To modernize the industry, nuclear power is making the transition toward smaller reactors. But a report from Taxpayers for Common Sense claims federal subsidies to help the industry along are a losing bet.

According to the group, the Department of Energy has spent more than $1.2 billion on small modular reactors, and could spend another $5.5 billion over the next decade to develop and demonstrate the new design.

Michael Maragos, senior policy analyst of energy and natural resources with Taxpayers for Common Sense, said there are a slew of supports for the nuclear industry up and down the supply chain.

"But the nuclear power industry is, by and large, struggling," said Maragos. "So there's this large dichotomy between what policymakers have hoped would happen through all of the various costly incentives and what is actually happening on the ground."

Part of the push to develop new technology in the nuclear industry is an effort to decarbonize power grids. Nuclear power is seen as a key source of clean energy in this transition.

The company NuScale Power is developing its small modular reactor technology at Idaho National Laboratory and has received federal investments. The Department of Energy did not respond to a request for comment before the deadline for this story.

The Idaho National Laboratory will be the site of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems's Carbon Free Power Project. Current plans for the project consist of 12 small reactors that supply power to cities in six states, including Idaho.

However, Maragos noted that appetite could be waning for this project, which is targeting 2029 to go operational. Salmon River Electric in Challis has pulled out of the project and Idaho Falls has halved its commitment.

"We already see a number of towns that are supposedly going to be the ones benefiting from this brand-spanking new type of nuclear reactor shying away from the project," said Maragos. "And the reason is simple. It's going to cost a lot, probably more than we're expecting now, and ratepayers are going to be on the hook."

Maragos said the rate of federal subsidies for nuclear is unsustainable, noting money to transition the country to a cleaner economy would be better spent on technology such as solar and wind, which are cheaper to deploy.

"Nuclear power may provide some benefits in a world where we're trying to limit emissions from our power sector," said Maragos. "But those benefits are not worth the tremendous cost and risk that policymakers are asking ratepayers and taxpayers to bear."

The U.S. Department of Energy has opened a short public-comment window on an experimental nuclear technology in Idaho.

The agency has released a draft environmental assessment for testing of what's known as "molten chloride fast reactor" technology at the Idaho National Laboratory. The technology is from TerraPower, a company owned by Bill Gates that is developing nuclear reactor designs.

Leigh Ford, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, is critical of the experiment, saying it won't benefit Idaho.

"First, nuclear energy is too slow and expensive to help with the climate crisis," she said. "The environmental assessment says that maybe 10 jobs will be created, but we're not sure if those people are from Idaho or not. And third, the waste created from this experiment will stay in Idaho."

Ford said the technology uses highly enriched uranium, which presents proliferation fears. She also said the assessment doesn't properly address impacts to ground and surface water in eastern Idaho. The Energy Department has said it's committed to reviving and expanding domestic nuclear energy to help the United States reach its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Ford pointed out that the agency is giving the public a total of two weeks to react to this draft assessment.

"Fourteen days is not enough time for folks to digest this document, let alone make meaningful comments," she said. "Not to mention, we have a large rural population in Idaho that may not use email, may not have the greatest connectivity, may not be able to access this document online."

The public comment period began March 17. People have until March 31 to submit their thoughts on the assessment.

A film premiering this week tackles the potential harms of the nuclear industry.

Portland State University professor emeritus Jan Haaken directed the documentary "Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance."

The film draws on historical lessons from the campaign to shut down the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon. The plant closed in 1992.

Haaken said the nuclear industry is promoting a new design concept known as small modular reactors, or SMRs. Her initial interest in SMRs was about how the industry would handle waste.

"Many of us were very attuned to the fossil fuel problem," said Haaken, "but not so much nuclear that had kind of repackaged itself as clean, cheap and promising."

Haaken said her film also focuses on areas beyond waste - such as claims the new technology is safer even as the industry pushes to streamline the regulatory process, its financial viability, and risks of proliferation.

The film premieres Sunday in Portland and also includes a speakers panel.

Executive Director of Columbia Riverkeeper, Lauren Goldberg, said the nuclear industry has positioned the sector as a solution to climate change. But she noted that experts aren't convinced the technology can be deployed fast enough to combat the crisis.

Goldberg said the industry has its eye on the Northwest, although a proposal for SMR technology at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington was withdrawn last week.

"For example, in the case of the proposed SMR at Hanford," said Goldberg, "the waste would have just sat along the Columbia for an unspecified amount of time, potentially hundreds of years or more. That's been what's happened with other now-defunct nuclear facilities."

Haaken said nuclear technology that has not been completely fleshed out is not a good bet for the country's energy future.

"I would put my money on renewables and engineers that are trying to figure out the grid problem and ways of developing conservation," said Haaken. "Rethinking our approach to energy with the technologies we have."

A bill to block a nuclear waste storage facility in southeast New Mexico is being watched closely by opponents of the project.

Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, has long argued against a proposal by Holtec International to build what the company calls a "temporary" storage site there for spent nuclear rods. Hancock favors the bill, even though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already recommended a license be issued for Holtec's project.

"What the Senate Bill 53 does is to say the state will not issue those permits," Hancock explained. "The federal license is necessary, but it's not sufficient for the facility to actually operate."

The bill said no permits will be issued unless state officials support the idea, and the federal government has identified a permanent disposal site. City and county leaders from Carlsbad and Hobbs recruited Holtec to propose the nuclear waste storage facility, and believe it would be safe and provide local jobs.

The nuclear waste would be transported from the East Coast via railroad, a system almost entirely privately owned and operated. Even before the toxic Ohio derailment last month, states were urging federal regulators to take more oversight action of the railways, this year introducing more than a dozen bills.

Hancock believes there are too many unknowns and unresolved technical issues to safely transport such a large volume of waste.

"I think a lot of railroad companies would be very hesitant to transport this," Hancock asserted. "If you're Norfolk, the railroad in Ohio, with all of these cars on this big train with chemicals, do you also want to put two or three cars of nuclear fuel on that train? I doubt it."

As far back as 2008, Nevada's Yucca Mountain was designated as the site for the nuclear waste repository now proposed for New Mexico, but strong state and regional opposition eventually killed the proposal.

Last year, the Western Governors Association passed a resolution demanding the federal government require host states to support such projects before they can be built.


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