The resurgence of nuclear energy in 2022

In possibly one of the most significant years for nuclear since its advent, several nuclear energy milestones were achieved in 2022.

Kicking off the year with a corollary incentive program to attract interest in this waning utility with enormous potential to provide clean, low-carbon energy, President Joe Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act.

This bill included a sizable aspect to benefit present and future nuclear facilities, even so much as providing a $15 per megawatt-hour production tax credit.

You can read about the Inflation Reduction Act's influence on nuclear energy at Nuclear get historical tax incentives in the September 14, 2022 edition of Metal Tech News.

With the groundwork laid out, legislators and utility companies got to work reigniting current facilities that were initially slated for decommissioning, including the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, which was marked as the top priority due to the planned shuttering.

Although nuclear only powers roughly 15% of the Golden State's energy needs, if you factor in that California would rank fifth largest economy in the world if it were a sovereign nation, that is a sizable amount of power to lose.

You can read about Diablo Canyon and the CNC funding at CA plant first choice for nuclear program in the November 23, 2022 edition of Metal Tech News.

With efforts to resolidify existing plants, the successes have continued in what could be considered the sleeper year for nuclear.

New nuclear facilities

With fewer than 100 remaining plants in the United States, which provide roughly one-fifth of America's electricity, 2022 marked a pivotal milestone with the nation's first new nuclear units in more than three decades.

In October, Georgia Power announced the transference of 157 fuel assemblies into the core units of Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors – of which construction had begun in 2013 but almost didn't happen due to the bankruptcy of the previous owner Westinghouse Electric Company.

Projected to enter service sometime this year, the two units will become the single largest generator of clean power in America, providing reliable power to more than 1 million Georgia homes and businesses.

Following suit for new plants, a plan to begin building small modular reactors, or SMRs, has been a long-time goal for meeting energy needs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission intends to issue a final rule to certify Nuscale Power's SMR. Once published, companies may begin referencing the SMR design in their own combined licensing applications.

Already, numerous utilities and energy specialists are lining up to begin the development of their own modular reactors.

You can read more about SMRs at Mini-reactors join renewable energy race in the April 29, 2020 edition of Metal Tech News.

Reorganizing and refueling America

With dogged efforts to replace fossil fuels, one of the largest shifts in possibly American history will be the transition from coal to nuclear.

A major study by DOE in September found that around 80% of the nation's coal power plant sites could be converted to nuclear power plants. Considering that coal covers another fifth of America's power needs, between coal and nuclear, that's almost half of the electricity generated in the country.

Although intentions to replace coal with nuclear is ideal, it will most assuredly not be an overnight thing. Nevertheless, reusing coal infrastructure for advanced reactor power plants could save approximately 15-35% in construction costs, and considering these reactors reach into the billions to build, that is significant.

With plans to fill in legacy energy locales with modern, clean nuclear, another issue is the fuel itself.

Although it did not make the Critical Minerals list, the fact of the matter is that uranium and other radioactive isotopes used to power nuclear facilities are a national security and defense concern as well.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States imports nearly 95% of its uranium needs from other countries – 35% from Kazakhstan, 15% from Canada, 14% from Australia, 14% from Russia (as of 2021), 10% from five different countries, 7% from Namibia, and the remaining 5% being "homegrown."

With industry experts, analysts, and insiders, it is certainly known the dependence on 95% of the fuel needed to power 19% of America's energy is anything but a slight risk.

Hence, several companies announced plans to help fuel the nation's next wave of reactors.

X-energy broke ground on its TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility in Tennessee, which will be the nation's first commercial-scale facility dedicated to fueling HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium) -based reactors.

Furthermore, TerraPower and GE's Global Nuclear Fuel also started efforts to build a fast reactor fuel facility to support the Natrium reactor demonstration.

You can read about these companies' efforts for Natrium at Gates backed nuclear firm initiates Natrium in the September 2, 2022 edition of Metal Tech News.

Innovation breakthroughs

With the fever to create the next generation of power, scientists from around the country have been devising new ways to take the pressure off fossil fuel dependency and create manageable systems to improve nuclear reactors across the board.

Early on in the year, machinists at Idaho National Laboratory successfully built a full-scale prototype to support DOE's MARVEL (Microreactor Applications Research Validation and EvaLuation) project.

The prototype is one of the largest components ever machined at the lab and will be used to help validate the project's final microreactor design, which could be operational as early as 2025.

In research and development, Southern Company Services and TerraPower designed and installed a new test facility in Washington. This new facility, the Integrated Effects Test facility, is the largest chloride salt system in the world for nuclear energy and will be used to develop the team's molten chloride fast reactor technology.

Essentially, it is a new way to generate nuclear energy, and it appears very promising.

Next, the Argonne National Laboratory added a new capability to support the testing of liquid metal fast reactor components.

Dubbed the Thermal Hydraulic Experimental Test Article, it was installed at the lab's Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop facility to provide high-resolution and high-quality data that can be used to develop computer codes to support the licensing of liquid-metal fast reactor designs.

In June, DOE also established a new Distinguished Early-Career program to enable the best early-career faculty in nuclear energy to conduct innovative research in support of the Office of Nuclear Energy Missions.

Finally, in a win on the international scale, two big agreements unfolded in the fall, with the U.S., France, and Canada announcing plans to increase nuclear capacity in Romania – in the hopes of boosting clean energy production and energy security throughout the region, and then the monumental announcement of Poland selecting the U.S. and Westinghouse Electric Company for the first part of the country's $40 billion nuclear project.

Greatest energy breakthrough

In perhaps the greatest accomplishment in potential nuclear energy, a technology touted as the gateway to limitless free energy and the premise for countless utopic settings, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved the first fusion ignition and attained scientific energy breakeven for the first time in history.

Since the advent of nuclear power, it has been quite a simple thing to split an atom, thus creating the iterations we see today through nuclear fission.

However, replicating the process which powers the Sun has been a tad bit more challenging. Nevertheless, on Monday, Dec. 5, the team at the National Ignition Facility successfully ignited a stable fusion reaction, delivering more than 2 million joules through 192 laser beams into a tiny fuel pellet; the result, nearly double the input.

"The pursuit of fusion ignition in the laboratory is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever tackled by humanity, and achieving it is a triumph of science, engineering, and most of all, people," said Kim Budil, director at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. "Crossing this threshold is the vision that has driven 60 years of dedicated pursuit – a continual process of learning, building, expanding knowledge and capability, and then finding ways to overcome the new challenges that emerged."

You can read the incredible announcement at A historic day for clean fusion energy in the December 14, 2022 edition of Metal Tech News.