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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Executive Orders Ignite U.S. Nuclear Push
Last Friday, the President signed four separate executive orders designed to accelerate nuclear energy development in the US. The first order directs the Department of Defense to deploy new reactor technologies at military installations. The second order, directed specifically at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, mandated much tighter deadlines for new reactor approvals, demanded a review of current radiological exposure risks, and called for further agency staffing cuts. The third order directs the Department of Energy to test and approve no fewer than three new reactor designs by July 4, 2026. But the fourth of these EOs, where the real money is, 1) it called for the direct federal funding for uranium fuels (particularly HALEU), , 2) begin construction on at least ten new gigawatt scale reactors by the end of the decade, 3) and the development of reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel waste. In this context, the President garnered headlines when he called for an expansion of our existing nuclear power generation fleet to 400 gigawatts, roughly four times its present size, further stating 'We're not going to have cost overruns.' What's interesting to us is that virtually all of these initiatives were contained in the Biden administration's ADVANCE Act, signed in July of last year. This bipartisan bill contained many of the same elements as the President's recent EOs: regulatory acceleration of new reactor designs, a focus on microreactors, approval of two new reactor designs for military installations, encouraging the use of brownfield (i.e. coal) sites for new nuclear deployment, and the allocation of federal funds for actual uranium purchases related to HALEU and TRISO fuels—the former preferred by SMRs and the latter used in molten salt and HTGRs. The ADVANCE Act was an acknowledgement that our existing regulatory process has given short shrift to advanced reactor designs using different coolants and fuels and a new, emerging industry—one with considerable political clout—was demanding faster regulatory approvals. However, the only glaring difference between Trump's recent EO's and Biden's ADVANCE Act is that the recent EOs urged further big cuts in regulatory personnel, while demanding they do more on expedited timelines, while Biden's bill called for staffing increases to address new issues. So to us, an honest headline for this should read, 'Trump wholeheartedly embraces Biden's nuclear policy with a few personnel tweaks.'In signing these EOs, Trump was accompanied by the CEOs from Constellation Energy and Oklo Power. Constellation is one of the biggest nuclear power owner/operators in the US, while Oklo is developing a small, 75 mw liquid metal cooled breeder reactor. Stock prices of SMR developers like NuScale, Oklo, and others rallied sharply. In the past five days, shares of NuScale have gained about 55% while Oklo's shareholders were rewarded with 52% gains. The point here is that the administration is clearly indicating continued support for this industry and the equity markets responded. As to the magnitude of the response, we have no views. But despite all the SMR hoopla, there is only one gigawatt reactor design presently approved for the US, already built, and ready to go—the Westinghouse AP 1000 recently built by Southern Company, aka Plant Vogtle Units 3&4. However, as our readers know, Westinghouse is a subsidiary of a Canadian conglomerate. So it's a bit awkward. We conclude with two thoughts. First, the President, by picking a fight with his Canadian trading partner, may hinder his ability to rapidly accomplish a nuclear renaissance. And second, nuclear energy is evolving as a global industry and tariff uncertainty is also problematic. By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for More Top Reads From this article on
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump's executive orders could endanger America's nuclear renaissance
On May 23, President Trump signed four executive orders designed to dramatically expand and accelerate U.S. development and construction of nuclear power plants, with emphasis on advanced reactors. The stated rationale for the administration's action is a combination of a domestic energy emergency and a desire to win the geopolitical competition against China and Russia. However, if implemented as written, these orders could undermine the very objective they intend to promote. The new orders assert that the failure of the U.S. to develop the nuclear energy sector in recent decades is primarily attributable to a myopic and misguided approach to nuclear regulation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the commission licenses the design, construction and operation of domestic nuclear and radiological facilities, including commercial nuclear power plants. The orders lay out a series of radical steps to scale back, reorient and even bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by having the Departments of Energy or Defense license non-commercial reactors to be built on their federal sites. In total, they aim to achieve rapid development of new nuclear designs and expedited construction of advanced nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also ordered to effect a 'wholesale revision of its regulations and guidance' within nine months. The desire to revamp the U.S. nuclear industrial base, encourage and support new nuclear power plant construction, and streamline Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing is welcome. However, it is neither new nor specific to the Trump administration. Under the ADVANCE Act passed by Congress in 2024, the commission had already begun to adapt its licensing processes for new reactor designs and recruit staff to do this work. Three flawed premises guide the new executive orders. First, they see the future of nuclear energy as fundamentally similar to that of other energy sources — whereby innovation in design and fast deployment are seen as inherent net positives, and bugs, if any, can be fixed later. The orders downplay or ignore the special magnitude of nuclear risks, the series of traumatic accidents suffered by leading nuclear power nations and the unique environmental and multi-generational footprint of nuclear waste and spent fuel. Second, nuclear regulation is mostly viewed as unduly burdensome, expensive, time-consuming and an outright drag on efficiency. