This webinar provides Tribes with an overview of civilian nuclear energy technologies, uses, and the opportunities and considerations they present for Tribal communities. Participants will gain foundational knowledge of nuclear energy, emerging technologies such as small modular and microreactors, and available DOE support.
DAVID CONRAD: Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining today's webinar, “Tribal Pathways to Nuclear Energy: Technology, Opportunities, and Federal Support.” My name is David Conrad, and I'm the Deputy Director of the Office of Indian Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. Next slide, please.
Before we begin this session, I want to go over a few housekeeping items. First, to turn on live captions, click on the “Show Captions” button in the control panel at the bottom of your screen. Second, today's webinar is being recorded. That recording, transcript, and slides will be available on the Office of Indian Energy webinars website in the next one to two weeks. Finally, all registrants for today's webinar will receive a copy of the slides via email in advance of them being posted on the webinar webpage. Next slide, please.
Our goal today is to provide Tribal organizations and communities a foundational overview of civilian nuclear energy technologies, their uses, the opportunities and considerations they present for Tribes, and available DOE resources and support. Thank you to everyone who registered and submitted questions that you would like to have answered during today's session. We carefully reviewed these and have incorporated as many as possible into the presentation. Next slide.
First, before we begin, I want to take a moment to share more about our Office. Twenty years ago, Congress authorized the Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy. The vision of our Office was established in law and charges us to promote Tribal energy development efficiency and use, reduce and stabilize energy costs, enhance and strengthen Tribal energy and economic infrastructure, and electrify Indian lands and homes. I'm happy to share that this vision continues to be carried out. We have a successful track record working with Tribal Nations. Next slide, please.
The Office of Indian Energy, or IE for short in DOE speak, offers three main areas of support to Tribes. First, financial assistance on a competitive basis to develop and deploy energy infrastructure and technology. Second, no-cost technical assistance to advance Tribal energy projects and energy commerce. And third, capacity building activities through webinars like today's, workshops, and workforce development opportunities with the goal of supporting Tribes to fully participate in unleashing American energy. And with that, let's dive into the focus of our webinar. Next slide, please.
The nuclear energy value chain is vast and presents opportunities for Tribes at multiple points, from upstream and midstream to downstream. Beyond power generation, nuclear technologies also play critical roles in defense, medical applications, and agriculture. These sectors highlight the breadth of nuclear's impact and its relevance to a variety of Tribal interests.
Tribes have a long and nuanced history with nuclear energy. Some communities are still addressing legacy issues from past activities, while others are exploring new opportunities presented by advanced designs and smaller-scale technologies, such as small, modular, and micro reactors. We recognize and honor these diverse experiences. Next slide, please.
Today, we hope to help you gain foundational knowledge about civilian nuclear energy and emerging technologies; understand the uses, opportunities, and considerations nuclear presents for Tribal communities; and learn about available DOE support, including technical assistance, funding, and other opportunities. Next slide.
Today's webinar features experts from the Office of Nuclear Energy, DOE's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, the DOE Office of Indian Energy, and the U. S. Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program. These speakers will share insights to help Tribes navigate opportunities and challenges in the civilian nuclear sector. Next slide, please.
We hope this webinar empowers you with knowledge and resources to make informed decisions about nuclear energy in your communities. Thank you again for joining us. Now I'm pleased to introduce Rick Christensen, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Reactors. Rick, the floor is yours.
RICK CHRISTENEN: Excellent, David. Thank you so much. Pleased to join you all here today. You can go ahead to the next slide, please.
So for those that are not familiar with the Office of Nuclear Energy, our mission here is to advance nuclear science and technology and help meet America's energy and economic goals. In order to do that, we prioritize enabling the development and advancement of advanced reactors, advancing nuclear fuel technologies and the nuclear fuel cycle, supporting the continued operation of our existing nuclear fleet here in the United States, building U.S. capacity and support for the export of that U.S. civilian nuclear technology, as well as advancing nuclear energy research and development and enabling the workforce of the future. Go ahead to the next slide, please.
Before we get into this, we're going talk a lot about nuclear energy today. And so when we use the word “nuclear energy,” we hear talking about nuclear fission. So, there are two major types of nuclear energy: fission and fusion. Fission is the splitting of atoms; the release of tremendous amounts of energy and heat. Fusion is another physical process, and there is, in fact, an entire part of this Department—the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences—that is doing some very exciting things in that space, which go far beyond what we're able to talk about today. So, for today, we'll be talking about nuclear fission, which we've been operating as an energy source here in the United States for more than 70 years. So why don't you go ahead to the next slide.
