Kotek states ANS position on energy legislation
ANS member John Kotek testified before the House Committee on Science; Subcommittee on Energy on Thursday, June 14, in support of H.R. 1679. His statement, on behalf of ANS, emphasized the excellent nuclear power plant performance record, the safety performance record, improved economic performance and urged them to move forward with the geologic repository program.
Testimony for the Record
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Science; Subcommittee on Energy
Delivered by Mr. John F. Kotek
Co-Chairman, Public Policy Committee
on behalf of
Dr. James A. Lake
President
American Nuclear Society
June 14, 2001
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Science; Subcommittee on Energy
Delivered by Mr. John F. Kotek
Co-Chairman, Public Policy Committee
on behalf of
Dr. James A. Lake
President
American Nuclear Society
June 14, 2001
INTRODUCTION
My name is John Kotek. I am the Co-Chairman of the Public Policy Committee of the American Nuclear Society (ANS). It is an honor for me to provide your Committee with the views of ANS on nuclear energy legislation that has been introduced in the House.
The American Nuclear Society is a not-for-profit, international, scientific and technical organization with more than 11,000 members representing scientists, engineers, educators, managers and regulators in the broad field of nuclear science and technology. Our membership includes more than 750 students from 32 universities, and approximately 1,000 international members from 40 countries. The Society's membership is geographically distributed in 52 domestic and 9 international local sections and 23 branches at nuclear power plants across the Nation.
The Society's main objective is to promote the advancement of engineering and science related to the atomic nucleus, and of allied sciences and arts. We serve our member's professional needs in their efforts to develop and safely apply nuclear science and technology for the public benefit primarily through technical and knowledge exchange, professional development services, and enhanced public information and understanding of nuclear science and technology matters. We do this through a broad portfolio of technical divisions ranging from reactor physics and mathematics & computation, to nuclear and criticality safety, and operations & power, among others. The Society sponsors national and international technical meetings, publishes Journals, Standards, and the Nuclear News magazine, sponsors scholarships in nuclear science and engineering, and conducts teacher workshops and other public information activities.
ADDRESSING CONCERNS ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY
The release of the Administration's proposed National Energy Policy has propelled nuclear energy back into the spotlight as an option for meeting increasing U.S. energy demands. We owe this newfound appreciation for nuclear power to the fact that nuclear power plants are performing at record levels. The 103 U.S. nuclear power reactors generated over 750 billion kWhrs of electricity in 2000 (about 20% of the total U.S. electricity generation) at generation costs that were lower than for coal, and substantially lower than for natural gas and oil.
Despite this exemplary performance, there are opponents to the continued use of nuclear power who believe that nuclear energy is an unsafe, unreliable, and uneconomic technology that generates wastes for which there is no safe solution. I would like to discuss these concerns and explain how they can be resolved and how the two bills which have been introduced will help.
SAFETY
The safety of nuclear power plants is of the utmost importance to ANS. Some will try to tell you that increasing competition will cause industry to skirt safety rules in an attempt to get more and more electricity out of their plants. In fact, the industry has learned that safety and reliability, and thus economic performance, go hand-in-hand.
A quick review of the nuclear industry's performance indicators will show you what utility executives learned years ago - the more safely their plants are run, the more often they run. For example, Unusual Events reported to the NRC have declined in the last decade from nearly 200/year to less than 20 in 2000. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. nuclear plants routinely experience no unplanned automatic shutdowns, and the industrial safety record in the U.S. nuclear industry is nearly 10 times better than that of the total U.S. industrial sector. In this context, we are finding strong public support for continued operation of U.S. nuclear power plants, and growing support for building new plants.
ANS believes that H.R. 1679 will contribute to the safety and reliability of nuclear energy in three principal ways. The first way is by expanding the Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization (NEPO) program. This program, cost-shared with industry, transfers DOE technologies and develops new technologies to improve the operation of existing nuclear power plants. Second, H.R. 1679 supports the NERI and Generation IV programs, which will lead to the design of a next generation of nuclear energy systems that are even safer and more reliable than today's extremely safe and reliable plants. In fact, a goal of the Generation IV program is to develop nuclear power plant designs that will eliminate the need for offsite emergency response in case of an accident. The third way is by allowing the NRC to conduct the research necessary to effectively license and oversee the operation of a next generation of nuclear power plants.
