by John Jacobs, Bipartisan Policy Center; Jon-Michael Murray, Terra Praxis
This blog post is part of a joint series by the Bipartisan Policy Center and Terra Praxis. Terra Praxis is a nonprofit organization focused on innovating and accelerating scalable solutions to decarbonize the largest sources of global emissions. Check out the first blog post in the series, Momentum Grows to Repower Retiring Coal Plants with Nuclear.
Repowering closing coal plants with advanced nuclear represents both an opportunity and a challenge. In the previous blog post of this series, Momentum Grows to Repower Retiring Coal Plants with Nuclear, we detailed the tangible economic and energy reliability benefits of coal-to-nuclear projects. Delivered effectively, they can ensure the preservation of jobs, revitalize communities, and provide clean power available 24/7 to the grid. However, despite these potential advantages, the shift to nuclear energy is not a guaranteed success. To the contrary, numerous hurdles need to be overcome if coal-to-nuclear projects are to become a reality. Significant changes to the current nuclear deployment model are required to make this transformation both technically feasible and effective in terms of cost and schedule.
Current Challenges in Nuclear Deployment
While a nuclear reactor could theoretically replace coal to create steam for many power plants, today’s nuclear energy deployment model cannot meet the speed or scale required to repower hundreds of coal plants or maintain American nuclear leadership, a goal set forth in the bipartisan Advance Act of 2024. Coal-to-nuclear projects must be constructed quickly enough to prevent the loss of transmission rights and retain the existing power plant workforce, all while maintaining commercial viability. To repower the coal plants currently operating in the United States by 2040, more than one coal-to-nuclear project would need to be completed every month, starting now. Given current U.S. nuclear deployment timelines of 6-10 years per project, achieving this goal requires a total paradigm shift in nuclear construction. Unfortunately, both traditional nuclear reactors and many advanced designs face challenges with complexity, high costs, and slow construction, making it difficult to fully capitalize on this opportunity.
Studies such as the Energy Technologies Institute Nuclear Cost Driver project have identified challenges at the heart of this issue. They include site-specific engineering requirements that make each nuclear plant a bespoke project, increasing complexity and regulatory burdens. Additionally, large-scale traditional designs rely on inefficient construction techniques requiring large, on-site crews, which delay timelines and tie up resources. Limited standardization across projects reduces supply chain efficiency, further driving up costs. Regulatory hurdles also impose time-consuming and expensive approval processes, adding delays and uncertainty. To successfully transition retiring coal plants to nuclear, the nuclear industry must reimagine how reactors are designed, licensed, constructed, and delivered.
Learning from Past Nuclear Projects and Other Industries
Research of past nuclear projects reveals, among other lessons, two critical delivery principles for reducing the cost and schedule of nuclear projects: Fleet deployment and integrated project delivery. Fleet deployment involves systematically building multiple power plants across sites and multiple units at each plant to leverage economies of scale and transfer project learnings. Integrated project delivery assigns full project responsibility to a single entity with a stake in the project’s outcome, aligning contractor incentives and streamlining decision-making to reduce stakeholder friction.
Current nuclear deployment models, however, make adopting these principles difficult, especially for coal-to-nuclear projects that may introduce new challenges, such as incorporating coal plant infrastructure and land remediation. A successful nuclear deployment model must therefore adopt design and delivery innovations that enable these principles to be followed. Such a model should draw from best practices in manufacturing and other industries that have rapidly scaled up.
This new nuclear deployment model should:
1. Promote Standardization:
Standardization is a critical component of a successful nuclear deployment model. This applies to both designing the reactor for repeatable deployments, as well as standardizing interfaces between components to encourage competition among suppliers and streamline the manufacturing process.
2. Embrace Modularity and Design for Manufacture and Assembly:
Drawing from successful strategies in the commercial solar industry, modular construction and factory-based manufacturing techniques have the potential to significantly reduce costs and accelerate nuclear project deployment. Modular design can transform nuclear delivery by enabling systems to be developed independently and in parallel, reducing construction risks and delays. Distinct plant facilities, such as the turbine generator building and reactor building, can be designed and manufactured separately in factories. This approach allows for precise, controlled production, minimizing construction errors and enabling rapid on-site assembly.
3. Maximize Existing Infrastructure Use and Non-nuclear Components:
Designing nuclear plants to use non-nuclear-grade components when appropriate reduces costs by tapping into cheaper and more competitive supply chains. Preserving existing transmission infrastructure and transmission rights avoids the high costs and delays of new transmission projects. Repurposing coal plant infrastructure, like steam turbines, has the potential to further minimize expenses.
4. Reduce Regulatory Burden:
One of the biggest challenges to deploying nuclear energy is navigating the regulatory process. While safety must remain paramount, many aspects of nuclear plant design can be streamlined to reduce the burden on regulators. Extensive review timelines can be reduced by isolating the reactor systems from site conditions that would otherwise trigger a regulatory environmental review, as well as leveraging non-nuclear-grade systems wherever possible.
5. Limit Bespoke Engineering:
When nuclear plants are designed to operate in a variety of locations with minimal site adjustments, they reduce the complexity of each project and, therefore, the regulatory review process. This approach limits the need for regulatory re-approvals, reduces design time, and promotes the use of the same components and interfaces across multiple projects.
6. Utilize Digital Tools for Optimization:
Enabled by some of the other key attributes like modularity, advanced digital tools can optimize nuclear plant design, planning, and construction. For example, architectural design and geospatial engineering software pioneered in data center construction can rapidly configure designs for multiple sites in a matter of hours. Other tools can coordinate multi-site project delivery, such as at a fleet of transitioning coal plant sites.
The REPOWER Model: A Blueprint for Change
Terra Praxis’ REPOWER model offers a new paradigm for coal-to-nuclear deployment, integrating modular design, standardization, and manufacturability. This approach enables fast, low-cost, repeatable deployment while minimizing construction risks and regulatory hurdles, ensuring safety and efficiency.
The REPOWER model’s specific innovations include:
- Manufactured reactors with modular enclosures that define the plant’s nuclear safety boundary.
- Seismic isolation and thermal storage to isolate reactor systems from site conditions, reducing regulatory challenges and enabling seamless integration with existing coal plant infrastructure.
- Modular and non-nuclear components designed for efficient manufacturing and rapid on-site assembly.
- Digital tools to quickly design and configure modular components at each unique coal plant site and optimize multi-site delivery.
Source: Terra Praxis
Conclusion
Repowering coal plants with nuclear energy is a transformative opportunity, but it requires a fundamentally new approach to nuclear deployment. The predominant models today are not sufficient. By promoting standardization, embracing modular construction, and reducing regulatory burdens, we can make coal-to-nuclear transitions feasible and economically viable. The REPOWER model provides a clear blueprint for how this can be achieved, ensuring that the benefits of nuclear energy can be realized across the country. Industry leaders and decisionmakers must act swiftly to implement such innovative nuclear deployment strategies, or risk missing a critical opportunity to transform our nation’s aging energy infrastructure.
This article was originally published on Bipartisan Policy Center website.