So there are many applications of nuclear energy. First and foremost, it's one of the most reliable options for electricity generation on our grid. Nuclear power plants have a capacity factor—so producing energy and putting it on our national grid—of more than 90%. So that means that more so than really any other type of energy that we use here in the U.S., it's producing electricity around the clock 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, creating firm, baseload electricity for large loads, like data centers, industrial applications, defense activities, places that need uninterrupted power. It's what powers our U.S. Navy submarines, our aircraft carriers. And in the future, it will be powering our military installations through microreactor technology and many other applications. But beyond just electricity generation, there are also applications of nuclear technology in the medical, agricultural, and industrial space.
Radioisotopes that come out of nuclear energy production are widely used to do things like detect cancerous tumors and destroy cancerous tissue in medicine. It's used in agriculture to control insects and to make our food last longer without altering its nutritional properties. And there are many other applications, like industrial heat, the production of hydrogen, production of additional radioisotopes, and more. So, a very broad application space for nuclear energy. Go ahead to the next slide, please.
So here in the United States, we currently operate 94 nuclear reactors at 54 discrete sites around the country, producing about 20% of the total electricity in the United States. And many of those reactors will operate safely and continuously for over 80 years—an incredibly efficient, reliable, and resilient way to create large amounts of energy. Go ahead to the next slide.
So we could talk for a very long time, and I promise I will not, about how these things actually work.
So we'll try to make it as straightforward as possible. Nuclear reactors are designed fundamentally to control nuclear chain reactions. So, one atom goes through fission, splits, creates energy, and causes one additional atom to split and create energy. We do that in a very controlled way at power levels that are substantial and designed to be controlled in the reactors that we build here to create heat—that heat produces steam, that steam spins turbines, and those turbines generate electricity very similar to the way that a lot of other electricity generation is done in the United States and in the world. Water is heated, it creates steam, it spins turbines, those turbines put electricity on the grid.
That heat that's generated in those reactors is both put into electricity, as well as then cooled by water around our large light-water reactor plants as we call them here. And one of the unique things about nuclear reactors is the use of control rods—so material that can be inserted or withdrawn from the core of these reactors to control that power and the rate of those chain reactions. Here in the U.S., we largely currently operate two types of reactors: a boiling water reactor and a pressurized water reactor. They differ in some ways, and again we won't go into the details of it, but I believe a blog post has just been shared into the chat. And there's a lot more information there that you can look into if you would like to. And why don't we just go ahead to the next slide.
So another unique aspect of nuclear power is the nuclear fuel cycle. So those reactors are the center. That's where the heat and the energy is being produced. But in order to get to that point we need to get nuclear material put into the exact right form and format to create that heat and control those reactions. So that starts with the mining and milling of uranium as our primary fuel for nuclear reactors. That is well suited for nuclear fuel because it contains uranium-235, which is able to sustain a controlled chain reaction. But before that material can go into reactor to be used, it has to be enriched in that uranium-235. When you pull uranium out of the ground, there's a less than 1% of U-235 in that material. And so enriching that material and then fabricating it into the fuel elements to go into a power plant is a substantial part of what we call the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. And then on the back end of that nuclear fuel cycle, there is a long-term need to store and cool that material. So material comes out of a reactor, it is cooled, and then it is taken a long term management disposal. And we'll talk more about this as we go through the next several slides. So why don't you go to the next one?
So in terms of enriching material, again, like I mentioned, we start with less than 1% of uranium-235 in the material that comes out of the ground from mining. For our fleet of nuclear reactors in the U.S., they generally run on material that is 5% enriched. So that first step takes you to 5% enrichment of uranium-235, and that enrichment is able to increase up to 20% for some of our more advanced reactors in what we call high-assay, low-enriched uranium [HALU] that can make for smaller reactor designs, longer operating cycles, increased efficiency, and then reduced waste.
There is more information than we can get through here on the use of HALU and advanced reactors, and there is more information as well in a blog post that is in the chat. And we can go ahead to the next slide.