Additionally, both H.R. 1679 and H.R. 2126 will help safety by expanding support for nuclear engineering education to ensure an adequate supply of nuclear-trained professionals is available to operate and maintain existing nuclear plants and design and build a next generation of nuclear plants. The existing educational infrastructure is in dire need of increased federal support, and both of these bills will meet that need.
ECONOMICS
As for the concern that nuclear power plants are uneconomic, it is important to keep in mind that once built, nuclear power plants have been demonstrated to be among the lowest cost electricity producers. Nuclear power is thriving in the newly deregulated marketplace, with a healthy business developing around the purchase of some of the existing nuclear plants by large nuclear generating companies who can operate them cheaper in future markets. The mistaken image of nuclear power as uneconomical is proven to be far from true, and the Government=s investment in the development of nuclear power technology has produced an economical, safe and environmentally clean electricity generator that can play an increasingly important domestic and worldwide role in the future. As proof of this improved economic performance, in the year 2000, nuclear generation costs were lower than those for coal, natural gas, and oil.
The major economic issue for nuclear power is the capital cost of new construction. The challenge facing the industry is to design and build new nuclear power plants at a significantly lower cost than the plants that came on line in the 1980's and '90's.
ANS believes that the economic challenge is a challenge that can be met. For the near term, utilities are performing their own economic analyses to determine if they should build new plants based on available designs (such as Advanced Light Water Reactors and the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor) or complete partially constructed plants. Nuclear power plant vendors are reviewing their designs to determine how they can simplify those designs and incorporate advanced construction techniques to lower construction costs. H.R. 1679 will help these near-term efforts by studying the feasibility of completing partially-built plants, helping demonstrate untested NRC licensing processes for new plants, renewing the Price Anderson Amendments Act, and by increasing funding for the NERI program.
For the long-term, research under the NERI and Generation IV programs could lead to the development of nuclear plants that are less complex, simpler to build and operate, and thus more economic. H.R. 1679 will accelerate these R&D efforts, and both bills will ensure an adequate supply of nuclear-trained professionals is available to design and construct these next-generation plants.
WASTE
With regard to the final concern about long-lived nuclear waste, ANS believes that deep geologic disposal is a technically acceptable solution. We urge the Congress and the Administration to move forward with the geologic repository program.
As we discuss the topic of nuclear waste, it is important to remember that the natural uranium that is mined from the ground to produce nuclear fuel is radioactive, as are many other things all around us. It is an oversimplification to infer that spent fuel is a problem simply because it is radioactive and will remain so for a long time.
As stated earlier, deep geologic disposal is a technically acceptable way to keep the radioactive constituents in spent fuel from causing unacceptable harm to humans or the environment. However, technologies are under development that would allow most or all of the long-lived constituents of spent fuel to be recycled for use in advanced nuclear energy systems. Such advancements in nuclear waste management would further reduce the burden on the repository and simplify the management of the radioactive waste products requiring disposal.
The two bills will help us develop new approaches to management of spent nuclear fuel. Programs supported in H.R. 1679, such as the Generation IV program, the Proliferation-Resistant Recycle R&D program, and Advanced Accelerator Applications, as well as creation of an Office of Spent Fuel Research in DOE, will help us explore even better ways of managing spent nuclear fuel.
NUCLEAR ENERGY IS A VIABLE OPTION TO MEET FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS
Our Nation therefore has a very viable nuclear option for clean, economical electricity generation. However, for nuclear energy to achieve its full potential as a sustainable, long-term energy resource with large-scale domestic and global deployment, we must seek to improve the technology in the following four areas:
The economic performance of nuclear power must continue to improve in an increasingly deregulated electricity market. Whereas the current generating cost is relatively low for nuclear electricity from the existing plants whose investment costs have been paid off, substantial improvements are required in capital cost and construction time for new nuclear power plants to compete in future U.S. markets. New plant designs, including designs that produce not just electricity but clean-burning hydrogen and other energy products, should be developed.
The safety performance of nuclear power plants must continue to improve in order to satisfy the very demanding expectations of the American public.
