Faced with growing concerns about power supply options, some public power communities in the Western U.S. are embracing a new, innovative nuclear technology option by signing on to a small modular reactor (SMR) project in Idaho.

The retirement of aging coal-fired plants combined with the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act has created an opportunity for public power utilities looking to secure long-term, reliable supplies of clean energy, according to advanced nuclear firm NuScale Power.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently issued a proposed decision aimed at funding $1 billion in infrastructure that will be needed to electrify the state’s transportation sector.

Citing the uncapped nature of tax credits and attractiveness of economics, investment firm Credit Suisse is estimating that the ultimate public climate spending enabled by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could be over $800 billion.

The costs to interconnect wind, solar and storage projects in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region have nearly doubled and, in some cases, nearly tripled over the last 18 years, according to a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.