美国国会通过旨在重振美国核电发展的法案，只待拜登签字生效。此项法案为美国有史以来最大清洁能源法案，规模将超越2022年通过的气候法案（降低通货膨胀法案）。一直认为导致西方核电发展缓慢的是官僚主义和过时的政策，而不是很多朋友以为的技术、资源等因素，这次全球核电发展要彻底放开了！
法案原文：网页链接{2024-06-18【核电】法案原文：加速部署多用途、先进的清洁能源核能（ADVANCE Act）}
以下是谷歌翻译的新闻，供大家参考：
参议院周二晚间几乎一致通过了一项重要法案，旨在扭转美国核工业数十年来的衰退，并掀起反应堆建设热潮，以满足国内对绿色电力的激增需求，并赶上蓬勃发展的海外竞争对手。
该法案大幅削减了核管理委员会向开发商收取的费用，加快了新反应堆的许可和关键员工的招聘流程，并指示该机构与外国监管机构合作，为美国出口打开大门。
NRC 还负责重写其使命宣言，以避免不必要地限制“核能技术对社会的益处”，本质上是重新解释其存在的理由，包括保护公众免受不使用原子能的危险以及反应堆本身带来的安全威胁。
“这是一项里程碑式的成就，”美国核学会公共政策主任约翰·斯塔基 (John Starkey) 说，该学会是一个由学者和行业专业人士组成的非营利组织，旨在为公众利益倡导原子能技术。
他说，NRC“现在是 21 世纪的监管机构”。
“这已经酝酿很久了，”斯塔基说。
上个月，众议院以 365 票对 36 票通过了其版本的法案，即 ADVANCE 法案，这是两党在清洁能源问题上罕见的团结表现。除了两位参议员——伯尼·桑德斯 (I-Vt.) 和埃德·马基 (D-Mass.)——之外，其他人都在周二的投票中支持该法案或弃权，最终票数为 88 票对 2 票。该提案现在将提交白宫，总统乔·拜登几乎肯定会签署成为法律。
它被广泛认为是自总统具有里程碑意义的 2022 年通胀削减法案以来通过的最重要的清洁能源立法。
“共和党和民主党都认识到，开发新的核技术对美国的能源安全和我们的环境至关重要，”该法案的主要发起人、参议员雪莱·摩尔·卡皮托 (R-W.Va.) 周二晚上在参议院发言时表示。“今天，核能提供了我们国家约 20% 的电力。重要的是，这是无排放的电力，一年 365 天，每天 24 小时不间断。”
众议员 Frank Pallone Jr. (新泽西州民主党) 和 Diana DeGette (科罗拉多州民主党) 与众议院能源和商业委员会的资深共和党同事发表联合声明，称该法案是“我们核监管框架急需的现代化”。
20 世纪 50 年代，美国在发展核能方面处于世界领先地位，并继续建造了迄今为止规模最大的发电厂群，其中 110 多座反应堆提供了美国五分之一以上的电力。但随着 20 世纪 70 年代电力需求增长放缓以及公众对辐射问题的担忧加剧，公用事业公司难以承担建造新反应堆的高昂成本。
随着气候变化对核能大量生产的低碳电力产生了新的重视，美国在 21 世纪初寻求重启其反应堆计划。但就在首创项目的成本膨胀到数十亿美元时，美国出现了钻探热潮，增加了国内廉价天然气的供应。再加上来自海外的廉价风力涡轮机和太阳能电池板，美国核电公司失去了供电合同。结果，过去十年有十多座反应堆关闭，只建造了两座新反应堆。
这对反应堆上个月刚刚在佐治亚州的 Alvin W. Vogtle 发电厂投入使用，耗资超过 300 亿美元。随着费用的增加，在该国其他地方建造同类反应堆的其他项目被取消。
时机再糟糕不过了。在完成第一座反应堆后，第二座反应堆的成本要低得多，投入使用的速度也更快。但灾难性的发射打消了其他公用事业公司投资第三座反应堆的念头，经济学家表示，现在供应链、设计和劳动力都已建立，投资第三座反应堆所需的时间和金钱将更少。
现在，两座新反应堆已将所谓的沃格特尔电厂变成了美国最强大的发电站，全天候提供足够的清洁电力为 100 多万户家庭供电，但目前已不再有类似的反应堆在建。
“尽管沃格特尔 3 号和 4 号反应堆非常成功，但我们应该问自己一个问题，为什么我们没有为从这两座反应堆发展到另外 20 座反应堆奠定基础？” 6 月 17 日，联邦所有的田纳西流域管理局公用事业公司的首席执行官杰夫·莱什在拉斯维加斯举行的行业会议小组讨论中说道。“我们为什么要坐在这里试图弄清楚这个问题？这就是我们必须回答的问题。”
虽然《加速部署多功能先进核能用于清洁能源法案》（ADVANCE）可能不能解决所有问题，但它将通过放宽 NRC 对第二、第三和第四台机组的监管，使在同一地点建造多座反应堆变得更加容易。
能源政策集团 ClearPath 国际和核政策总经理 Nicholas McMurray 表示：“这项跨党派政策为公司开始为第二个项目和第三个项目建立订单簿并最终让 NRC 准备好每年颁发数十个许可证奠定了基础。”
核工业还有很长的路要走，才能筹集到建造新反应堆所需的资金和施工人员，速度和效率与中国、俄罗斯或阿拉伯联合酋长国相当。但一次签订多个订单，并让在同一地点更容易获得多座反应堆的许可，可能会对最终建造下一个大型反应堆（如在佐治亚州完成的反应堆）的公司有所帮助。然而，核能法案是专门为推动目前美国尚未投入商业生产的反应堆类型而制定的。