Alright. To focus on the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle a bit, once nuclear fuel goes into a reactor, it produces energy in that reactor for something like five years. It's recycled around the reactor a few times in that five years, but a fuel element is in that reactor for that period of time. After that, that fuel is placed in a concrete-lined pool filled with water to cool—to both radiologically and thermally cool—for a period of two to five years. After that two-to-five-year period, it can be transitioned into a dry storage cast, which you can see in the picture here. And those are specifically designed to be secure, long-term storage, and they are safe enough to touch. You can walk up next to one of these and just put your hand on it. That fuel is currently stored at more than 70 sites in 35 states here in the U.S., and ultimately we will need to establish a permanent geologic disposal site for much of that material. And we understand that there were questions about how this used nuclear fuel is transported. And so used nuclear fuel can be moved by road, by rail, by waterway—and in any shipping configuration, it would be in durable containers that are designed to withstand extreme transportation accidents to keep that fuel very safe in any sort of scenario. Whenever commercial fuel is ready to be moved, the Department of Energy would use specialized transportation containers that are very robust, as well as for rail shipments, specially designed rail cars, that would move that material. And there will also be a link with some additional information, shared in the chat, about nuclear fuel transportation. Go ahead to the next slide, please.
Recycling of nuclear fuel is another topic that's getting a lot of attention right now. So the current fuel cycle in the U.S. here, it only takes a small part of the potential energy in the fuel that we use and turns it into heat. More than 90% of that potential still remains in that used nuclear fuel after that five years that it spends in a reactor. So, the reprocessing of that used fuel into additional fresh fuel for advanced reactors potentially unlocks the remaining energy potential and could significantly reduce the amount of waste. It will not eliminate the need either for uranium or long-term disposition, but it can reduce the amounts of both needed. And we have not been doing this commercially in the United States for a long time, but we're working now with industry to reestablish recycling at a commercial scale. Go ahead to the next slide.
Okay. So we are going to talk about an exciting topic that we love here, which is advanced nuclear technology. And so when we say that, we mean the next generation of nuclear energy technology that's designed to be even safer, even more efficient, easier to build and operate than the reactors of today. This technology can offer flexible, reliable, and clean energy solutions for a wide range of communities and applications. And there are many types of advanced reactors. We won't go into all the details of them; you can see some examples here on the slide. But there are a number of really critical safety and security features that are worth noting for these types of reactors. Many use passive safety features that allow them to be shut down and remove their excess heat without the need for human intervention, which is a great passive safety feature. They can be built below ground for added physical protection and protection against extreme weather events, and also use new and innovative fuels that are more resilient to the extreme conditions inside a reactor in any sort of environment. Go ahead to the next slide.
Alright. So there are many sizes and types of advanced reactors. So they vary in terms of physical size, their power output, their land requirements, and the applications. And so we'll try to break this down into a few sort of easy-to-grasp categories, starting with microreactors—very small efficient energy systems still generating megawatts of electricity, so enough to power thousands of homes.
But these would only require several acres of land, and that compact size makes them suitable for locations that have smaller or more specialized energy needs. They can be factory built; transported in a variety of ways; operate both on and off of the large-scale regional and national electricity grids; and could be ideal for remote communities, military installations, unique applications like hospitals, universities, and industrial sites. Moving to the middle category here, small modular reactors—slightly larger than microreactors, but still producing 50–300 megawatts of electricity. So really substantial amounts of electricity. Smaller than our traditional large light-water reactors, they could use ten or less acres of land with modular designs, the ability to incrementally add power as demand grows, a more flexible operation, and as a potential complement to renewable energy sources. And then in this last category, the large advanced reactors—again, most similar to the large reactors that are part of our current fleet, you're talking about 1,000 megawatts or a gigawatt of electrical capacity.
But advanced large reactors could use different fuels, materials, different coolants, and safety system, and enhance performance and safety beyond the existing still very safe and high-performance fleet. Go ahead to the next slide, please.
So this slide just gives you a bit of an illustration of the different sizes of the different reactors. One of the things that's important to note about these advanced reactors is the potential to simplify their construction. Many of these designs—in particular the smaller designs, but even the large—they can use fewer components. Some of the smaller designs can take advantage of factory fabrication.
