Federal Budget Reinforces Importance of Advanced Nuclear Energy

Federal Budget Reinforces Importance of Advanced Nuclear Energy

X-energy applauds the United States Congress for their continued and unwavering endorsement of nuclear energy, and specifically advanced nuclear reactors. The Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill furthers the deployment of advanced reactors, underscoring the importance of the two demonstration reactors awarded under the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The legislation also provides funding and direction to move forward with a domestic supply of the fuel needed by these reactors. To ensure that these two reactors meet their deployment schedule and are not initially delayed by lack of fuel availability, Congress included $81 million to downblend uranium from existing stockpiles. Strong bipartisan support has resulted in a doubling of the nuclear energy budget over the past five years to over $1.8 billion – surpassing the FY22 budget by $118M in the bill just signed into law. Of this amount, Congress has provided $100 million for High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel development for advanced reactors, $60 million for the two demonstration reactors, and $240M for other reactor research and development.

These actions, together with the funding provided in the bipartisan Infrastructure Act and the incentives in the Inflation Reduction act demonstrate that the United States is leading a comprehensive clean energy strategy that has selected nuclear energy as a vital contributor to meet our future energy needs.

Federal leadership is a catalyst for growing clean nuclear energy and its supply chain, building the critical infrastructure needed to meet growing and anticipated demand here in the United States and around the world. Nuclear energy will prove to be an essential driver in decarbonizing the electricity and industrial sector, helping to mitigate the ongoing effects of climate change on our daily lives and the global economy.