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is explicitly blamed for 'throttling nuclear power development' in the U.S. In this regard, the orders fail to recognize a central purpose of regulation: to build and maintain trust in nuclear energy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not presented the key obstacle to nuclear development in the U.S. And it is the key instrument to earn and keep trust in nuclear energy both nationally and internationally. Third, the executive orders grossly exaggerate the delays to new deployment legitimately attributable to excessive nuclear regulation. They underestimate the addition of time to market due to limitations on workforce availability, supply chain, financing, specialty fuels and community buy-in. What Americans need is confidence that any nuclear power plant built and operated in the U.S. is safe, secure and ultimately beneficial to American and host community prosperity. However, the net result of these executive orders, coupled with the additional impact of other administration actions to reform governmental regulatory processes to align with White House policies, is to risk public trust in nuclear energy. Downscaling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's staff, curtailing its political independence, compromising its technical integrity, scaling back its community engagement role or avoiding the commission outright introduces more uncertainty than inspires confidence in a nuclear renaissance. It would shatter the commission's credibility, nationwide and worldwide, to lower the risk standards it has been credibly using for years to minimize adverse radiation effects from nuclear power plants. Furthermore, the orders are bound to expedite the brain drain from the agency, whose credibility, speed and efficiency are all dependent on a quality workforce that firmly believes in its mission and inspires all others with its professionalism. They will reduce confidence in further extending the lives of aging nuclear power plants —many of which have been operating for 60 years or more — or in restarting mothballed plants. And they could unnecessarily increase public wariness that new nuclear designs will not be subjected to a rigorous and transparent review before their performance can be fully demonstrated and tested. The public reactions to the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima underscore how critical trust is to sustaining public support for nuclear power. Here, the global setback to the credibility of the Federal Aviation Agency as a U.S. aerospace licensing authority is a poignant reminder, when it emerged after deadly crashes of Boeing's 737 Max, that the agency had delegated some of its licensing process to the company. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's credibility as a professional, independent regulator is also a major selling point for U.S. nuclear vendors seeking to win overseas contracts. At a time when the U.S. nuclear industry is trying to achieve economies of scale to bolster its competitiveness against Russian and Chinese firms (who can offer better financing and other perks), the commission's reputation as the gold standard in nuclear regulation is one of the few comparative American advantages. Yes, Nuclear Regulatory Commission operations should be more efficient. The effort to make them so is already well underway and could be further encouraged. But now — just as nuclear power nears a new dawn — is the worst possible time to damage the commission's capacity to credibly assess and faithfully, independently and publicly report its evaluations and licensing considerations and decisions. Toby Dalton is a senior fellow and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ariel (Eli) Levite is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
5 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Trump's executive orders could endanger America's nuclear renaissance
On May 23, President Trump signed four executive orders designed to dramatically expand and accelerate U.S. development and construction of nuclear power plants, with emphasis on advanced reactors. The stated rationale for the administration's action is a combination of a domestic energy emergency and a desire to win the geopolitical competition against China and Russia. However, if implemented as written, these orders could undermine the very objective they intend to promote. The new orders assert that the failure of the U.S. to develop the nuclear energy sector in recent decades is primarily attributable to a myopic and misguided approach to nuclear regulation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the commission licenses the design, construction and operation of domestic nuclear and radiological facilities, including commercial nuclear power plants. The orders lay out a series of radical steps to scale back, reorient and even bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by having the Departments of Energy or Defense license non-commercial reactors to be built on their federal sites. In total, they aim to achieve rapid development of new nuclear designs and expedited construction of advanced nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also ordered to effect a 'wholesale revision of its regulations and guidance' within nine months. The desire to revamp the U.S. nuclear industrial base, encourage and support new nuclear power plant construction, and streamline Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing is welcome. However, it is neither new nor specific to the Trump administration. Under the ADVANCE Act passed by Congress in 2024, the commission had already begun to adapt its licensing processes for new reactor designs and recruit staff to do this work. Three flawed premises guide the new executive orders. First, they see the future of nuclear energy as fundamentally similar to that of other energy sources — whereby innovation in design and fast deployment are seen as inherent net positives, and bugs, if any, can be fixed later. The orders downplay or ignore the special magnitude of nuclear risks, the series of traumatic accidents suffered by leading nuclear power nations and the unique environmental and multi-generational footprint of nuclear waste and spent fuel. Second, nuclear regulation is mostly viewed as unduly burdensome, expensive, time-consuming and an outright drag on efficiency. