Pollack also reported on July 24, 2021 that Senator Barrasso is also a co-sponsor of the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act, which was introduced last November and reintroduced last week by a bipartisan group that also included Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Cory Booker (D-NJ). The bill would subsidize the existing U.S. nuclear fleet, expand workforce training, promote research into advanced nuclear technologies and accelerate the development of new facilities, like the Natrium reactor headed to one of Wyoming’s retiring coal plants.
“Because nuclear energy reliably powers homes and businesses and provides half of our nation’s carbon-dioxide free energy, nuclear remains a bipartisan priority on the [Environment and Public Works] Committee,” ranking member Capito said in a statement. The plan to keep existing facilities operating has drawn criticism from environmental groups concerned about reactors’ environmental justice implications and the relatively high costs of nuclear power generation compared with other electricity sources.
“In essence, the argument that’s being made here is that taxpayers should pay twice: Once now to keep aging, uneconomic reactors online, and again when these units need to be replaced with clean renewables,” Ross, from Friends of the Earth, said. “Why delay the inevitable? Why pay twice?”
The proposal also aims to limit importation of uranium from Russia and China, which currently supply nearly all of the fuel used in U.S. nuclear reactors, and establish a domestic uranium supply chain — a target that could be an economic boon to Wyoming if achieved.
“Wyoming has long fueled our nation’s nuclear power plants and we want to keep it that way,” Barrasso said in a statement. But the domestic uranium industry faces a number of obstacles. Environmental regulations make uranium costlier to produce in the U.S. than in Russia or China. And though uranium must be enriched before it can be used as fuel, there is virtually no domestic enrichment capacity, so uranium mined in the U.S. is shipped out of the country for processing, [but see (here) and (here)].
With many reactors already struggling to compete with cheaper sources of electricity, nuclear plants’ operators can’t — or won’t — pay extra for domestic fuel when they can import it for less. Mark Doelger, a registered professional geologist and president of B & H Geologists, had hoped a strategic uranium reserve proposed by the previous version of the bill might reverse the industry’s decades-long decline. But, he said, even a strategic reserve might not be enough.
In the original bill, “there were no details as to price and amount of uranium that would be stockpiled,” Doegler said. “So if the price was low and the production was low, or the purchase of reserves was low, then the impact would be low. And I was skeptical that there would be a high impact.”
The version of the bill reintroduced last week no longer includes a strategic reserve. Doegler thinks that’s bad news for the U.S. uranium industry, [but the potential remains (more)].
“I really don’t know what incentives could allow us to compete against state bonds or state-subsidized mines owned by Russia and China. I don’t think there’s enough margin in the United States taxes and regulation that would allow us to effectively compete,” he said.
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