DOE Secretary Visits INL as Trump Administration Focuses on Nuclear Power

ARCO — U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright toured the Idaho National Laboratory and its facilities on Monday, as the lab aims to usher in the new nuclear renaissance.

This tour was the culmination of Wright’s tour, during which he visited all 17 national laboratories. But for the INL, it was a special visit.

Wright said Idaho has always been the center of nuclear development and most reactors are based on designs developed at the site decades ago.

“This is the starting point for the nuclear renaissance that the Trump administration is passionate about achieving. It’s been talked about for 20 years, but it’s actually happening now,” Wright said.

A few months earlier, INL, in partnership with Oklo, a private company building a nuclear facility, held a groundbreaking for the Aurora plant, the first new nuclear reactor to be built at the site in decades.

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Before the groundbreaking for the Aurora plant, it was planned by an executive order from President Donald Trump in May that began accelerating the development of new reactors in the private market.

Mike Goff, principal assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, told EastIdahoNews.com in September that the goal of the executive order was to help reinvigorate the nuclear industry in the United States.

The Wrights’ trip to INL focused on changing emotions toward nuclear energy and the Trump administration’s interest in ensuring U.S. nuclear supremacy.

Since the start of the Trump administration, four executive orders have been adopted to reform and enable the development of nuclear energy.

“One of those commitments, one of those promises, was that we would get multiple critical reactors by July 4 of next year,” Wright said.

Since the creation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission more than 50 years ago, Wright said America has only commissioned two reactors.

Wright said bureaucracy had slowed development of the new reactor. As a result, the process and financial cost of creating new reactors has increased, as has the development of a fuel source.

To help create more nuclear reactors, fuel and transportation, Wright said the DOE is using targeted grants to incentivize private companies to engage in this development.

Part of the funding for these subsidies comes from funds diverted from energy subsidies, such as wind and solar, to help jumpstart the nuclear renaissance. Wright said there would also be eight-year tax incentives for those developing nuclear and geothermal technologies.

One of the main stops on the INL tour was to enter the Demonstrations of Microreactor Experiments (DOME), which was formerly a containment dome for the Breeder-II experimental reactor. It will be modernized to allow testing of new microreactors.

INL Director John Wagner told EastIdahoNews.com that Radian Nuclear will be the first company to test its microreactor inside the Dome. The test will allow the reactor to become critical in a safe and controlled environment.

He said Radiant’s microreactor would be moved into the Dome by next April and was expected to become critical by July 4 in order to meet the administration’s deadline.

“We are working with several other reactor manufacturers to install their reactors in other facilities, and are even working with them to build their own premises for their reactor demonstrations,” Wagner said.

Wright said the Trump administration is also exploring ways to boost the nation’s electricity capacity, beyond burning wood, oil, coal or gas.

INL develops high-grade low-enriched uranium (HALEU), where spent fuel from the EBR-II is reprocessed into this fuel source.

“This is going to bridge the gap for these next generation fuels as a producer of these fuels for the next few years,” Wright said. “Private industry will ultimately (provide) these reactors.”