Biden-Harris Administration Establishes Bold U.S. Government Targets for Safely and Responsibly Expanding U.S. Nuclear Energy and Announces Framework for Action to Achieve these Targets
Since Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic action to tackle climate change and invest in America. The Administration has pursued the most ambitious clean energy agenda in our nation’s history and has taken key steps to ensure that nuclear energy is poised to play a key role in the clean energy transition. Nuclear power currently delivers about 20% of the nation’s electricity and half of America’s carbon-free power in a safe, clean, reliable, and affordable way to communities across the country. Nuclear power plants also support local economies through sustained, high-paying jobs and contributions to the tax base to help ensure that communities are not left behind by the United States’ transition to clean energy. Increased investment in the safe and responsible deployment of nuclear energy and associated supply chains will strengthen our national security, increase energy reliability and resilience, grow America’s economy, and restore American leadership and global competitiveness in this critical industry. The U.S. government is supporting the responsible deployment of domestic nuclear energy in a manner that considers all communities and advances core values and commitments on public health, safety, environmental protection, environmental justice, meaningful community engagement, community benefits, energy affordability, and Tribal sovereignty.
That’s why the Biden-Harris Administration is establishing domestic nuclear energy deployment targets as part of an ambitious, first-of-its-kind framework outlining actions that the U.S. government can take to safely and responsibly expand nuclear energy capacity in the United States.
As outlined in this framework, the United States will aim to deploy 200 GW of net new nuclear energy capacity by 2050, at least tripling current U.S. capacity. The net new capacity gains are anticipated to come from multiple sources, including building new nuclear power plants, uprating existing reactors, and restarting reactors that have retired for economic reasons.
Achieving this long-term target will be enabled by achieving the following nearer term targets:
- Jumpstarting the nuclear energy deployment ecosystemwith 35 GW of new capacity by 2035 that will be operating or under construction in the United States.
- Accelerating the capability of the nuclear energy deployment ecosystem by ramping to a sustained pace of producing 15 GW per year in the United States by 2040, in support of both U.S. and global project deployments.
These targets reflect ambitious but achievable goals to serve as a call to action for the nuclear energy industry and signal that the U.S. government is working and will continue to work to facilitate the safe and responsible deployment of nuclear energy and related infrastructure and job creation. The targets aim to restore and exceed the U.S. nuclear energy industry’s deployment capacity decades ago. Achieving these targets into a new era of nuclear energy deployment will require active collaboration among all public and private stakeholders in the domestic and international nuclear power sector. Expanding U.S. nuclear energy capacity in accordance with these targets will:
- Generate hundreds of thousands of sustainable, good-paying jobs in the United States;
- Strengthen domestic nuclear energy supply chains and American manufacturing;
- Enhance energy reliability, grid resilience, and affordability
- Support the goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050; and
- Reinforce American leadership and global competitiveness in nuclear energy technology and innovation.
The framework establishes a set of guiding principles for successfully scaling up nuclear energy in the United States in a manner that advances core values and commitments, including ensuring public health and safety protecting the environment, ensuring energy affordability, meaningfully engaging with communities and delivering local community benefits, honoring Tribal sovereignty, advancing environmental justice, and promoting national security.
The Biden-Harris Administration’s framework for safely and responsibly expanding nuclear energy builds on existing efforts across the Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Defense, and other agencies by outlining actions that the U.S. government can take, within existing statutory authorities to expand nuclear energy, in collaboration with the private sector and power customers. This framework outlines over 30 specific actions across nine key pillars:
- Building new large, gigawatt-scale reactors
- Building small modular reactors (SMRs)
- Building microreactors
- Extending and expanding existing reactors, through license renewals, power uprates, and restarting recently retired reactors
- Improving licensing and permitting
- Developing the workforce
- Developing component supply chains
- Developing fuel cycle supply chains
- Managing spent nuclear fuel
Recognizing the urgency of acting to combat the climate crisis, as well as the economic and national security benefits of investing in a broad scope of American climate solutions, the U.S. government is working to responsibly deploy domestic nuclear energy in line with our core values. At the same time, the framework recognizes the importance of tackling the harms of past domestic nuclear programs, including by investing in and prioritizing the cleanup of abandoned uranium mine waste in local communities and on Tribal lands. To help achieve these objectives and inform implementation of this Framework, the Administration is launching Tribal consultation and will issue a Request for Information seeking public comment.
This is a critical moment for American nuclear energy. By acting with urgency and purpose, we can achieve a safe, clean, reliable, and affordable electricity system to power our homes, businesses, and industries while tackling the climate crisis and investing in America’s future.
The full framework can be found here.
###
