I must have missed Mark Holt's 20 October 2021 update of this CRS report: 'Nuclear Energy: Overview of Congressional Issues'.
Download CRS_Report_Nuclear_Energy_Overview_Congressional_Issues_ 20Oct2021
Summary
The policy debate over the role of nuclear power in the nation’s energy mix is rooted in the technology’s fundamental characteristics. Nuclear reactors can produce potentially vast amounts of useful energy with relatively low consumption of natural resources and emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. However, facilities that produce nuclear fuel for civilian power reactors can also produce materials for nuclear weapons. In addition, the process of nuclear fission (splitting of atomic nuclei) to generate power produces radioactive material that can remain hazardous for thousands of years and must be contained. How to manage the weapons proliferation and safety risks of nuclear power, or whether the benefits of nuclear power are worth those risks, are issues that have long been debated in Congress.
The 93 licensed nuclear power reactors at 55 sites in the United States generate about 20% of the nation’s electricity. Two new reactors are currently under construction. About a dozen more are planned, but with no specific construction dates. Whether they will eventually move forward will depend largely on their economic competitiveness with natural gas and renewable energy sources. Similar economic forces are affecting existing reactors. Twelve U.S. reactors were permanently closed from 2013 through April 2021, and three more are planned for closure through the mid-2020s. However, several states have taken action to prevent planned reactor shutdowns, and several proposals to support existing reactors are pending in the 117th Congress as well.
The Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies for decades have conducted research on “advanced” reactor technologies, such as fast neutron reactors, that would differ significantly from existing commercial nuclear plants and potentially be far smaller. Proponents of advanced reactors contend that they would be safer, more efficient, and less expensive to build and operate than today’s conventional light water reactors. DOE is providing support for several proposed advanced reactor demonstrations, which could indicate whether the anticipated benefits can be realized.
Highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel that is regularly removed from nuclear reactors is currently stored primarily at power plant sites. Development of a permanent underground repository at Yucca Mountain, NV, was suspended by the Obama Administration. The Trump Administration requested funding for FY2018, FY2019, and FY2020 to revive the program, but it was not approved by Congress. No Yucca Mountain program funding was requested or provided for FY2021, and the Biden Administration did not request any for FY2022.
The Obama Administration had appointed the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future to recommend an alternative approach to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act’s focus on Yucca Mountain for permanent high-level waste disposal. In response to the commission’s recommendations, DOE issued a waste strategy in January 2013 that called for the selection of new candidate sites for nuclear waste storage and disposal facilities through a “consent-based” process. However, Congress has not enacted legislation for such a strategy, so Yucca Mountain remains the sole authorized candidate site, despite its lack of funding.
The March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan increased attention to nuclear safety throughout the world. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which issues and enforces nuclear safety requirements, established a task force to identify lessons from Fukushima applicable to U.S. reactors. The task force’s report led to NRC’s first Fukushima-related regulatory requirements on March 12, 2012. Several other countries, such as Germany and Japan, eliminated or reduced their planned future reliance on nuclear power after the accident.
The level of security that must be provided at nuclear power plants has been a high-profile issue since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. Since those attacks, NRC issued a series of orders and regulations that substantially increased nuclear plant security requirements, although industry critics contend that those measures are still insufficient.
Encouraging exports of U.S. civilian nuclear products, services, and technology while making sure they are not used for foreign nuclear weapons programs has long been a fundamental goal of U.S. nuclear energy policy. Recent proposals to build nuclear power plants in several countries in the less developed world, including the Middle East, have prompted concerns that international controls may prove inadequate.
Synthesis of Key IssuesThe long-running policy debate over the future of nuclear energy is rooted in the technology’s inherent characteristics. Initially developed for its unprecedented destructive power during World War II, nuclear energy seemed to hold equal promise after the war as a way of providing limitless energy to all humanity. International diplomacy has focused ever since on finding institutional mechanisms for spreading the perceived benefits of nuclear energy throughout the world while preventing the technology from being used for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Much of this international effort is focused on key nuclear fuel cycle facilities—plants for enriching uranium in the fissile isotope U-235 and for separating plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. Such plants can be used to produce civilian nuclear reactor fuel as well as fissile material for nuclear warheads.Yet even the use of nuclear power solely for peaceful energy production has proven intrinsically controversial. The harnessing of nuclear fission in a reactor creates highly radioactive materials that must be kept from overheating and escaping from the reactor building, as occurred during the accidents at Fukushima, Chernobyl, and, to a lesser extent, Three Mile Island. Spent nuclear fuel that is regularly removed from reactors during refueling must be isolated from the environment for up to 1 million years. Proposed commercial technologies to reduce long-lived nuclear waste through recycling usually involve separating plutonium that possibly could be used for nuclear weapons, although technologies designed to reduce proliferation risks are also the subject of worldwide research and development efforts. All nuclear energy technologies, even with recycling, would still leave substantial amounts of radioactive waste to be stored and disposed of. Central storage and disposal sites for nuclear waste have proven difficult to develop throughout the world, as illustrated by the long-running controversy over the proposed U.S. waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV.