Nuclear wastes must be managed safely and cost effectively, and the back-end fuel cycle issues must be resolved. This goes well beyond resolution of the U.S. spent fuel repository issues, and includes the minimization of future wastes from the nuclear fuel cycle and the development of the fuel cycle of the future that will be sustainable from an economic and fuel supply standpoint, as well as from a social and environmental perspective.
Nuclear power technology, as it is deployed around the world, needs to evolve toward more and more proliferation-resistant systems that will assure that nuclear materials from the commercial fuel cycle are not usable for weapons purposes.
ANS members are concerned about the continuing lack of an adequate level of investment by the U.S. Government in the critical nuclear energy, science and technology programs that are required to improve the technology and assure the continued benefits of clean, affordable nuclear power for American taxpayers. H.R. 1647 and H.R. 2126 will go a long way toward re-establishing the level of federal support warranted to take full advantage of the benefits of nuclear energy.
THE ROLE OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IN NUCLEAR R&D
Whereas the U.S. nuclear industry is responsible for the cost-effective and safe operations of nuclear power plants, our Government plays an important role in supporting long-term, high-risk R&D to improve the technology. The Government is further responsible for supporting the broad educational enterprise and stimulating the flow of new scientists and engineers into the nuclear enterprise.
The Government has three primary interests in nuclear energy, science and technology. First, trained manpower and state-of-the-art technology are vital to carrying out Government nuclear operations, including those related to national security and environmental cleanup. It is in the national interest that the Government support those public and private institutions that provide us the bulk of our nuclear-trained professionals.
Second, the Government desires to exercise world leadership in nuclear matters through technical and other means that require involvement in international R&D programs. This is an approach that was proven effective through the Atoms for Peace era, but was discarded over the past decade in favor of a head-in-the-sand approach to world nuclear matters. We must return to the Atoms for Peace approach -- rather than deny developing countries nuclear energy technology, we believe it is more effective to share nuclear energy technology with these countries and thus strongly influence the direction their nuclear programs take. All countries, including developing countries, will act in their own interests with or without U.S. involvement. We should work with them.
Third, the Government has a broad responsibility to assure adequate, affordable and clean energy supplies, and to assure that nuclear power remains a viable option for future deployment. In this regard, a balanced energy R&D portfolio is needed that should include investments in the development of future technology based upon merit and potential for contribution to America's future energy security and environmental quality needs. The R&D component of the proposed fiscal year 2002 nuclear energy budget by the DOE is less than $40M, a one-third reduction from the 2001 budget. This amount is far less than the investment in other energy technologies, and, from ANS' viewpoint, inadequate to support these mission needs. The two bills being reviewed today will restore funding for nuclear energy R&D and nuclear engineering education to far more appropriate levels.
SPECIFIC ANS RECOMMENDATIONS
ANS supports the levels of funding recommended in these two bills for nuclear R&D programs. Below is a chart which outlines our recommendations.
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The ANS-Supported Budget Recommendation for nuclear energy R&D is substantially higher than the DOE FY-2002 budget request |
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Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology Research and Development |
FY-2001 Appropriation ($1000) |
FY-2002 Request ($1000) |
ANS-Recommended FY-2002 Budget ($1000) |
| Nuclear Energy Research Initiative | 34,826 | 18,079 | 60,000 |
| University Research Support | 11,974 | 11,974 | 30,200 |
| Generation IV (Nuclear Energy Technologies) | 7,483 | 4,500 | 50,000 |
CLOSING SUMMARY
This is a critical juncture for nuclear energy, which stands on the threshold of making a substantial contribution to future U.S. and world needs for abundant, clean, and affordable energy. Major research and development and university infrastructure support needs exist that are not adequately addressed in the fiscal year 2002 budget request. Congressional leadership will once again be required to adequately support the development of new nuclear energy technologies and the training of young engineers and scientists in order to realize the full potential of nuclear energy for future generations.
ANS believes that if nuclear energy is a part of our energy policy, cleaner air, a stronger economy, and increased national security will follow. Accordingly, we fully support both H.R. 1679 and H.R. 2126.
Thank you for the opportunity to present the views of the American Nuclear Society. I would be happy to respond to any questions that you may have.