几乎所有全球商业反应堆都是利用不稳定铀原子分裂释放的热量将水变成蒸汽，推动发电机中的涡轮机旋转，从而发电。较新的设计旨在使用液态金属或高温气体作为冷却剂，使反应堆能够使用不同类型的燃料，产生更少的放射性废物，并且在比传统核电站更多的环境中运行。
为了表彰这些所谓的第四代反应堆模型的独特用途，该法案将授权能源部向首批实现特定目标的公司提供财务奖励，例如使用由回收的核废料制成的燃料或产生可用于除发电以外的其他用途的热量。
该法案还将赋予 NRC 权力，以比联邦政府通常更快、更高的价格雇用关键员工，使该机构能够更直接地与私营公司竞争员工。
这项立法标志着国会自 1974 年时任总统理查德·尼克松签署成立 NRC 并解散原子能委员会的法律以来对美国核法规做出的最大改变，该委员会被认为过于宣传其监管的行业。
1982 年颁布的一项法律为美国处理核废料的方式奠定了基础。2005 年的一项法规增加了新的安全措施，并投入资金用于研究反应堆。2019 年，国会通过了一项法案，指示 NRC 更新其对新型技术的方法。
随后，在 2022 年，拜登签署了具有历史意义的基础设施支出法案，该法案拨款数十亿美元用于测试、重启和运行核反应堆，包括重新开放因财务原因而关闭的核电站。
但《先进核能法案》中的条款旨在鼓励公用事业公司批量订购和建造新反应堆，分析人士表示，此举将有助于降低成本，并使美国核能技术再次与俄罗斯和中国具有竞争力。
“这对我们的气候、经济和能源安全目标来说是一个巨大的胜利，”能源集团 Breakthrough Energy 的政策经理 Farah Benahmed 说道，该集团得到了亿万富翁比尔盖茨的支持。
但这只是第一步。完整的立法取决于国会增加对 NRC 的资助，以弥补许可费收入的损失，帮助该机构为预期的大量申请做好准备，并资助更多的海外外交使团。
该法案的支持者认为，这项立法对于使美国在与俄罗斯和中国竞争建造首批反应堆的竞赛中具有至关重要的意义，这些反应堆将建在加纳、菲律宾和沙特阿拉伯等新加入的国家。尽管寻求海外交易的美国公司向 NRC 支付的费用历来用于资助官员的海外旅行，但该立法赋予该机构明确的授权，即在国外寻找帮助盟国采用美国监管策略的方法。
该法案的批评者表示，它有可能输出较差的安全做法。
“毫无疑问：这并不是为了让核反应堆许可程序更加高效，而是要削弱整个行业的安全监督，而这正是长期以来的行业目标，”监督机构忧思科学家联盟的核电安全主管埃德温·莱曼在一份声明中表示。
“这项立法的通过只会增加核设施下风处居民遭受严重事故或恐怖袭击的危险，并使社区更难以阻止在其周围建造危险的实验性反应堆。”
参议院多数党领袖查克·舒默 (Chuck Schumer) (纽约州民主党) 周二在支持该法案的发言中表示，该法案将“支持就业增长、清洁能源和领导力，同时维护 NRC 的基本”安全使命。
在拉斯维加斯举行的美国核学会会议上，南方公司首席执行官克里斯·沃马克 (Chris Womack) 警告说，任何未来的项目仍然取决于联邦政府提供更多的资金和财政支持。沃马克的公用事业巨头在佐治亚州建造了这两座新反应堆。
“克里斯，我听到你说的是，我们需要的不仅仅是我们提出的这些，这很难听，因为我们已经提出了数十亿的资金，”能源部长詹妮弗·格兰霍姆 (Jennifer Granholm) 回应道。“我不知道你认为的必要资金和实际建设所需的资金之间的差距有多大。”
在小组讨论结束时，当被问及美国何时计划建造下一座大型反应堆时，格兰霍姆、沃马克和田纳西河谷管理局的莱阿什都表示，将在未来几年内公布消息。
与此同时，其中一座新型先进反应堆终于破土动工。
上周，盖茨飞往怀俄明州，参加 TerraPower 初创公司在一家煤电厂建造的第一座液盐冷却反应堆的奠基仪式。《先进核能法案》为如何将煤电站改造成核电站的研究提供资金，并支持批量建造“第四代”反应堆，可能会对这一项目有所帮助。
TerraPower 最初计划在中国建造第一座反应堆，目前中国建造的反应堆数量比其他国家都多，有望在十年内超越美国。由于美国于 2019 年对北京实施贸易限制，盖茨的公司取消了该计划。
中国于 12 月击败 TerraPower，启动了世界上第一座商用第四代反应堆——根据最近的一项研究，现在“在部署该技术的能力上可能比美国领先 10 到 15 年”。
原文：
The Senate voted nearly unanimously Tuesday evening to pass major legislation designed to reverse the American nuclear industry’s decades-long decline and launch a reactor-building spree to meet surging demand for green electricity at home and to catch up with booming rivals overseas.
