NEI Nuclear Notes

The nuclear energy industry is encouraged by the news that the preliminary budget for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) includes funding to both re-start licensing activities for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and initiate a robust interim storage program. We’re committed to working with Congress and the administration to put the used fuel management program back on its feet.  Until the government is meeting its legal obligation to accept the fuel, the industry will continue to safely and securely store it at our facilities. On the other hand, the budget blueprint has energy innovators nervous. As the administration and Congress establish funding levels they need to remember that DOE programs historically have supported public-private partnerships to bring nuclear technologies to market because of the benefits the nation enjoys from a strong domestic nuclear energy industry. Reducing the nuclear energy research budget now would send a signal around the world th...

This week the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) held its third annual energy innovation summit in Washington, D.C., to discuss the future of energy technologies in the U.S. marketplace. Among the impressive lineup of speakers was a notable nuclear energy advocate Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft and of the nuclear startup company TerraPower . Although I wasn’t able to attend the conference in person (I found out too late—bummer!), I followed along on Twitter using the #eis12 hashtag to see what nuggets were said about the future of energy. In a panel with Secretary Chu , Gates said that research and development for energy technologies is “greatly underfunded.” "People underestimate how far away we are," Gates said. "That's partly why we can end up underfunding the innovative work that needs to go on." Boosting funding for research doesn't guarantee that there will be a technological breakthrough, but it does improve the chances of...