Bill to Expand U.S. Nuclear Power Capacity Heads to Biden’s Desk After Senate Vote

An energy bill focused on expanding nuclear power in the U.S. cleared the Senate this week with an 88-2 vote; it’s expected to be signed by President Joe Biden. 

The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act, or ADVANCE, which previously passed with bipartisan support in the House in May, would incentivize creating and deploying new nuclear reactor technologies and reduce costs for companies who want to license such technologies.

The act is meant to expand nuclear-energy production in the U.S. Two new nuclear reactors have become operational in Georgia in the last year, but many more reactors across the nation have closed in the last decade. The expansion of nuclear-energy capacity in the U.S. is also seen as a way of countering carbon emissions.

This act also promotes the export of these technologies to other countries and the “faster, cheaper and smarter” building of nuclear reactors, according to Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. 

“With the president’s signature, the ADVANCE Act will become the law of the land and lay the foundation for the safe and successful deployment of the next generation of advanced reactors in the coming decades,” Carper said.

The nuclear-power industry has had a well-known advocate recently: Bill Gates has been involved with a new plant that just broke ground in Wyoming through his company TerraPower. The site will start producing power in 2030.