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is explicitly blamed for 'throttling nuclear power development' in the U.S. In this regard, the orders fail to recognize a central purpose of regulation: to build and maintain trust in nuclear energy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not presented the key obstacle to nuclear development in the U.S. And it is the key instrument to earn and keep trust in nuclear energy both nationally and internationally. Third, the executive orders grossly exaggerate the delays to new deployment legitimately attributable to excessive nuclear regulation. They underestimate the addition of time to market due to limitations on workforce availability, supply chain, financing, specialty fuels and community buy-in. What Americans need is confidence that any nuclear power plant built and operated in the U.S. is safe, secure and ultimately beneficial to American and host community prosperity. However, the net result of these executive orders, coupled with the additional impact of other administration actions to reform governmental regulatory processes to align with White House policies, is to risk public trust in nuclear energy. Downscaling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's staff, curtailing its political independence, compromising its technical integrity, scaling back its community engagement role or avoiding the commission outright introduces more uncertainty than inspires confidence in a nuclear renaissance. It would shatter the commission's credibility, nationwide and worldwide, to lower the risk standards it has been credibly using for years to minimize adverse radiation effects from nuclear power plants. Furthermore, the orders are bound to expedite the brain drain from the agency, whose credibility, speed and efficiency are all dependent on a quality workforce that firmly believes in its mission and inspires all others with its professionalism. They will reduce confidence in further extending the lives of aging nuclear power plants —many of which have been operating for 60 years or more — or in restarting mothballed plants. And they could unnecessarily increase public wariness that new nuclear designs will not be subjected to a rigorous and transparent review before their performance can be fully demonstrated and tested. The public reactions to the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima underscore how critical trust is to sustaining public support for nuclear power. Here, the global setback to the credibility of the Federal Aviation Agency as a U.S. aerospace licensing authority is a poignant reminder, when it emerged after deadly crashes of Boeing's 737 Max, that the agency had delegated some of its licensing process to the company. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's credibility as a professional, independent regulator is also a major selling point for U.S. nuclear vendors seeking to win overseas contracts. At a time when the U.S. nuclear industry is trying to achieve economies of scale to bolster its competitiveness against Russian and Chinese firms (who can offer better financing and other perks), the commission's reputation as the gold standard in nuclear regulation is one of the few comparative American advantages. Yes, Nuclear Regulatory Commission operations should be more efficient. The effort to make them so is already well underway and could be further encouraged. But now — just as nuclear power nears a new dawn — is the worst possible time to damage the commission's capacity to credibly assess and faithfully, independently and publicly report its evaluations and licensing considerations and decisions. Toby Dalton is a senior fellow and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ariel (Eli) Levite is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Will Trump's Regulatory Reforms Do Enough To Unleash Nuclear Energy?
On Friday, President Donald Trump issued four executive orders aimed at bolstering nuclear power production by addressing supply chain constraints, reforming advanced reactor testing at federal research facilities, and increasing nuclear reactor use on military bases. One of the most substantive orders calls for a "wholesale revision" of regulations governing nuclear power. Specifically, it directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to establish guidelines that would issue final decisions on all new construction and operation applications within 18 months—a process that currently takes years. Under the order, the NRC will work with the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to draft these rules, which are due next year. Under an executive order issued in February, executive and independent agencies are required to submit draft and final rules to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (an office within the OMB) for review and approval. This added layer of federal scrutiny could end up slowing down reactor approvals and make the NRC less efficient. It could also run contrary to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which established the NRC and its guidelines. "The NRC is designed to be an independent agency," Adam Stein, director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Program