**Status:**Published
**Citation:**Bistline, J; James, R; Sowder, A. 2019. “Technology, Policy, and Market Drivers of (and Barriers to) Advanced Nuclear Reactor Deployment in the United States After 2030.” Published in Nuclear Technology.
In light of the joint goals to lower energy system emissions as quickly as possible while ensuring reliability and grid security, it is important to understand the competitiveness of low-carbon technologies like advanced nuclear under different market settings. The potential role for advanced nuclear reactors in U.S. markets is highly uncertain and depends on assumptions about future technologies, markets, and policies. This analysis systematically explores potential drivers and barriers to midcentury advanced nuclear reactor commercialization using an integrated model of electric sector investments and operations with detailed spatial and temporal resolutions.
Model results demonstrate how market opportunities for advanced nuclear reactors jointly depend on their capital cost reductions, environmental policies (especially stringent carbon pricing), additional non-electricity revenue streams, and region-specific factors like gas prices and renewable resources. The analysis suggests that extensive deployment of advanced nuclear technologies would likely require a combination of new policies, innovation in technologies to significantly lower capital and financing costs (below $4,000/kW), and innovation in business models to enable non-electricity revenue streams. With policies targeting deep emissions reductions, the presence of technologies like lower-cost advanced nuclear can reduce compliance costs by 50%. However, without strong policy support and in a market with low-cost renewables and gas, costs of advanced nuclear reactors would have to decrease substantially from current estimates to make them economically competitive by 2050.
Link to Journal article: Nuclear Technology.