The March 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which forced the evacuation of areas as far as 30 miles away, has slowed nuclear power expansion plans around the world, particularly in Japan and Western Europe. However, dozens of new reactors are still being planned and built in China, India, Russia, and elsewhere. In these areas, nuclear power’s initial promise of generating large amounts of electricity without the need for often-imported fossil fuels, along with the more recent desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, remains a compelling motivation.
With 93 licensed reactors, the United States has the largest nuclear power industry in the world. But U.S. nuclear power growth has been largely stagnant for the past two decades, as natural gas and renewable energy have captured most of the market for new electric generating capacity and improvements in energy efficiency have slowed electricity demand growth. Congress enacted incentives for new nuclear plants in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58), including production tax credits, loan guarantees, and insurance against regulatory delays. Those incentives, combined with rising natural gas prices and concerns about federal restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions, prompted announcements by late 2009 of up to 30 new nuclear power reactors in the United States. However, subsequent declines in natural gas prices and uncertainty about carbondioxide controls have put most of those projects on hold. Currently, two new reactors in Georgia are under construction. Two identical reactors under construction in South Carolina were canceled July 31, 2017. The Georgia and South Carolina projects both experienced large cost overruns and schedule delays. An older reactor, Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee, received an NRC operating license on October 22, 2015, after construction had been suspended for two decades and then completed. A variety of incentives to renew the growth of nuclear power have been proposed.
Existing U.S. nuclear power plants are continuing to face difficult competition from natural gas and renewable energy. Twelve U.S. reactors were permanently closed from 2013 through April 2021. Three of those units closed because of the need for expensive repairs, three were retired under agreements with state utility regulators, and six could not compete in their regional wholesale electricity markets. The most recent shutdowns were New Jersey’s Oyster Creek plant in September 2018,4 Pilgrim (MA) in May 2019, Three Mile Island (PA) in October 2019, Indian Point 2 (NY) in April 2020, Duane Arnold (IA) in August 2020, and Indian Point 3 in April 2021. All 12 units had substantial time remaining on their initial 40-year operating licenses or had received or planned to apply for 20-year license extensions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Three additional reactors are currently scheduled for permanent closure by the mid-2020s (Table 1). The actual and planned shutdowns have prompted widespread discussion about the future of other aging U.S. reactors and proposals for federal assistance. Action taken by states has forestalled the announced shutdowns of 20 other U.S. reactors during the past five years, and additional subsidies are currently under consideration in the 117th Congress.
The extent to which the growth of nuclear power should be encouraged in the United States and around the world will continue to be a major component of the U.S. energy policy debate. Questions for Congress will include the implementation of policies to encourage or discourage nuclear power, post-Fukushima safety standards, development of new nuclear power and fuel cycle technologies, and nuclear waste management strategies.
Time to cut to the chase:
Selected Congressional Action—117th Congress
Iran Nuclear Treaty Act (S. 2031, Johnson)
Declares that any agreement reached by the President regarding Iran’s nuclear program shall be a treaty subject to Senate advice and consent. Introduced June 10, 2021; referred to Committee on Foreign Relations.
Stopping Activities Underpinning Development In Weapons of Mass Destruction (SAUDI WMD) Act (S. 1146, Markey)
Prohibits U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia if Saudi Arabia imports nuclear technology without adopting the Additional Protocol for international nuclear facility inspections and reached a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. Introduced April 15, 2021; referred to Committee on Foreign Relations.
Strengthening American Nuclear Competitiveness Act (H.R. 1748, Bill Johnson)
Expedites DOE review of certain nuclear technology exports, enables increased investment in U.S. nuclear technology by American allies, and modifies licensing requirements for new nonelectric uses of nuclear energy and for improved manufacturing techniques. Introduced March 10, 2021; referred to Committees on Energy and Commerce and Foreign Affairs.