Things can be made in a factory and delivered to the site, which can shorten construction schedules and reduce costs, as well as employ innovative construction methods across the size scale of reactors. Many of these advanced reactors are also designed to reduce water use. Some of which may even be able to use dry cooling options to reduce the water use down to almost nothing from some of the advanced and smaller reactor designs. Go ahead to the next slide.
So we are in an exciting time here in the U.S. and truly are living through a nuclear renaissance. In May of 2025, President Trump issued four executive orders focused on revitalizing the U.S. nuclear energy industry with a clear message to the government to move quickly and decisively to bring about this renaissance. In the last year-plus since those executive orders, we have seen an unprecedented transformation in the U.S. approach to delivering more nuclear power than ever before. We're moving forward with key tests at an impressive speed. Licensing for new reactors has been streamlined. The nuclear fuel supply is being reinforced here in the U.S. to meet our future energy demands. Our retired plants are on target to restart, and utilities are gearing up to boost the output of their existing plants, all with the idea of quadrupling U.S. nuclear energy capacity by 2050 from about 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts. So, a really substantial increase in nuclear energy over the coming generation. Go ahead to the next slide.
And so why do we think that this is so important? Why is nuclear energy so important? It is one of the most resilient and reliable energy sources on our grid today and advancing that technology is going to be key to growing the United States' energy abundance, prosperity, and security. As the demands in this country for electricity continue to grow, nuclear energy can help provide the abundant, reliable, and affordable power that we need to support American homes, our businesses, industry, and the economy at large. Go ahead to the next slide.
And so I mentioned some of the tremendous progress we're making. You can see some on the slide here. There are huge things happening at a rapid clip here. One of the examples is our reactor pilot program here in the Department of Energy, which has now celebrated five successful demonstrations of new advanced reactors and initial criticalities. These reactors have been built and achieved this important milestone in less than a year for all five of them. Our goal from the executive orders was to achieve criticality in at least three of these advanced reactors by July 4 of this year.
Many thought that that was impossible. And not only did we achieve that goal, but we have exceeded it with four reactors achieving that milestone by July 4 and now a fifth just recently coming online. So we're very, very happy with that and are looking forward to continuing that progress through our nuclear energy launchpad, which is going to build on this momentum and provides additional pathways for the testing and demonstration of advanced nuclear technologies. This is all showing us that we can innovate quickly and move forward from concept to demonstration when the U.S. government, our national laboratories, and our industry all works together. And then also these demonstrations put technology on a fast track for commercialization, with some of these microreactors expected to be commercially available as early as 2028, which is, from a nuclear energy perspective, extremely soon and very fast. Go ahead to the next.
Okay. So, as we do these advanced reactor pilots, we also continue to support the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program awardees as they develop and demonstrate innovative reactor designs. This program encourages innovation and creates jobs while strengthening our nuclear energy leadership. One of the awardees for this program, TerraPower, has started construction on the first unit of its Natrium Advanced Small Modular Reactor in Wyoming, receiving the first ever construction permit from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC] for a commercial non-light-water advanced reactor. NRC is also currently reviewing a construction permit for a X-energy Xe-100 reactor in Texas, which would be the second. And there are many other developments underway, and we could talk about this for quite a while and we will not be able to. So I'll just continue to the next slide.
Talk about innovation campuses. So, the Department of Energy is also exploring innovative approaches to strengthen every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle to include, as I mentioned before, that long-term waste management and doing so through these nuclear life cycle innovation campuses. So these will be a state-led effort and are designed to support collaboration across the nuclear fuel cycle, and they really have the potential to create long-term economic opportunities for states and communities while advancing nuclear innovation here in the U.S. They'll create workforce opportunities from engineering, science, operations, construction, manufacturing, skilled trades across the workforce, and really serve as hubs for the growing of the next generation of nuclear professionals here in the U.S. On July 28th, we announced the selection of Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho as potential host states for these campuses and assigned memorandums of understanding with each of those five states to continue to explore these opportunities to host campuses in the future. Go to the next slide, please.
Okay. So we need to add more nuclear power to our grid as we've been discussing, and one of the ways that we're looking to do that is maximize the performance of the existing fleet of reactors. We're doing that through our UPRISE [Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort] initiative.
