Lack of a plan for HTR threatens NGNP prototype - US GAO report

26 June 2014

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A US Government Accounting Office report has recommended that the US Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy develop a strategy for resuming the Next Generation Nuclear Plant project and provide a report to Congress updating the status of the project.
DOE agreed in principle with the first recommendation and disagreed with the second, according to GAO report 14-545 published in June.
It said that the Office of Nuclear Energy's advanced reactor R&D project focuses on high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors and fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors.
The report quotes a NE planning document that says that the HTR is most likely to be developed and commercialised in the near-term; it said that NE officials said that this was because of a wide range of industry applications and substantial government investment in its development.
HTR development has been carried out under the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP); under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, DOE is to deploy a prototype reactor for NGNP by 2021.
But deployment was stopped in 2011 because of barriers. NE and industry have been unable to agree a cost-sharing arrangement to fund deployment. NE has not selected initial reactor design parameters or reported to Congress on an alternative date for selecting them.


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