The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks led to new
requirements to safeguard spent
fuel pools at U.S. reactors, but the
overall policy toward the nuclear
fuel cycle has been bound up in the fight over the proposed
fuel repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which the Obama administration wants to terminate.
The measure directs how a unit's
overall efficiency shall be determined on the basis of outputs of electrical generation and useful thermal energy output, which is defined in the bill as (i) including direct heat and other valid thermal end - use energy
requirements for which
fuel or electricity would otherwise be consumed and (ii) excluding thermal energy used for the purpose of drying or refining biomass
fuel.