This is focusing on extending the lifetime of our existing plants, increasing their power output through power upgrades, restarting facilities that have been previously retired, and just generally increasing performance of our current plants through the use of modern technologies and advanced nuclear fuels. And those reactor restarts are already underway. We believe that we can substantially increase generation while leveraging this currently existing infrastructure with a goal to get at least five gigawatts of additional capacity online by 2029, which is quite a bit of electricity in a fairly short time frame. Okay and we will need a skilled workforce to do this. Go ahead to the next slide.
Okay. So a lot of new developments happening in nuclear energy and, of course, a question on many minds: “So what might these developments mean for Tribal Nations and communities?” Some Tribes are exploring opportunities now related to new nuclear projects as part of their goals around energy sovereignty, economic development, long-term community priorities. Others may find themselves neighboring a new project or a proposed nuclear project. As David mentioned in the introduction, we recognize Tribal Nations have distinct histories, experiences, priorities, and perspectives related to nuclear energy in the broader energy sector. We respect the importance of acknowledging that history and listening to Tribal communities as decisions about future projects are considered. For Tribes that do choose to explore hosting a nuclear power plant or participate in the nuclear energy supply chain, there are many potential opportunities that extend beyond energy sovereignty. Depending on the project and the priorities of the Tribe, this could involve stable, well-paying jobs; workforce development; business opportunities; and investments that could benefit the community. Nuclear facilities can also contribute local and state tax revenues that support infrastructure, education, and other public services. And for Tribes that may become neighbors to a new nuclear project, being informed and engaged in those projects can help ensure that Tribal interests, priorities, and concerns are understood and considered. Nearby projects may also create opportunities for employment, workforce development, contracting, and other forms of economic participation. And ultimately, each Tribal Nation is best positioned to determine whether and how nuclear energy aligns with its own priorities, values, and vision for the future. Next slide, please.
Okay. As I've mentioned several times, there are many workforce force needs associated with building this nuclear energy renaissance for the future. We do expect this is going to require the industry to grow significantly, around 375,000 jobs by 2050, with the deployment of advanced reactors, which creates an urgent need for skilled workers. And then, of course, the question is where is this next generation going to come from? We're going to need more than just engineers and scientists to do this. To name a few: cybersecurity experts, welders, electricians, pipe fitters, construction professionals, skilled operators and technicians for the plants, business specialists, trainers, communicators, contract specialists, and many other vocations. There is no single pathway that is going to bring someone into a nuclear career. There are hundreds from community college, trade schools, technical schools, apprenticeships, universities. They all will play a critical role of building that workforce into the future. These skilled trades are indispensable for the safe construction, operation, and maintenance of these facilities; and all of these careers offer competitive wages, valuable technical skills, and long-term opportunities. Go to the next slide, please.
Okay. We've talked a bit about being informed, and there are many, many, many resources to learn about nuclear energy and opportunities. You're going to hear very shortly about the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) that'll immediately follow my remarks. There are also many resources available about this topic through universities, research institutions, professional organizations, places like the American Nuclear Society, Nuclear Energy Institute, and others. And you can always reach out to us, and you've got contact information that has just been put into the chat [DOE-NE: energy.gov/ne | DOE-NE email: NECommunications@Nuclear.Energy.gov], that you can reach out to the Department of Energy and give technical support that will be helpful to your community. We're frequently asked about the cost and financial assistance associated with nuclear projects.
There are substantial upfront investments required for any scale of a nuclear project, especially for first-of-a-kind or near-first-of-a-kind projects that can carry additional cost and uncertainty as supply chains and processes are developed. There are certainly opportunities to reduce costs through experience standardization and repeat deployment as you go through, nth-of-a-kind, as we call them, deployments. There's a long-term nature to nuclear energy investments that should be considered. These plants are designed to operate for many decades, and so there are very real near-term costs as well as very long-term benefits and considerations. And again, ask that you make these resources available to yourselves as you weigh those things. There are federal resources as well available to Tribes. The Office of Indian Energy, following my remarks here, will discuss its technical assistance programs, and the Office of Energy Dominance Financing also has financing opportunities that may be relevant to Tribal energy projects. And I also note, finally, that there are certain federal tax credits that may be available, and there is more information on that being put into the chat. And so that is a tremendous amount of information in a short period of time. And so I will thank you at this point for your time and attention and hand the mic over to Emily.
EMILY NICHOLS: Hello, everyone. You can go to the next slide.