Iran Nuclear Deal Advice and Consent Act of 2021 (H.R. 1479, Barr)
Prohibits federal funds to be used for rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action unless the Biden Administration commits to submitting any JCPOA successor to the Senate as a treaty rather than as an international agreement. Introduced March 2, 2021; referred to Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding United States arms transfers to Saudi Arabia (H.Res. 175, Trone)
Calls on the U.S. Government to rescind nuclear technology transfer authorizations and “cease significant nuclear cooperation” with Saudi Arabia until Saudi Arabia signs a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States that guarantees that the Saudi nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes and prohibits uranium enrichment and plutonium separation, among other provisions. Introduced February 26, 2021; referred to Committee on Foreign Affairs and sequentially to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Iran Diplomacy Act of 2021 (S. 434, Markey)
Declares it to be U.S. policy that the United States and Iran “should promptly return to full compliance with all of their commitments under the JCPOA,” among other provisions. Introduced February 24, 2021; referred to Committee on Foreign Relations.
Iran Nuclear Verification Act (H.R. 1203, McClain)
Prohibits the United States from becoming a party to the JCPOA or any other nuclear agreement with Iran until United Nations inspectors are allowed full access to all Iranian nuclear facilities and have completed a comprehensive report on those facilities. Introduced February 22, 2021; referred to Committee on Foreign Affairs.
116th Congress
Expressing the sense of Congress that any United States-Saudi Arabia civilian nuclear cooperation agreement must prohibit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or separating plutonium on its own territory, in keeping with the strongest possible nonproliferation “gold standard” (S.Con.Res. 2, Merkley/H.Con.Res. 23, Andy Levin)
Would have expressed the sense of Congress that a 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia should prohibit uranium enrichment and plutonium separation in Saudi territory and require Saudi acceptance of the Additional Protocol for nuclear facility inspections. Senate resolution introduced February 12, 2019; referred to Committee on Foreign Relations. House resolution introduced February 28, 2019; referred to Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Saudi Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 2019 (H.R. 1471, Sherman/S. 612, Markey)
Would have established additional criteria for any 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia and prohibited such an agreement from taking effect without enactment of a joint resolution of Congress. Both bills introduced February 28, 2018. House bill referred to Committee on Foreign Affairs; Senate bill referred to Committee on Foreign Relations.
Preventing Nuclear Proliferation in Saudi Arabia Act of 2019 (S. 2338, Van Hollen)
Would have prohibited the U.S. Export-Import Bank from financing nuclear exports to Saudi Arabia unless Saudi Arabia signs the Additional Protocol and commits not to enrich uranium or separate plutonium in its territory. Introduced July 30, 2019; referred to Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Hearing: Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Iran Policy
Hearing by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism, June 19, 2019, with the U.S. Special Representative for Iran. Video can be found at https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/6/oversight-of-the-trump-administration-s-iran-policy.
Hearing: An Examination of U.S.-Iran Policy
Hearing by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 16, 2019, with the U.S. Special Representative for Iran. Video and testimony can be found at https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/an-examination-of-us-iran-policy.
CRS Reports
CRS Report R41910, Nuclear Energy Cooperation with Foreign Countries: Issues for Congress, by Paul K. Kerr, Mary Beth D. Nikitin, and Mark Holt
CRS Report RS22937, Nuclear Cooperation with Other Countries: A Primer, by Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth D. Nikitin
CRS Report RL33192, U.S.-China Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, by Mark Holt, Mary Beth D. Nikitin, and Paul K. Kerr
CRS Report R44942, U.S. Decision to Cease Implementing the Iran Nuclear Agreement, by Kenneth Katzman, Paul K. Kerr, and Valerie Heitshusen
CRS In Focus IF10799, Prospects for Enhanced U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Energy Cooperation, by Christopher M. Blanchard and Paul K. Kerr
Other References
Nuclear Nonproliferation, Government Accountability Office, Key Issues website, https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/nuclear_nonproliferation/issue_summary
Nuclear Cooperation Agreements, Nuclear Energy Institute website, https://www.nei.org/advocacy/compete-globally/nuclear-cooperation-agreements.
The Nonproliferation Gold Standard: The New Normal?, Arms Control Association, October 2019, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-10/features/nonproliferation-gold-standard-new-normal
Abstinence or Tolerance: Managing Nuclear Ambitions in Saudi Arabia, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2018, https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2121/f/downloads/TWQ_Summer2018_MillerVolpe.pdf
Avoiding a Nuclear Wild, Wild West in the Middle East, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Working Paper 1801, April 2018, http://npolicy.org/Articles/1801/1801.pdf
The Case for a Pause in Reprocessing in East Asia: Economic Aspects, Nuclear Threat Initiative, August 9, 2016, http://www.nti.org/analysis/reports/case-pause-reprocessing-east-asiaeconomic-aspects/
Enjoy!
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