The bill slashes the fees the Nuclear Regulatory Commission charges developers, speeds up the process for licensing new reactors and hiring key staff, and directs the agency to work with foreign regulators to open doors for U.S. exports.
The NRC is also tasked with rewriting its mission statement to avoid unnecessarily limiting the “benefits of nuclear energy technology to society,” essentially reinterpreting its raison d’être to include protecting the public against the dangers of not using atomic power in addition to whatever safety threat reactors themselves pose.
“It’s monumental,” said John Starkey, the director of public policy at the American Nuclear Society, a nonprofit of academics and industry professionals that advocates for atomic technology in the public interest.
The NRC, he said, “is a 21st century regulator now.”
“This has been a long time coming,” Starkey said.
In a rare show of bipartisan unity on clean energy, the House of Representatives voted 365 to 36 last month to pass its version of the legislation, called the ADVANCE Act. All but two senators — Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) — supported the bill in Tuesday’s vote or abstained, with a final tally of 88-2. The proposal will now go to the White House, where President Joe Biden is all but certain to sign it into law.
It is widely considered the most significant clean-energy legislation to pass since the president’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
“Republicans and Democrats recognize the development of new nuclear technologies is critical to America’s energy security and our environment,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the bill’s lead sponsor, said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening. “Today, nuclear power provides about 20% of our nation’s electricity. Importantly, it’s emissions-free electricity that is 24/7, 365 days a year.”
In a joint statement with the ranking Republican colleagues on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) called the legislation a “much needed modernization of our nuclear regulatory framework.”
The U.S. led the world in developing nuclear energy in the 1950s and went on to build by far the largest fleet of power plants, with more than 110 reactors providing more than one-fifth of America’s electricity. But as growth in electricity demand slowed in the 1970s and public concern over radiation issues grew, utilities struggled to afford the high cost of building new reactors.
As climate change put a new premium on nuclear energy’s massive output of low-carbon electricity, the U.S. looked to restart its reactor program in the early 2000s. But right as the cost of first-of-a-kind projects ballooned into the billions of dollars, the U.S. saw a drilling boom that increased the domestic supply of cheap natural gas. Coupled with inexpensive wind turbines and solar panels from overseas, U.S. nuclear companies lost deals to supply power. As a result, more than a dozen reactors have shut down over the past decade and just two new reactors were built.
That pair of reactors, which just came online last month at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia, cost more than $30 billion. As the expenses mounted, other projects to build the same kind of reactor elsewhere in the country were canceled.
The timing could hardly have been worse. After completing the first reactor, the second one cost far less and came online faster. But the disastrous launch dissuaded any other utilities from investing in a third reactor, which economists say would take even less time and money now that the supply chains, design and workforce are established.
Now that the two new reactors have turned the so-called Plant Vogtle into America’s most powerful generating station, with enough 24/7 clean electricity to serve more than 1 million households, there are no more reactors of that kind in the pipeline.
“As successful as Vogtle 3 and 4 are ― and they’re incredibly successful ― we should ask ourselves the question, why didn’t we lay the groundwork to proceed from those two units to 20 more?” Jeff Lyash, the chief executive of the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority utility, said June 17 during a panel at an industry conference in Las Vegas. “Why are we sitting in this gap trying to figure this out? That’s the question we have to answer.”
Though it may not contain all the answers, the ADVANCE (Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy) Act would make it easier to build multiple reactors at the same site by easing NRC regulations on the second, third and fourth units.
