Thorium Energy Security Act of 2022
Bill: S.4242 | Sponsor: Sen. Tuberville, Tommy (R-AL)
Policy area: Energy

Summary:
Thorium Energy Security Act of 2022
This bill requires the Department of Energy and other relevant agencies to preserve uncontaminated inventories of uranium-233 to foster the development of thorium-based nuclear reactors. The bill also makes funding available for transferring inventories to interim or permanent storage facilities.
Additionally, the bill requires various reports, including on the progress China has made in developing thorium-based reactors.

To provide for the preservation and storage of uranium-233 to foster 
  development of thorium molten-salt reactors, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Thorium Energy Security Act of 
2022''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) Thorium molten-salt reactor technology was originally 
        developed in the United States, primarily at the Oak Ridge 
        National Laboratory in the State of Tennessee under the Molten-
        Salt Reactor Program.
            (2) Before the cancellation of that program in 1976, the 
        technology developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was 
        moving steadily toward efficient utilization of the natural 
        thorium energy resource, which exists in substantial amounts in 
        many parts of the United States, and requires no isotopic 
        enrichment.
            (3) The People's Republic of China is known to be pursuing 
        the development of molten-salt reactor technology based on a 
        thorium fuel cycle.
            (4) Thorium itself is not fissile, but fertile, and 
        requires fissile material to begin a nuclear chain reaction. 
        This largely accounts for its exclusion for nuclear weapons 
        developments.
            (5) Uranium-233, derived from neutron absorption by natural 
        thorium, is the ideal candidate for the fissile material to 
        start a thorium reactor, and is the only fissile material 
        candidate that can minimize the production of long-lived 
        transuranic elements like plutonium, which have proven a great 
        challenge to the management of existing spent nuclear fuel.
            (6) Geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel from 
        conventional nuclear reactors continues to pose severe 
        political and technical challenges, and costs United States 
        taxpayers more than $500,000,000 annually in court-mandated 
        payments to electrical utilities operating nuclear reactors.
            (7) The United States possesses the largest known inventory 
        of separated uranium-233 in the world, aggregated at the Oak 
        Ridge National Laboratory.
            (8) Oak Ridge National Laboratory building 3019 was 
        designated in 1962 as the national repository for uranium-233 
        storage, and its inventory eventually grew to about 450 
        kilograms of separated uranium-233, along with approximately 
        1,000 kilograms of mixed fissile uranium from the Consolidated 
        Edison Uranium Solidification Program (commonly referred to as 
        ``CEUSP''), divided into approximately 1,100 containers.
            (9) The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board issued 
        Recommendation 97-1 (relating to safe storage of uranium-233) 
        in 1997 because of the possibility of corrosion or other 
        degradation around the storage of uranium-233 in a building 
        that was built in 1943.
            (10) In response, the Department of Energy published 
        Decision Memorandum No. 2 in 2001 concluding that no Department 
        of Energy programs needed uranium-233 and directed that a 
        contract be placed for disposition of the uranium-233 inventory 
        and decommissioning of its storage facility.
            (11) The Department of Energy awarded a contract for the 
        irreversible downblending of uranium-233 with uranium-238 and 
        its geologic disposal in Nevada, which downblending would 
        create a waste form that would pose radiological hazards for 
        hundreds of thousands of years, rather than to consider 
        uranium-233 as a useful national asset.
            (12) All 1,000 kilograms of CEUSP uranium-233-based 
        material have been dispositioned (but not downblended) but 
        those containers had little useful uranium-233 in them. The 
        majority of separated and valuable uranium-233 remains 
        uncontaminated by uranium-238 and suitable for thorium fuel 
        cycle research and development. That remaining inventory 
        constitutes the largest supply of uranium-233 known to exist in 
        the world today.
            (13) The United States has significant domestic reserves of 
        thorium in accessible high-grade deposits, which can provide 
        thousands of years of clean energy if used efficiently in a 
        liquid-fluoride reactor initially started with uranium-233.
            (14) Recently (as of the date of the enactment of this 
        Act), the Department of Energy has chosen to fund a series of 
        advanced reactors that are all dependent on initial inventories 
        and regular resupplies of high-assay, low-enriched uranium.
            (15) There is no domestic source of high-assay, low-
        enriched uranium fuel, and there are no available estimates as 
        to how long the development of a domestic supply of that fuel 
        would take or how expensive such development would be.
            (16) The only viable source of high-assay, low-enriched 
        uranium fuel is through continuous import from sources in the 
        Russian Federation.
            (17) The political situation with the Russian Federation as 
        of the date of the enactment of this Act is sufficiently 
        uncertain that it would be unwise for United States-funded 
        advanced reactor development to rely on high-assay, low-
        enriched uranium since the Russian Federation would be the 
        primary source and can be expected to undercut any future 
        United States production, resulting in a dependency on high-
        assay, low-enriched uranium from the Russian Federation.
            (18) The United States has abandoned the development of a 
        geologic repository at Yucca Mountain and is seeking a 
        consenting community to allow interim storage of spent nuclear 
        fuel, but valid concerns persist that an interim storage 
        facility will become a permanent storage facility.
            (19) Without a closed fuel cycle, high-assay, low-enriched 
        uranium-fueled reactors inevitably will produce long-lived 
        wastes that presently have no disposition pathway.
            (20) The United States possesses enough uranium-233 to 
        support further research and development as well as fuel the 
        startup of several thorium reactors. Thorium reactors do not 
        require additional fuel or high-assay, low-enriched uranium 
        from the Russian Federation.
            (21) Continuing the irreversible destruction of uranium-233 
        precludes privately funded development of the thorium fuel 
        cycle, which would have long term national and economic 
        security implications.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) it is in the best economic and national security 
        interests of the United States to resume development of thorium 
        molten-salt reactors that can minimize long-lived waste 
        production, in consideration of--
                    (A) the pursuit by the People's Republic of China 
                of thorium molten-salt reactors and associated 
                cooperative research agreements with United States 
                national laboratories; and
                    (B) the present impasse around the geological 
                disposal of nuclear waste;
            (2) that the development of thorium molten-salt reactors is 
        consistent with section 1261 of the John S. McCain National 
        Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (Public Law 115-
        232; 132 Stat. 2060), which declared long-term strategic 
        competition with the People's Republic of China as ``a 
        principal priority for the United States''; and
            (3) to resume such development, it is necessary to relocate 
        as much of the uranium-233 remaining at Oak Ridge National 
        Laboratory as possible to new secure storage.

SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) Congressional defense committees.--The term 
        ``congressional defense committees'' has the meaning given that 
        term in section 101(a) of title 10, United States Code.
            (2) Downblend.--The term ``downblend'' means the process of 
        adding a chemically identical isotope to an inventory of 
        fissile material in order to degrade its nuclear value.
            (3) Fissile material.--The term ``fissile material'' refers 
        to uranium-233, uranium-235, plutonium-239, or plutonium-241.
            (4) High-assay, low-enriched uranium.--The term ``high-
        assay, low-enriched uranium'' (commonly referred to as 
        ``HALEU'') means a mixture of uranium isotopes very nearly but 
        not equaling or exceeding 20 percent of the isotope uranium-
        235.
            (5) Transuranic element.--The term ``transuranic element'' 
        means an element with an atomic number greater than the atomic 
        number of uranium (92), such as neptunium, plutonium, 
        americium, or curium.

SEC. 5. PRESERVATION OF URANIUM-233 TO FOSTER DEVELOPMENT OF THORIUM 
              MOLTEN-SALT REACTORS.

    The Secretary of Energy shall preserve uranium-233 inventories that 
have not been contaminated with uranium-238, with the goal of fostering 
development of thorium molten-salt reactors by United States industry.

SEC. 6. STORAGE OF URANIUM-233.

    (a) Report on Long-Term Storage of Uranium-233.--Not later than 120 
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 
Energy, in consultation with the heads of other relevant agencies, 
shall submit to Congress a report identifying a suitable location for, 
or a location that can be modified for, secure long-term storage of 
uranium-233.
    (b) Report on Interim Storage of Uranium-233.--Not later than 120 
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Chief of 
Engineers shall submit to Congress a report identifying a suitable 
location for secure interim storage of uranium-233.
    (c) Report on Construction of Uranium-233 Storage Facility at 
Redstone Arsenal.--Not later than 240 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Chief of Engineers shall submit to Congress 
a report on the costs of constructing a permanent, secure storage 
facility for uranium-233 at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, that is also 
suitable for chemical processing of uranium-233 pursuant to a public-
private partnership with thorium reactor developers.
    (d) Funding.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, amounts 
authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for the U233 
Disposition Program for fiscal year 2022 or 2023 shall be made 
available for the transfer of the inventory of uranium-233 to the 
interim or permanent storage facilities identified under this section.

SEC. 7. INTERAGENCY COOPERATION ON PRESERVATION AND TRANSFER OF 
              URANIUM-233.

    The Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of the Army (including the 
head of the Army Reactor Office), the Secretary of Transportation, the 
Tennessee Valley Authority, and other relevant agencies shall--
            (1) work together to preserve uranium-233 inventories and 
        expedite transfers of uranium-233 to interim and permanent 
        storage facilities; and
            (2) in expediting such transfers, seek the assistance of 
        appropriate industrial entities.

SEC. 8. REPORT ON USE OF THORIUM REACTORS BY PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF 
              CHINA.

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the Comptroller General of the United States, in consultation with 
the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Administrator 
for Nuclear Security, shall submit to Congress a report that--
            (1) evaluates the progress the People's Republic of China 
        has made in the development of thorium-based reactors;
            (2) describes the extent to which that progress was based 
        on United States technology;
            (3) details the actions the Department of Energy took in 
        transferring uranium-233 technology to the People's Republic of 
        China; and
            (4) assesses the likelihood that the People's Republic of 
        China may employ thorium reactors in its future navy plans.

SEC. 9. REPORT ON MEDICAL MARKET FOR ISOTOPES OF URANIUM-233.

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, after 
consultation with institutions of higher education and private industry 
conducting medical research and the public, shall submit to Congress a 
report that estimates the medical market value, during the 10-year 
period after the date of the enactment of this Act, of actinium, 
bismuth, and other grandchildren isotopes of uranium-233 that can be 
harvested without downblending and destroying the uranium-233 source 
material.

SEC. 10. REPORT ON COSTS TO UNITED STATES NUCLEAR ENTERPRISE.

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, after 
consultation with relevant industry groups and nuclear regulatory 
agencies, shall submit to Congress a report that estimates, for the 10-
year period after the date of the enactment of this Act, the costs to 
the United States nuclear enterprise with respect to--
            (1) disposition of uranium-233;
            (2) payments to nuclear facilities to store nuclear waste; 
        and
            (3) restarting the manufacturing the United States of high-
        assay, low-enriched uranium.
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