at the Breakthrough Institute, tells Reason. "The President has control by appointing Commissioners and has the authority to remove Commissioners for cause." However, the Atomic Energy Act says that the commission shall execute the provisions of the law, "not the Commissioners in conjunction with other parts of the Executive branch," he says. Congress has also begun to address permitting delays at the NRC. In 2024, federal lawmakers passed the ADVANCE Act which, among other things, directs the NRC to establish a quicker permitting process for already-approved technologies (18 months to finish safety evaluations and environmental reviews and 25 months to issue a final decision). The agency is expected to issue these guidelines by September, according to the NRC website. However, the legislation stipulates that these guidelines be enforced to "the maximum extent possible." Jack Spencer, a senior energy researcher at The Heritage Foundation, thinks Trump's order could "bring additional accountability to the process." "Any big bureaucracy is going to be resistant to change," he says. "Legislation that basically puts it in their hands to achieve that reform, I think, will often fall short of the sorts of reform that are possible." Spencer thinks that subjecting the proposed reforms to another set of eyes "that will ask hard questions will be helpful in ensuring that real reform ultimately takes hold." This executive order also directs the NRC to reconsider its radiation standards for nuclear power plants and "adopt science-based radiation limits." Federal radiation regulations mandate nuclear power plants to emit levels of radiation that are "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) and are based on the linear no-threshold model, which assumes that no level of radiation risk is safe to the public. This framework is not scientific (humans are exposed to natural levels of radiation that are higher than those that nuclear power plants emit) and has pushed up costs for power plant operators for no public safety benefit. Spencer argues that fixing this rule is critical for reducing the nuclear industry's regulatory burden. "You can make the NRC the most efficient regulatory agency that has ever existed. And if the basis of its regulatory actions is not grounded in science, then who cares?" "That doesn't mean that you're reducing safety standards. It means that you're making safety standards in line with actual risks," he adds. This directive could face legal scrutiny. Stein, who has been critical of these standards, says "safety standards are almost never implemented through executive order. They usually require the agency to review and 'reconsider' if the standards are appropriate." With the NRC recently reaffirming its model for radiation standards in 2021, there "would need to be new scientific evidence to justify a change now that wouldn't be viewed as arbitrary by a court." Instead of rewriting ALARA standards, Stein suggests that the NRC could adopt radiation thresholds at nuclear power facilities that are defined in the Clean Air Act. Spencer recognizes these standards can't be changed through an executive order. "But it gets the conversation going. And it makes it more OK to talk about it, and it subjects the whole issue to daylight and makes people address it." Trump's order also sets a goal to effectively quadruple America's nuclear energy capacity and build 400 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050. Stein says this goal "can be a helpful signal to the market," but stating a goal does not "will it into existence." Juliann Edwards, chief development officer at The Nuclear Company, a startup aiming to streamline the deployment of nuclear power plants, agrees. "It's obtainable if you have the right leadership and you have the right behaviors and you're removing a lot of bureaucratic, unnecessary red tape, whether that be the federal level or the state level or through some regulatory regime." America's fleet of commercial nuclear power plants, while still safe and effective, is aging. Most of the reactors were built between 1967 and 1990—although two came online in 2023 and 2024, seven years delayed and $16 billion over budget. As the U.S. halted its construction, China's has accelerated. From 2014 to April 2024, the nation has added over 34 GW of nuclear capacity to its grid. "Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less," notes the Breakthrough Institute. China currently has 30 nuclear reactors under construction and is exporting its nuclear energy technology to developing nations. Nearly half of the world's nuclear power plant constructions are happening in China. While several factors have played into America's pivot away from nuclear power, including market structures, state bans on the energy source, and the introduction of cheap natural gas, the impact of federal regulations cannot be overstated. "Without doing a refresh and making sure [that] regulations are still applicable, you can get into a point, which we're seeing now, where it's extremely difficult to even cite and permit a piece of land," says Edwards. In the past 20 years, regulations have become so onerous that it takes five to seven years and close to $1 billion just to permit and cite a plot of land for nuclear energy development, according to Edwards. Streamlining the licensing process isn't a safety hazard but rather "a natural iteration that should be a part of our standard process with regulations." Regulations have long inhibited American nuclear energy. While Trump's order is well-intentioned to fix this issue, it is sure to face legal challenges—as many of the president's orders have. Still, the orders may be enough to get a more substantial conversation going. "I think anything that creates pressure toward reform is good," says Spencer. The post Will Trump's Regulatory Reforms Do Enough To Unleash Nuclear Energy? appeared first on
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Nuclear power is having a renaissance. Here's what consultants say about the industry's future.