“This bipartisan policy creates the framework for companies to start building that order book for a second project and a third project and ultimately get the NRC ready to license dozens per year,” said Nicholas McMurray, the managing director of international and nuclear policy at energy policy group ClearPath.
The nuclear industry has a long way to go to line up the financing and construction crews needed to build new reactors at the speed and efficiency seen in China, Russia or the United Arab Emirates. But lining up multiple orders at a time, and making it easier to permit more than one reactor at the same site, could be a help to whatever company ends up building the next large-scale reactor like the ones completed in Georgia. Yet the nuclear energy bill is specifically tailored to boost types of reactors that are not currently in commercial production in the U.S.
Virtually all commercial reactors around the world generate electricity by using heat released from splitting unstable uranium atoms to turn water into steam to spin turbines in a generator. Newer designs aim to use liquid metal or a high-temperature gas as a coolant instead, allowing reactors to run on different types of fuel that produce less radioactive waste and operate in more settings than a traditional nuclear plant.
In recognition of these so-called fourth-generation reactor models’ unique uses, the bill would authorize the Department of Energy to give out financial awards to the first companies to meet specific goals, such as using fuel made from recycled nuclear waste or generating heat that could be used for things other than electricity production.
The bill would also give the NRC power to hire key staffers more quickly and at higher rates than the federal government usually does, allowing the agency to compete more directly with private companies for employees.
The legislation marks the biggest change Congress has made to U.S. nuclear regulations since then-President Richard Nixon signed the 1974 law establishing the NRC and disbanding the Atomic Energy Commission, which was seen as too promotional of the industry it oversaw.
A law enacted in 1982 set the groundwork for how the U.S. deals with nuclear waste. A 2005 statute added new security measures and pumped money into researching reactors. In 2019, Congress passed a bill directing the NRC to update its approach to newer types of technologies.
Then, in 2022, Biden signed his historic infrastructure-spending laws that directed billions of dollars to test, restart and run nuclear reactors, including reopening plants that had been shut down for financial reasons.
But the provisions in the ADVANCE Act are designed to encourage utilities to order and build new reactors in bulk, a step analysts say will help lower the cost and make U.S. nuclear energy technology competitive with Russia and China again.
“This is a huge win for our climate, economic and energy security goals,” said Farah Benahmed, a policy manager at energy group Breakthrough Energy, which is backed by billionaire Bill Gates.
Yet it’s only a first step. The full legislation depends on Congress increasing funding to the NRC to make up for the lost revenue from licensing fees, help the agency staff up for an expected influx of applications and fund more diplomatic missions overseas.
The bill’s supporters have pitched the legislation as essential to making the U.S. competitive with Russia and China in the race to build the first reactors in newcomer countries such as Ghana, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia. Though the fees that U.S. companies pursuing deals abroad pay to the NRC have historically funded officials’ trips overseas, the legislation gives the agency a clear mandate to look abroad for ways to help allied countries adopt the American regulatory playbook.
Critics of the bill say it risks exporting poorer safety practices.
“Make no mistake: This is not about making the reactor licensing process more efficient, but about weakening safety and security oversight across the board, a longstanding industry goal,” Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the watchdog Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.
“Passage of this legislation will only increase the danger to people already living downwind of nuclear facilities from a severe accident or terrorist attack, and it will make it even more difficult for communities to prevent risky, experimental reactors from being sited in their midst.”
Speaking in support of the legislation Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the bill would “support job growth, clean energy and leadership while preserving the NRC’s fundamental” safety mission.
At the same American Nuclear Society conference in Las Vegas, Southern Co. CEO Chris Womack, whose utility giant built the two new reactors in Georgia, warned that any future projects still depend on the federal government providing more money and financial backing.
“What I hear you saying, Chris, is there needs to be more than what we’re putting on the table, and that’s hard to hear because we’ve just put billions and billions and billions on the table,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a fellow panelist, said in response. “I don’t know what the delta is between what you think is necessary and what it would actually take to build up.”
Asked at the end of the panel when the U.S. would see its next large-scale reactors planned, Granholm, Womack and the TVA’s Lyash all said announcements would come in the next few years.
Meanwhile, one of those new advanced reactors is finally breaking ground.
Last week, Gates flew to Wyoming for the groundbreaking of his TerraPower startup’s first liquid salt-cooled reactor at a coal plant. It’s the kind of thing that could be helped by the ADVANCE Act’s funding for research on how to turn coal stations into nuclear plants and by support for “fourth-generation” reactors in bulk.
erraPower had initially planned to build its first reactor in China, which is currently building more reactors faster than anyone else and is on pace to surpass the U.S. within a decade. Gates’ company canceled its plan as the U.S. slapped trade restrictions on Beijing in 2019.
Beating out TerraPower, China launched the world’s first commercial fourth-generation reactor in December ― and now, according to a recent study, “likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy” the technology.
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