Does the US need a new multibillion-dollar test facility for developers of advanced nuclear reactors? Should those developers share the cost to build it? Could an advanced commercial reactor that’s slated to be built with $2 billion in taxpayer funding be modified to also provide those testing capabilities?

Those questions have swirled around the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) that the Department of Energy wants to build at its Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The project was imperiled in July after House and Senate appropriators stiffed DOE’s request for $145 million in fiscal year 2022 funding. Then in September, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee included $95 million for the VTR in its portion of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package that President Biden and Democratic leaders were hoping to pass without Republican support. As Physics Today went to press, negotiations between the White House and House Democrats were expected to...

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