My name's Emily Nichols and I work with the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear [GAIN], which is a Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy program. And I'm pleased to be here today. Thanks so much, Rick, for your presentation. That was a lot of great information. I work with Tribal Nations and communities across the U.S. that have interest in learning more about nuclear energy. And today I want to just tell you a little bit more about our program. GAIN was launched ten years ago by the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy to help commercialize and advance reactors as they need support in that development space by giving them access to our national laboratory system. There are 17 national labs in the United States that operate across the country, and we partner with all of them to make sure that folks have the information that they need as they move their projects forward. You can go to the next slide, please.
GAIN works with all those national labs to provide support for private industry as they may need support in accessing facilities, capabilities, and experts that work at the national laboratory to help move their projects forward. And through that work, we spend a lot of time, obviously, in the private industry space, but we also have an arm of work that we do on our team—and that I do—and that is in the community support side of things. So, our team supports Tribal Nations, states, and communities of all different types as they explore nuclear energy topics. And that can look like a lot of different things. Next slide, please.
GAIN supports nuclear-curious communities of all kinds as they explore nuclear energy. That can look like a lot of different things. Some may want support in adding nuclear energy to their energy portfolio. They may be a community that has interest in adding a different type of resource. There may be communities that have a project proposed adjacent to them in the neighboring region, and they want to be more informed as conversations around those pending projects happen. So we provide support in a way that is neutral and fact-based so the folks can feel prepared as they go into conversations around this subject. So a lot of the work that we do can look like a variety of things, depending on the need, and we always say: “Ask for what you need and we will help support in that way.” So, could look like a public meeting where we talk about Nuclear 101 topics. It could be providing testimony for a legislative team that is preparing for a legislative session. We can provide information and example legislation for folks. We provide customized workshops and webinars. We partner with economic development organizations to help them have additional information around nuclear energy. And then again, just trying to provide that factual, neutral information, so if you folks can feel empowered to have conversations around nuclear energy. Let's see. Next slide.
Yeah. Thank you. So one example of this work was the work that we've done in communities that have coal plants. Over the last few years, we've been working in quite a few different coal communities that had interest in adding nuclear to their energy mix. So we conducted several feasibility studies. You'll see here there's the Coronado Generating Station, which is in St. John's, Arizona; the Colstrip Power Plant, which is in Colstrip, Montana; and the Ghent Generating Station, which is in Kentucky. So we worked with these communities and utilities to talk about what opportunities they might have in adding nuclear to their energy mix. We looked at several different categories of information. We looked at site feasibility, where we looked into: “Would that land be amenable to having a nuclear project?” “Did it meet the criteria for all the needs in that space?” We also looked at the types of technologies that might meet the goal for the community, as well as the utility. An example of that might be that a community may be concerned or have considerations around water source and they want to look at air cooled-type technologies. So we tried to best match the interest and the goals of that community and utility with the types of technologies that made sense so that they could have an informed list of information to start those conversations. We also spent time looking at the economic impact of what a nuclear project could bring to a community.
So that can look like how many jobs might a project like this bring, supply chain, the impact of businesses related to support that supply chain and the plant itself. Also thinking about not just hosting a reactor, you could potentially think about the other parts of that nuclear fuel cycle that Rick mentioned earlier, where you could potentially host a piece of that entire system. So then of course the businesses that support the businesses—the general, the grocery stores, and the housing, and those types of things that that can support projects. So in the chat, they're going to put a resource that I wanted to share with you. It talks a lot about that workforce and economic benefit of bringing nuclear to a community. And you can kind of take a look at the information there, and if you have any questions, you can reach out to the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy or to the GAIN team. We’d be happy to talk through those with you at any time. There's also a resource I'm going to put have them put in the chat. It's a video that we did in working in these spaces. We don't have time to watch it today, but I want to share that along if you want to watch it at your leisure. Just talks about the community and the time we spent doing this feasibility study at the Coronado Generating Station in Arizona and it's kind of a nice perspective from their point of view of how they approached a project—an energy project in their region. Let's see, I guess we can go to the next slide, please.
