nuclear-news

bipartisan push,  https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Reporter-s-notebook-Nuclear-reactors-prove-15000083.php  
James Osborne Jan. 24, 2020  WASHINGTON – If there’s any clear area of agreement between Republicans and Democrats on climate change, it’s on the need to develop a new generation of nuclear power plants as quickly as possible.

More precisely, it’s the need to bring down the multi-billion dollars costs of existing plants and create a meltdown-proof reactor that can run on recycled uranium and plutonium rods, which power companies and environmentalist alike can get behind.

But getting bipartisan agreement on the need for those reactors has proven far easier than developing them, as companies look to overhaul a nuclear reactor design that has changed little since they first began operation in the United States in the 1950s.

One year after the Senate passed a law requiring the government’s leading nuclear authority, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to overhaul its processes for approving nuclear power plants to account for the new reactors, senators are already beginning to exhibit impatience.

At a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, quizzed NRC officials about why they thought the Senate passed the law.

When one of them said, “You really want me to guess,” he responded: “I would hope you would know, that it would be so clear why we gave you this power.”

Two-fer

The point, Whitehouse said, is to create a new carbon-free energy source that could also be fueled by the growing stockpiles of spent nuclear rods at reactors around the country, ending a decades-long debate about where to dispose of them.

“I don’t know if that’s going to pan out, but people who are very smart and have invested millions of dollars tell me that is their intention,” Whitehouse said. “We want to see that focus on turning that waste into something positive.”

With backers like billionaire Bill Gates, a wave of startups is trying to develop a reactor that uses materials such as molten salt or liquid metal to cool itself — instead of water — allowing a reactor that loses power to cool down on its own.

But so far only one company, California-based Oklo, is ready to submit plans for its reactor to the NRC for review, said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the agency.