Latest news with #smallModularReactors
Bloomberg
9 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
GE Vernova to Build Service Center for Small Reactors in Ontario
Ontario will have the world's first service center for a new, smaller kind of nuclear plant, as the province embraces a technology that's been touted as a way to meet surging power demand from artificial intelligence. GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy has committed C$70 million ($51 million) to build an engineering and service center outside Toronto for small modular reactors. The announcement comes less than two months after Ontario gave the green light to a C$20.9 billion project to build such reactors.
Washington Post
23-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump plan for fast-tracking nuclear power takes aim at regulators
President Donald Trump is inserting the White House into a safety review process for nuclear reactors that has operated independently for decades, blaming overregulation and risk-aversion for the slow pace at which plants have been built in recent years. One of four executive orders Trump signed Friday directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to complete the licensing process for any new reactors within 18 months and rewrite radiation exposure rules the White House criticizes as unnecessarily cautious. 'We're going to take the shackles off the nuclear industry,' Trump said as he signed the orders in the Oval Office. 'No more waiting 15 years for a permit. No more relying on foreign uranium. We are unleashing American energy — clean, reliable and patriotic.' Trump signed the orders relating to nuclear energy as demand is soaring and tech companies are investing heavily in nuclear innovations in the hope that new plants can power the massive data centers that fuel artificial intelligence. Administration officials say they expect the directives to result in new plants being built during the president's term. They are particularly focused on development of what are known as small modular reactors, which the industry argues are more nimble and safer than legacy reactors. But the development of the technology has been beset by years of cost overruns, supply chain problems and design changes that have set back the licensing process. Experts say a speedier permitting process won't solve many of the economic and technical hurdles that the industry is still straining to overcome to bring such reactors online. The last new reactors to come online, at the Vogtle plant in Georgia in 2023, were seven years behind schedule and $17 billion over budget — with the final price tag doubling initial projections. The new executive orders, while applauded by industry officials who joined Trump at a signing ceremony Friday, are also raising concern that White House interference will create new safety risks for the public and ultimately undermine the industry's attempt at a reboot. The White House is directing 'complete reform of NRC culture' at the same time that it is asserting unprecedented control over the agency, changing its decision-making process so that any final rulings first be routed through the White House, which can change findings. 'Reorganizing and reducing the independence of the NRC could lead to the hasty deployment of advanced reactors with safety and security flaws,' wrote Ernest Moniz, an Obama-era energy secretary and nuclear physicist, in a statement posted in anticipation of the orders. 'A major event would, like those in the past, increase regulatory requirements and set back nuclear energy for a long time.' In addition to calling for an overhaul at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the orders would also encourage the departments of Energy and Defense to build reactors on federal land to power data centers and military bases, speed up the process for testing new reactor technology and boost domestic supply chains for nuclear fuels. The orders come after Congress has already passed legislation directing the commission to modernize its operations and speed up the licensing process. Some groups, including the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, an industry think tank, warn the Trump directives could complicate a retooling process already underway and making progress. The group also warns that steep cuts to the federal workforce that the administration is pursuing threaten to undermine Trump's plans to rapidly license new reactors. 'I worry the White House getting more involved will slow down reform,' said Matt Bowen, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. 'I would prefer they not be directing the NRC on these things.' Scientists say the radiation exposure rules the White House is taking aim at may be ripe for review. But they warn it is a multiyear process involving voluminous amounts of data and multiple federal offices, including the Environmental Protection Agency. 'You can't just do this by fiat if there is no scientific foundation,' said Paul Dickman, a former senior staffer at the commission and president of the World Council on Isotopes. 'In order to get this right, you have to have that.'