One last thing I wanted to talk about is the additional Communities LEAP [C-LEAP] Program technical assistance that we supported this last year. We spent time with communities; there were five communities that were part of this technical assistance across the United States. We were in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Montana, Utah, and Colorado. And each of those communities had a portion of their technical assistance that was related to nuclear. So they had asked for help learning more about specific questions they had around nuclear. So our GAIN team worked with the C-LEAP Program to provide that technical assistance. And we have those reports out now and those are available if anybody has any questions surrounding those communities or regions. Each of those folks are more than happy to share that information, as well as those feasibility studies from the slide before. We have all that information available to the public. So if you have questions about any of the work that we did in that space, please reach out. And then I wanted to mention that we've been partnering with the Office of Indian Energy's technical assistance team and have been partnering with them as they get requests that are specific to nuclear. And we're excited to build that relationship and continue to support Tribal Nations as they are exploring nuclear in different ways.
And I'm going to pass things over to Rodney Feazell who works with the technical assistance team, and he's going to talk more about that. Thanks so much for listening.
RODNEY FEAZELL: Thank you, Emily, for the handoff. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Rodney Feazell, as mentioned, and I'm a technical assistance specialist in the Office of Indian Energy. My role—I coordinate technical assistance support when Tribal Nations reach out to us for help on energy-related initiatives. This technical assistance can come from our internal scientists and engineers that we have on staff, or very commonly from such subject matter experts that are at the DOE national laboratories. Today, I'm going to walk through the technical assistance program that we offer to help your community plan and navigate early-stage nuclear energy development.
We recognize that advanced nuclear energy represents an extraordinary opportunity for energy sovereignty and economic growth, but it also brings with it a complex utility, regulatory, and resource considerations. Our Office is here to help navigate those complexities from day one. Let's go to the next slide, please.
So let's start with who we are and the core parameters of our technical assistance, or TA program as we call it. First off, the eligibility is very broad. We support all federally recognized Tribes, Alaskan Native Regional and Village corporations, Tribal Energy Development Organizations or TEDOs, as well as Tribally chartered entities. Our mission is to help you advance strategic energy planning and projects and energy commerce with direct expert support. This program is completely free to all of our recipients. All of our scoping, modeling, and reporting services are all fully funded by the Office of Indian Energy. And, also, we accept requests on a rolling basis. So that just means that there's no competitive grant deadlines or large administrative hurdles to overcome to get TA services. You simply start with an email to us stating the request. Also, because we leverage experts at DOE's national laboratories and other key partners, you are getting access to top-tier grid developers, grid engineers, and nuclear resource experts. Now I do want to emphasize here that our focus is pretty heavily on early-stage objective planning, specifically around citing, sizing, and those kinds of resources. And we do not provide formal legal advice, detailed engineering, and we do not write grant applications. What we do do is give you an unbiased early-stage technical foundation to help you make informed decisions when you're investigating whether or not to pursue nuclear power.
Next slide, please.
This graphic shows our high-level, step-by-step TA process from essentially start to finish. Once a Tribe requests support, we schedule an initial scoping call between our Office and our Tribal points of contact to discuss your vision. From there, we identify the exact subject matter expert from our labs or our partner pool. We will introduce them to you, and we will jointly develop a custom statement of work, or SOW, that covers your need. Once that SOW is approved, that's when the work/fun begins, and we generate draft deliverables for your community's feedback and hand over the finalized resources to the Tribe, and conclude that with a collaborative closeout call. So, what I wanted to convey here with this diagram is mostly that our TA service is structured to be highly efficient and collaborative. It's intended to be a practical decision-making resource to improve project outcomes and not to over analyze or stall progress for your projects with paperwork. It is made to protect your Tribe from risk before you enter into binding developer agreements. Next slide please.
This slide shows, really, three key areas where our TA service can help support your Tribal nuclear energy journey: site feasibility, site favorability, and integration. Now, this is not intended to be an all-encompassing scope slide; it's more representative of the buckets to put ideas in, in order to get you started thinking about what we can possibly help you with. For example, first, under site feasibility, we can help determine the buildable plots for reactors based on the site's physically available energy and water infrastructure. Nuclear reactors have specific cooling and safety buffer requirements, and we can help you map out those physical bounds out.
Secondly, under site favorability, we may analyze which specific locations within a site would be most suitable for nuclear energy development, particularly looking closely at environmental overlays and local grid connectivity options. And then finally, under the integration bubble here, we would potentially analyze the impacts of a nuclear power resource on your local grid that exist, or assess the feasibility of an off-grid, microgrid-type solution. This includes identifying potential power markets, opportunities for load colocation. For example, like tying heat and power directly to local Tribal industries and identifying future workforce development opportunities for community members. Next slide, please.
