The "Nuclear Power 2010 Program" was launched in 2002 by President George W. Bush in 2002, 13 months after the beginning of his presidency, in order to restart orders for nuclear power reactors in the U.S. by providing subsidies for a handful of Generation III+ demonstration plants. The expectation was that these plants would come online by 2010, but it was not met. In March 2017, the leading nuclear-plant maker, Westinghouse Electric Company, filed for bankruptcy due to losing over $9 billion in construction losses from working on two nuclear plants. This loss was partly caused by safety concerns due to the Fukushima disaster, Germany's Energiewende, the growth of solar and wind power, and low natural gas prices.

Overview

The "Nuclear Power 2010 Program" was unveiled by the U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham on February 14, 2002 as one means towards addressing the expected need for new power plants. The program was a joint government/industry cost-shared effort to identify sites for new

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces ...

s, to develop and bring to market advanced nuclear plant technologies, evaluate the business case for building new nuclear power plants, and demonstrate untested regulatory processes leading to an industry decision in the next few years to seek

Nuclear Regulatory Commission The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began opera ...

(NRC) approval to build and operate at least one new advanced nuclear power plant in the United States. Three consortia responded in 2004 to the U.S. Department of Energy's solicitation under the Nuclear Power 2010 initiative and were awarded matching funds. *The

Dominion The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...

-led consortium includes General Electric ( GE) Energy, Hitachi America, and Bechtel Corporation, and has selected General Electric's Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (

ESBWR The Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) is a passively safe generation III+ reactor design derived from its predecessor, the Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (SBWR) and from the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). All are desi ...

, a passively safe version of the

BWR A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is a design different from a Soviet graphite-moderated RBMK. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuc ...

). *The NuStart Energy Development, LLC consortium consists of

DTE Energy DTE Energy (formerly Detroit Edison until 1996) is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services in the United States and Canada. Its operating units include an elec ...

Duke Energy Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Overview Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...

EDF EDF may refer to: Organisations * Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association * Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity * Électricité de France, a French energy company ** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary ** EDF Luminus ...

International North America, Entergy Nuclear, Exelon Generation, Florida Power & Light Co., Progress Energy, SCANA Corporation,

Southern Company Southern Company is an American gas and electric utility holding company based in the southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with executive offices also located in Birmingham, Alabama. The company is the second larg ...

, GE Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority ( TVA), and Westinghouse Electric Company and has chosen the General Electric Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) and the Westinghouse Advanced Passive 1000 ( AP1000, a PWR) reactor as candidates. The NuStart consortium was disbanded on 30 June 2012. *The third consortium, led by TVA, includes General Electric,

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

, USEC Inc., Global Fuel-Americas, and Bechtel Power Corp., and will develop a feasibility study for a TVA site based on the General Electric Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). On September 22, 2005, NuStart selected Port Gibson (the Grand Gulf site) and Scottsboro (the Bellefonte site) for new nuclear units. Port Gibson should host an

(a passively safe version of the

) and Scottsboro an AP1000 (a passively safe version of the PWR). Entergy announced to prepare its own proposal for the River Bend Station in St. Francisville. Also, Constellation Energy of Baltimore had withdrawn its Lusby and Oswego sites from the NuStart finalist list after on September 15 announcing a new joint venture, UniStar Nuclear, with

Areva Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...

to offer EPR (European Pressurized Reactors) in the U.S.A. Finally, in October, 2005, Progress Energy Inc announced it was considering constructing a new nuclear plant and had begun evaluating potential sites in central Florida. South Carolina Electric & Gas announced on February 10, 2006 that it chose Westinghouse for a plant to be built at the V.C. Summer plant in

Jenkinsville, South Carolina Jenkinsville is an incorporated town in western Fairfield County, South Carolina, United States, between the Broad and the Little rivers. It is located east of Monticello Reservoir and is near the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station. Also ...

NRG Energy NRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company, headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was formerly the wholesale arm of Northern States Power Company (NSP), which became Xcel Energy, but became independent in 2000. NRG Energy is involved in en ...

announced in June 2006 that it would explore building two ABWRs at the South Texas Project. Four ABWRs were already operating in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

at that time. The original goal of bringing two new reactors online by 2010 was missed, and "of more than two dozen projects that were considered, only two showed signs of progress and even this progress was uncertain". As of March 2017, the

Plant Vogtle The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, also known as Plant Vogtle (), is a two-unit nuclear power plant located in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia, in the southeastern United States. It is named after a former Alabama Power and ...

and Vigil C. Summer plants (a total of four reactors) in the

southeastern U.S. The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...

that have been under construction since the late 2000s have been left to an unknown fate.

Energy Policy Act of 2005

The

Energy Policy Act of 2005 The Energy Policy Act of 2005 () is a federal law signed by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The act, described by proponents as an attempt to combat growing energy probl ...

, signed by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, has a number of articles related to

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

, and three specifically to the 2010 Program. First, the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act was extended to cover private and Department of Energy plants and activities licensed through 2025. Also, the government would cover cost overruns due to regulatory delays, up to $500 million each for the first two new nuclear reactors, and half of the overruns due to such delays (up to $250 million each) for the next four reactors. Delays in construction due to vastly increased regulation were a primary cause of the high cost of some earlier plants. Finally, "A production tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 6,000 megawatt-hours from new nuclear power plants for the first eight years of their operation, subject to a $125 million annual limit. The production tax credit places nuclear energy on an equal footing with other sources of emission-free power, including wind and closed-loop biomass." The Act also funds a

Next Generation Nuclear Plant A Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) is a specific proposed generation IV very-high-temperature reactor (VHTR) that could be coupled to a neighboring hydrogen production facility. It could also produce electricity and supply process heat. Up to ...

project at

INEEL Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. While the laboratory does other research, historically it has been involved with nu ...

to produce both

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...

and

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...

. This plant will be a DOE project and does not fall under the 2010 Program.

Recent developments

Between 2007 and 2009, 13 companies applied to the

for construction and operating licenses to build 25 new

reactors in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. However, the case for widespread nuclear plant construction was eroded due to abundant natural gas supplies, slow electricity demand growth in a weak U.S. economy (

Financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of ...

), lack of financing, and uncertainty following the

Fukushima nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 ...

2011 in Japan after a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

. Many license applications for proposed new reactors were suspended or cancelled.Eileen O'Grady
Entergy says nuclear remains costly
''Reuters'', May 25, 2010. Only a few new reactors will enter service by 2020. These will not be cheaper than coal or natural gas, but they are an attractive investment for utilities because the government mandated that taxpayers pay for construction in advance. In 2013, four aging reactors were permanently closed due to the stringent requirements of the NRC and actions by local politicians.

Notes

External links

DOE Program Page
* *{{Cite web , url=http://www.thedailysentinel.com/story.lasso?ewcd=583b0a060f9c3f71 , title=News Article , access-date=2005-07-18 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070809043614/http://www.thedailysentinel.com/story.lasso?ewcd=583b0a060f9c3f71 , archive-date=2007-08-09 , url-status=dead

Nuclear technology Nuclear power in the United States 2002 in the United States

Overview

Energy Policy Act of 2005

Recent developments

See also

Notes

External links