Senators Question Spending Cuts in Key Nuclear, Science Programs

With permits coming for the nation’s first small modular reactor, Energy Secretary Wright says diverted ‘green’ money will meet the ‘challenge of our time.’

Test engineer Jacob Wilcox pulls his arm out of a glove box used for processing sodium at TerraPower, a company developing and building small nuclear reactors in Everett, Wash., on Jan. 13, 2022. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File

A day after the Tennessee Valley Authority announced it had filed a permit to install the nation’s first small modular nuclear reactor, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said the breakthrough marks the dawn of a new era in commercial electrical power and that sustaining momentum in advanced nuclear generation is the nation’s “next Manhattan Project.”

“America must lead the commercialization of affordable and abundant nuclear energy,” he told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. The Department of Energy “is working to advance the rapid deployment of next generation nuclear technology, including small modular reactors.”