Mike Goff, the prinicpal Deputy Assistant Secretary for nuclear energy at the DOE, shared a long list of reasons why he is more optimistic about the future of nuclear energy than he has been at any time in his 35 year career at national labs and as a direct DOE employee. //

He described his recent appearance at a Congressional hearing where 28 representatives asked questions with none of them asking “why nuclear?” Instead they asked how they could help nuclear, most of them wanted to help nuclear projects move faster. He said that the industry has a great opportunity to prove it can deliver. //

Regarding the operating fleet, he described how the DOE, industry and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) are cooperating to ensure that plants continue to operate safely and reliably. Several have already received subsequent license renewals that allow the plants to operate for up to 80 years, but there is no reason to believe that is the ultimate limit. There is already discussion about the activities needed to enable operation to 100 yrs. //

Then Goff made some statements that noticeably captured audience attention, based on both looking around the room and engaging in a number of conversations after the session. He told us that recent DOE studies show that the US needs 300 GW of total nuclear capacity by 2050. Getting there will require keeping as much of the existing fleet as possible while also building at a rate that exceeds the fastest achieved rate from the 1970s during the period from 2030-2050. //

Jim Schaefer, senior managing director of Guggenheim Partners, provided a strong message about the need for nuclear power for meeting decarbonization goals and the pressing need for the industry to improve its ability to deliver projects on time and on budget.

He leads a team of 100 clean energy-focused bankers that have completed 350 deals during the past 8 years. Most of those deals have been in solar, wind and battery storage. He and his team have realized that those technologies are not sufficient for meeting the goal of decarbonizing the grid. Investors and industry need to reallocate dollars towards clean firm technologies that can work all the time.

They have concluded that there is no doubt that hydrogen has a role; geothermal has a role; but that “advanced reactors are kind of it.” He said “Right now, to me, the greatest demand for any kind of energy product that has ever existed is the future need for advanced reactors.”

He sees growing recognition of this insight among investors, in DC, in the electric utility sector, and in the chemical and oil industries.