion of Ukraine brought into sharp focus the need for U.S. capacity for fuel supply. Obviously, our interest is to eliminate our reliance on Russia. And to do so, we need a U.S. capacity, increased both for enrichment and conversion. To do so, we need the government to work with private industry to provide that capacity, and that will be vital to the future, in addition to vital for the existing fleet. We have a few other areas that we are looking at that we will focus on going into the future. Things like reauthorization of Price-Anderson, siting and permitting, critical mineral legislation, and used fuel.
How will federal support for nuclear help our environment and combat climate change?
Nuclear energy provides more carbon-free energy than all other sources combined. We save the atmosphere 470 million metric tons, which is the equivalent of taking nearly 100 million cars off the road. Obviously, we would like to protect the plants that exist today, as well as build more plants so all of that combined can provide a cleaner energy future going forward.
