Hearing of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee - Department of Energy Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Waste

Interview

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REP. KEN CALVERT (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm also new on the committee, so I have some issues that I'd just like to bring up with Mr. Spurgeon.

What follow-up program are you planning after the nuclear power in 2010? Would you provide for a record or a summary of a new Idaho National Laboratory electric power research institute plan for light water reactor R&D?

MR. SPURGEON: Yes, sir. We have a number of things that we're looking at that might not only provide for additional safety work on light water reactors but get to the point of can we and what do we have to do in order to extend -- potentially extend the life of our existing light water reactor fleet beyond 60 years. And so that's a key to that. As my staff knows, I always joke that that's my number one priority is life after 60.

REP. CALVERT: What impact has the recent 2008 National Academy of Sciences review of the Office of Nuclear Energy had on your -- how your office operates today?

MR. SPURGEON: Well, I have to say for the most part we find a great deal to agree with in terms of the report of the National Academy of Sciences, first of all. They were very supportive that the Nuclear Power 2010 program should be fully funded, and if you will notice in this budget request that we have, we are fully funding our Nuclear Power 2010 program.

The second basic issue that they had was that we need to make sure for our advanced research and development programs that they do proceed in a stepwise fashion, and we totally support that. You need to go from bench scale to engineering scale to prototype scale prior to getting to a large-scale plant for implementation. I think there was a little bit of confusion about our -- when we talk about needing to go to commercial scale, we were not talking about jumping over for advanced technologies going to commercial scale. We were talking about the ability to take what is available internationally and make minor variations of that in order to get started with things like recycle in the near-term time frame while we're at the same time proceeding in a stepwise fashion to develop the fast reactors and the advanced recycle processes that we would look to for the ultimate implementation of the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative concept.

REP. CALVERT: Finally, I don't know if you have the answer to this, but when do you think that a license to build a nuclear reactor is going to be -- new nuclear reactor in this country? Do you think there'll be a license issued before the end of this administration?

MR. SPURGEON: There are currently nine combined operating licenses that have been submitted by nuclear plant operators to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that would cover some 15 plants. Those are already submitted, and we're looking at perhaps 10 more being submitted in this year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's announced schedule for the first of these combined operating license applications is a 42-month schedule. So we're talking about three and a half years from the time these were submitted, and we had -- you know, as I say, we've had nine of them submitted this year. We certainly hope, and that is our whole intention, that after the first ones go through the process that those that follow can basically reference the first ones for each individual reactor technology such that that time can be shortened substantially.

REP. CALVERT: I guess just for the committee's edification, when do you think that the soonest we could possibly see a new nuclear reactor being built within the United States?

MR. SPURGEON: And go into operation, sir, is that --

REP. CALVERT: Yes, sir.

MR. SPURGEON: 2015.

REP. CALVERT: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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