Overview
Nuclear power has reliably and economically contributed almost 20% of electrical generation in the United States over the past two decades. It remains the single largest contributor (more than 70%) of non-greenhouse-gas-emitting electric power generation in the United States.
Background
Domestic demand for electrical energy is expected to continue growing at an average rate of 1.0 percent per year. The oldest commercial plants in the United States reached their 40th anniversary in 2009. By the year 2030, most currently operating nuclear power plants will begin reaching the end of their 60 year operating licenses. If current operating nuclear power plants do not operate beyond 60 years, the total fraction of generated electrical energy from nuclear power will begin to decline—even with the expected addition of new nuclear generating capacity.
Light Water Reactor Sustainability R&D Program
The Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) R&D program is focused on three goals:
- Developing the fundamental scientific basis to understand, predict, and measure changes in materials, systems, structures, and components as they age in environments associated with continued long-term operations of existing reactors,
- Applying this fundamental knowledge to develop and demonstrate methods and technologies that support safe and economical long-term operation of existing reactors, and
- Researching new technologies to address enhanced plant performance, economics, and safety.
The existing U.S. nuclear fleet has a remarkable safety and performance record. Extending the operating lifetimes of current plants beyond 60 years and, where possible, making further improvements in their productivity will generate early benefits from research, development, and demonstration investments in nuclear power. DOE has partnered with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Electric Power Research Institute to conduct the long-term research needed to inform major component refurbishment and replacement strategies, performance enhancements, plant license extensions, and age-related regulatory oversight decisions. The DOE research, development, and demonstration role will focus on aging phenomena and issues that require long-term research and are generic to reactor type. Cost-shared demonstration activities will be conducted when appropriate.
The following five R&D pathways have been identified:
(1) Nuclear Materials Aging and Degradation. Research to develop the scientific basis for understanding and predicting long-term environmental degradation behavior of materials in nuclear power plants. Provide data and methods to assess performance of systems, structures, and components essential to safe and sustained nuclear power plant operation.
(2) Advanced LWR Nuclear Fuel Development. Improve scientific knowledge basis for understanding and predicting fundamental nuclear fuel and cladding performance in nuclear power plants. Apply this information to development of high-performance, high burn-up fuels with improved safety, cladding integrity, and improved nuclear fuel cycle economics.
(3) Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Systems Technologies. Address long-term aging and obsolescence of instrumentation and control technologies and develop and test new information and control technologies. Develop advanced condition monitoring technologies for more automated and reliable plant operation.
(4) Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization. Bring together risk-informed, performance-based methodologies with scientific understanding of critical phenomenological conditions and deterministic predictions of nuclear power plant performance, leading to an integrated characterization of public safety margins in an optimization of nuclear safety, plant performance, and long-term asset management.
(5) Economics and Efficiency Improvement. Improve economics and efficiency of the current fleet of reactors while maintaining excellent safety performance. Develop methodologies and scientific basis to enable additional extended power uprates. Improve thermal efficiency by developing advanced cooling technologies to minimize water usage. Study the feasibility of expanding the current fleet into nonelectric applications.
