CEAC-2021-02-February

Energy Department: Idaho Top Choice
for New Test Reactor By Keith Ridler | Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho is the top choice for the first new
nuclear test reactor in the country in decades, the U.S. Department
of Energy recently said.
The agency released a draft environmental impact statement
naming the Idaho National Laboratory as its preferred site
for the proposed Versatile Test Reactor, or VTR.
Officials say the reactor is needed to help revamp the nation’s
fading nuclear power industry and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by developing safer fuel and power plants.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is an alternative
for the new reactor if further study finds the Idaho
site doesn’t work.
The Energy Department, in an apparent inadvertent tweet,
recently said that Idaho was the agency’s top choice for the
reactor ahead of Tennessee. U.S. Republican Sen. Jim Risch
amplified the tweet with a congratulatory retweet, and the
Energy Department later confirmed to The Associated Press
in an email that Idaho was its top choice.
The release of the draft environmental impact statement
began a formal process with public involvement. After the
Energy Department took public comments on the draft document
for several weeks, the next step is issuing a final environmental
impact statement and a formal decision selecting
the site, expected sometime in 2021. Plans call for building
the reactor by the end of 2025.
“The VTR will help ensure that (the Energy Department)
and our industry partners can develop innovative nuclear
technologies to supply the United States, and the world,
with abundant carbon-free energy,” Rita Baranwal, assistant
secretary for Nuclear Energy, said in a statement.
Officials in the draft environmental impact statement said
Idaho became the preferred site over Tennessee because of
infrastructure at the Energy Department’s 890-square-mile
Idaho site in high desert sagebrush steppe about 50 miles
west of Idaho Falls.
The Idaho site contains the Materials and Fuels Complex, or
MFC. That facility has the Hot Fuel Examination Facility, and
other specialty labs and facilities, that could examine radioactive
spent nuclear fuel to see how it has performed in the
test reactor.
Idaho “was selected primarily because the project would
make use of numerous facilities at MFC,” the Energy Department
said in the draft environmental impact statement.
The U.S. is currently involved in a massive effort to revamp
the nation’s fading nuclear power industry and reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by developing safer fuel and power
plants. Idaho National Laboratory is a key component in that
plan started during the Obama administration and continued
under the Trump administration.
The new director at the Idaho National Laboratory, John
Wagner, said last week that talks with the incoming Biden
administration indicate continuing support for nuclear research.
The push to revamp nuclear power plants coincides with
shifting attitudes on nuclear power as it has become apparent
that renewable energy sources such as wind and solar
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