The policy
debate over the role of nuclear power in the nation’s energy mix is rooted in
the technology’s fundamental characteristics. Nuclear reactors can produce
potentially vast amounts of energy with relatively low consumption of natural
resources and emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. However,
facilities that produce nuclear fuel for civilian power reactors can also
produce materials for nuclear weapons. The process of nuclear fission
(splitting of atomic nuclei) to generate power also results in the production
of radioactive material that must be contained in the reactor and can remain
hazardous for thousands of years. How to manage the weapons proliferation and
safety risks of nuclear power, or whether the benefits of nuclear power are
worth those risks, are issues that have long been debated in Congress.
The 104
licensed nuclear power reactors at 65 sites in the United States generate about
20% of the nation’s electricity. Five new reactors are currently under construction.
About a dozen more are planned, but whether they move forward will depend
largely on their economic competitiveness with natural gas and coal plants.
Throughout the world, 435 reactors are currently in service, and 67 more are
under construction.
The March 2011
disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan increased attention
to nuclear safety throughout the world. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC),
which issues and enforces nuclear safety requirements, established a task force
to identify lessons from Fukushima applicable to U.S. reactors. The task force’s
report led to NRC’s first Fukushima-related regulatory requirements on March
12, 2012. Several other countries, such as Germany and Japan, eliminated or
reduced their planned future reliance on nuclear power after the accident.
Highly
radioactive spent nuclear fuel that is regularly removed from nuclear power
plants is currently stored at plant sites in the United States. Plans for a
permanent underground repository at Yucca Mountain, NV, were abandoned by the
Obama Administration, although that decision is being challenged in court. The
Obama Administration appointed the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear
Future to recommend an alternative nuclear waste policy. In response to the Commission’s
recommendations, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued a new waste strategy in
January 2013 that calls for the selection of new candidate sites for nuclear
waste storage and disposal facilities through a “consent based” process and for
a surface storage pilot facility to open by 2021.
The level of
security that must be provided at nuclear power plants has been a high-profile
issue since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. Since
those attacks, NRC issued a series of orders and regulations that substantially
increased nuclear plant security requirements, although industry critics
contend that those measures are still insufficient.
Encouraging
exports of U.S. civilian nuclear products, services, and technology while
making sure they are not used for foreign nuclear weapons programs has long
been a fundamental goal of U.S. nuclear energy policy. Recent proposals to
build nuclear power plants in several countries in the less developed world,
including the Middle East, have prompted concerns that international controls
may prove inadequate.
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