Public Service Commission Chair Summer Strand says legislation that recently cleared the U.S. Senate will accelerate development of new nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors.
Speaking last week during a WisPolitics luncheon in Madison, Strand said “there is a lot of really exciting innovation, research and development happening” within the nuclear technology space. If I had it my way, it would be happening faster and be more readily available,” she said Thursday, noting European countries are already making progress on small modular reactors.
These nuclear fission reactors are much smaller and easier to construct than traditional nuclear power plants. Their generating capacity is about one-third the size of these installations, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and they can be deployed for various uses including power generation and industrial applications.
La Crosse’s Dairyland Power Cooperative in 2022 announced it was partnering with Oregon-based NuScale Power to explore the potential deployment of small modular reactor technology in the co-op’s energy mix.
The U.S. Senate last week passed legislation on a 88-2 vote that includes the ADVANCE Act, which stands for Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy. The bill previously passed the U.S. House of Representatives in May and now goes to President Joe Biden for approval.
It overhauls aspects of the approval process for new nuclear technologies, according to an overview from the American Nuclear Society.
Under the bill, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be directed to enhance preparedness and coordination to license advanced nuclear fuel, develop strategies and guidance for licensing and regulating “microreactors” and report to Congress on new nuclear energy projects, report on licensing and overseeing nuclear facilities at brownfield sites and more.
Strand noted the bipartisan bill has been worked on in Congress for more than a year, and will help direct additional funding to nuclear tech development.
Traditional nuclear fission plays a role in the state’s energy mix, with two reactors at the Point Beach plant supplying about 15% of the state’s annual net generation since 2013, when the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant shut down. Before then, those two plants accounted for about one-fifth of the state’s electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.