Investment in nuclear energy is up, but US construction lags behind the rest of the world. Consulting firms like BCG and McKinsey analyzed the forces holding up the nuclear industry. The firms say scaling, public sentiment, and regulatory hurdles are slowing growth. It wasn't long ago that the very mention of "nuclear" was enough to unsettle people across the ideological spectrum. Between the meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, explosions in Chernobyl, and an earthquake-powered disaster at Fukushima, the one thing people seemed to agree on was that nuclear was a dirty, if not dangerous, word. But times have changed, new insights and new data have emerged, and what once seemed unethical has been rebranded as clean, in every sense. The nuclear energy renaissance — fueled by Big Tech investment, a more favorable legislative climate, and shifting public opinion — hinges on a change in perspective: Nuclear energy has the potential to be one of the cleanest and most reliable forms of energy on Earth. But the construction of nuclear reactors in the United States — where nuclear accounted for 19% of electricity generated in 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration — is lagging compared to efforts in China and elsewhere, according to the Boston Consulting Group. That's part of why consulting firms are searching for ways for nuclear energy companies to cut costs, improve efficiencies, and remove the obstacles holding up progress. There are 94 nuclear reactors in the United States, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. And tech giants are investing considerably to bring new ones online. Last October, Amazon invested $500 million in X-Energy, a developer of small nuclear reactors and fuel. Around the same time, Google said it would purchase nuclear energy from Kairos Power, a California-based company developing small modular reactors. The month before, Constellation Energy struck a deal with Microsoft to provide the tech giant with nuclear power for the next two decades by resurrecting part of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. The Trump administration is also working to jumpstart nuclear reactor construction, building on Biden's ADVANCE Act last year, which sought to remove regulatory hurdles. Trump issued four executive orders on Friday to accelerate the development of the domestic nuclear energy industry, touching on areas from fuel cycle development to reactor construction, testing, and licensing, to workforce training. However, hurdles persist. "Growth in nuclear power is projected to be almost flat to 2050 due to more stringent regulatory requirements than for other low-carbon energy sources, negative public perception, perceived safety issues, supply chain constraints, and uncertainty around waste disposal," McKinsey & Company wrote in its 2024 Global Energy Perspective. Some of the persisting negative sentiment can be attributed to concerns about how the radioactive waste that nuclear reactors generate will be stored. The federal government once planned to direct all waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but lawmakers and the public objected. There are also lingering concerns about the government's capacity to mitigate nuclear disasters and nuclear power's association with nuclear weapons proliferation. There is hope, however. In 2024, three-quarters of respondents, out of a sample of 3.5 million people used by Bisconti Research, said they favored the use of nuclear energy for electricity, up from about half in the 1980s and 1990s. Large-scale nuclear reactors require a significant investment in time and money. They necessitate significant upfront capital and require long construction windows that are often beset by delays, cost issues, and regulatory hurdles. BCG says that the "simpler the design, the better." The firm said the optimal design should follow "a 'design-for-manufacturing' approach, which has delivered compelling results in other industries such as aerospace and defense." The goal, according to BCG, should be to standardize the components and material needed for construction, along with reducing the number of construction steps to promote "modularity," the firm said. That applies to both large-scale and small-scale reactors, Benjamin Vannier, managing director and partner at BCG, told BI by email. The AP1000, a large-scale pressurized water reactor, is an example of a reactor designed for modular construction, he added. Modularity is perhaps the biggest trend in nuclear right now. There are a number of small modular reactor companies, like Oklo, which was until recently chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; TerraPower, which is backed by Bill Gates; and X-Energy, which Amazon invested $500 million in last year. These more compact nuclear reactors are designed to be built in factories and then shipped to sites for installation and are, therefore, easier to standardize for production. Nuclear fission, which produces energy by splitting uranium atoms, releases almost no greenhouse gas emissions. Many AI executives consider nuclear fission the only reliable way to power their data centers. Tech leaders are also excited by recent advances in fusion technology, which involves combining two atomic nuclei to release energy and is considered safer than fission. Type One Energy, funded by Gates, published research in March that shows there are no scientific barriers left to making commercial fusion a reality. However, nuclear power remains only a "medium-term solution," McKinsey said in a 2024 report on data centers and power. "The timeline to scale nuclear so it can achieve rapid, repeated deployment is nearly a decade, while constraints on data center power are appearing today." It added, "The early economics of nuclear are challenging compared with other energy options, and implementing various technologies to try to reduce its costs may or may not work." While power plants are relatively cheap to run in the long term and can last as long as 60 years, they require considerable upfront investment. In a report published in 2017, the World Nuclear Association said that nuclear plants are strongly influenced by capital cost, which accounts for at least 60% of their total levelized cost of electricity, which is essentially a measure of a plant's economic efficiency. It is calculated by dividing the total cost to build and operate a power plant over its lifetime by the total electricity output. Generative AI may help improve efficiencies on the operating side. Rafee Tarafdar, the chief technology officer of Infosys, a global consulting firm, told BI that the firm is helping companies integrate AI into their plans. "One proof of value that we built is: How do we use all the logs, all the sensors that come from all these machines in order to triage, predict failures, and help resolve issues much earlier," he said, in reference to the work the firm did with a large US energy company. The consensus among consulting firms is that solving early construction bottlenecks is key to scaling nuclear energy as a viable power source for AI and beyond. Read the original article on Business Insider