Okay, so if your Tribe is interested in exploring these nuclear-related opportunities, accessing our technical assistance is pretty straightforward. You can visit our website linked here on the screen [https://www.energy.gov/indianenergy/technical-assistance-tribal-energy-projects] to fill out our technical assistance request form, or you can submit an informal request by emailing us directly at IE-TA@hq.doe.gov. That email address is there linked on the screen and also being dropped in the chat right now. And once you reach out, we will schedule a scoping call with you for that diagram that I had before. So we'll schedule a scoping call to connect with your Tribe to discuss your ideas, map out custom task lists, and connect you with dedicated support from our national labs to typically do the heavy, heavy lifting. We are really here to help you turn your energy visions into safe and productive realities that benefit your community. So with that, I will thank you for your time, and I do welcome you to post any questions on- or offline. And I will now hand the presentation over to our CLDP representative, Anna.
ANNA SHERMAN: Thank you so much, Rodney, for the introduction, and I'll be presenting on behalf of the Commercial Law Development Program. You can go to the next slide, please; and the next slide.
So CLDP, or the Commercial Law Development Program, is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
So, we're sponsored and work closely with the Department of Energy's Office of Indian Energy to divide tailored legal technical assistance to Tribes and to really help Tribes build their capacity in minerals, in power, and nuclear. And we do this via helping out with Tribes who are answering, or trying to answer, questions related to data centers; attaining energy sovereignty, including utility formation; general energy development and opportunity analysis; and most of all, what this webinar is about, on developing nuclear energy and nuclear resources on their land. And if we go to the next slide.
We will be soon coming out with a Tribal nuclear primer, which will provide an overview for Tribes who are considering developing nuclear power on their land. And as everyone on this webinar knows, and as we've heard from the other panelists, there are lots of questions, timelines, and various aspects of coordination that need to be considered when Tribes are looking to develop, finance, construct, and license any kind of civil nuclear power on their land. So this primer is written for Tribes who are at the beginning stages of considering developing their nuclear capacity and will answer questions about what kinds of technologies that are currently available, who are the key regulators that they potentially would have to work with, what the process for licensing would be, and also consider how they would be able to finance a nuclear plant or a different kind of nuclear facility and how they would go about obtaining capital for those costs. And then specifically for Tribes, really have Tribes consider what kind of competitive advantages that they might have and different strategies a Tribe could consider, or a Tribal government could consider, to attract partners to develop these kinds of nuclear technologies. If we go to the next slide.
We really wanted to develop this nuclear primer to provide Tribes who are, again, at the beginning stages of considering developing nuclear energy on their land, a starting point that they can proceed with greater confidence. And we believe it will be really helpful for Tribes and Tribal governments to see what kind of they can have in a nuclear project and consider all types of strategies that a Tribe can take towards participating in these kinds of large infrastructure projects. And realize that there are traditional ways of, let's say, developing a nuclear power plant, but there are also a lot of emerging technologies that are advancing very quickly and regulations that are advancing and moving very quickly and that Tribes could have the option to go through those routes or also can better consider other kind of nuclear commercialization options in the nuclear supply chain, getting operator certification, conducting waste management services, and the like. And these all also very feasible options that a Tribe could take in order to participate in this new nuclear renaissance. And if you go to the next slide.
You can conduct a CLDP technical assistance and learn more about our upcoming nuclear primer via the Department of Energy's Office of Indian Energy's website. There's a link on the site to request CLDP specific assistance, and we just ask that you provide necessary information about your request and a member of the DOE team will respond and hopefully connect us with you to answer any kind of legal questions that you might have about developing nuclear energy on your land. And with that, I'll give this back to the hosts.
DAVID CONRAD: Well, thank you to all of our speakers and all the registrants and participants in the webinar. Thank you for your great presentations that provided important information to support Tribes in considering civilian nuclear opportunities. We invite you to stay connected to the Office of Indian Energy for news and information. This slide shows you how you can contact us, subscribe to our email newsletter and updates, and follow us on social media. So please like and subscribe on all of our channels. So thank you very much for joining us today, and this concludes our webinar. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
Thank you.