Bill to Expand US Nuclear Power Capacity Heads to Biden's Desk After Senate Vote

An energy bill focused on expanding nuclear power in the US cleared the Senate this week on an 88-2 vote, and it's expected to be signed by President Joe Biden. 

The Advance Act, which in May passed the House with bipartisan support, would incentivize creating and deploying new nuclear reactor technologies and reduce costs for companies who want to license such technologies. (The full name of the legislation is the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act.)

The act is meant to expand nuclear energy production in the US. In the last year, two new nuclear reactors became operational in Georgia, but many more reactors across the nation have closed in the last decade. The expansion of nuclear energy capacity in the US -- like the growth of sustainable energy options like solar power and wind power -- is seen as a way of countering the carbon emissions that are driving climate change and that come from the burning of fossil fuels.

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This act also promotes the export of these technologies to other countries and the "faster, cheaper and smarter" building of nuclear reactors, according to a press release from three senators who back the bill.

"With the president's signature, the ADVANCE Act will become the law of the land and lay the foundation for the safe and successful deployment of the next generation of advanced reactors in the coming decades," Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the US Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, said in a statement.

The nuclear power industry has an advocate in one prominent figure from the high-tech industry: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been involved with a new plant that just broke ground in Wyoming through his company TerraPower. The site will start producing power in 2030.