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Senate approves advanced nuclear R&D bill as House panel defends fusion project

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Senate approves advanced nuclear R&D bill as House panel defends fusion project

The U.S. Senate has passed legislation aimed at increasing collaboration on advanced nuclear research between the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the private sector. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans pushed back at the Trump administration's desire to cut U.S. funding for an international collaborative effort to build a fusion reactor.

In a March 7 voice vote, the full Senate approved the bipartisan Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, or S. 97, which seeks to strengthen public-private partnerships in advanced nuclear research and development.

Rich Powell, director of the conservative ClearPath Action Fund, said in a news release that the act is an important step in developing public-private partnerships that are needed to "traverse the dreaded valley of death that often stops groundbreaking nuclear innovation from becoming commercialized."

Sponsored by Sens. Michael Crapo, R.-Idaho; Sheldon Whitehouse, D.-R.I.; and Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Lisa Murkowski, R.-Alaska, the bill would authorize R&D testing of advanced reactor designs that utilize "fast neutrons." Such R&D capabilities are currently only available for civilian use in Russia, according to ClearPath.

In addition, S. 97 would direct the DOE to prioritize public-private partnerships for testing and demonstrating advanced reactor concepts, as well as authorize the creation of a "National Reactor Innovation Center" to pool the technical expertise of DOE national labs and construct demonstration reactors. Finally, the bill would help expedite the licensing of advanced reactor designs by the NRC as part of this public-private collaboration.

Senate approval of legislation to accelerate advanced nuclear commercialization comes amid the Trump administration's fiscal-year 2019 budget proposal to cut funding for the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy by $259 million. President Donald Trump's budget plan also seeks to eliminate both loan programs for clean energy technologies and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program, which funds R&D for new energy technologies, including "walkaway-safe" reactors.

In the House, Rep. Randy Weber, R.-Texas, has introduced a companion version of the bill, H.R. 431, that is backed by the House Science, Space and Technology Committee leaders. In a previous version, Weber's bill passed the full House as H.R. 589 in January 2017.

Trump's budget cuts on nuclear R&D extend to the global arena with a proposal to scale back the U.S.'s contribution to an international collaborative effort to build a nuclear fusion reactor in France. The Trump budget proposal allocates $75 million, and not the $213 million that committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R.-Texas, said in his opening remarks is needed to keep the fusion project on track.

At a House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee hearing on March 6, both Democrats and Republicans derided the Trump administration's proposal to underfund by $138 million America's commitment to pay for one-eleventh of the costs of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER. Launched in 1985, the U.S. is building the ITER alongside the European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

"Reduced annual funding will only delay ITER instruments being built here in the U.S. and cause construction delays that increase overall project cost," Smith said "To maintain our competitive advantage as a world leader in science, we must meet our international commitments and continue to support the research that will lead to next generation energy technologies."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R.-Calif., voiced skepticism over spending more money on the 50-year quest to produce power at scale from nuclear fusion.

"I'd love to believe in the dream of fusion energy," said Rohrabacher. "And it's possible that we will get there but we know with the expenditure of that kind of money that we've spent on fusion energy, we could have developed fission energy alternatives that are for sure — not just computer models."

Rohrabacher is not alone in his opposition. Numerous times in recent years, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R.-Tenn., as chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development, sought to cut funding for ITER and end U.S. participation as well. Alexander's state is home to the American ITER research team at the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.