High Temperature Reactor Research and Development Roadmap, Draft for Public Comment
- Idaho National Laboratory
Nuclear power provides clean, reliable energy, contributing about 20 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. It supplies approximately 60 percent of our non-greenhouse-gas emitting power, making it our nation’s single largest contributor of carbon-free electricity. This vital component of the U.S. energy portfolio avoids hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year and supports hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, and yet is facing unprecedented challenges. Complex market factors, falling alternative generation costs and lower electricity demand forecasts have made operating nuclear power plants uneconomical in some parts of the country. The industry is confronting premature shut downs, a lack of new plants in the pipeline, profound market challenges and intense financing requirements. However, none of these challenges reflect a reduced need for this reliable and clean source of baseload power. Our nation’s nuclear sector urgently needs to adjust to these challenges to ensure continued availability of this vital national energy resource. The Department of Energy and its national laboratories are aggressively working to revive, revitalize, and expand U.S. nuclear energy capacity. We are advancing nuclear energy technologies through targeted early-stage investments to ensure a strong domestic industry now and into the future. By leveraging public-private partnerships and the national laboratory system, we are developing an advanced nuclear infrastructure, encouraging a resilient supply chain, and promoting a strong nuclear pipeline. A key element of this effort is to support the recent and rapid expansion in innovative advanced reactor development already being led by the U.S. nuclear industry. Advanced reactors, particularly non-light water reactor concepts, offer the potential for significant improvements to safety, economics and environmental performance, to help sustain and expand the availability of nuclear power as a clean, reliable and secure power source for our nation. As part of this strategy, the Department of Energy commissioned the development of technology roadmaps for advanced non-light-water reactor concepts. The starting point for the roadmaps is the technical readiness assessment performed as part of an advanced test and demonstration reactor study released in 2016 [ ]. The roadmaps show the Research and Development (R&D) needed to support demonstration of advanced reactor concepts, for either engineering demonstration or commercial demonstration depending on concept maturity, by 2035. The starting point for the roadmaps is the technical readiness assessment performed as part of an advanced test and demonstration reactor study released in 2016. The roadmaps were developed based on a review of technical reports and vendor literature summarizing the technical maturity of each concept and the outstanding R&D needs. Tasks for specific systems were highlighted on the basis of time and resources needed to complete the tasks and the importance of the system to the performance of the reactor concept. The roadmaps are intended to be generic (i.e., not specific to a particular vendor’s design); however, features of the General Atomics Energy Multiplier Module were included to provide specific examples for illuminating needed R&D tasks to be conducted in support of demonstration in the near future.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1483620
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-17-41803-Rev003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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