Trump nuclear orders aim to greatly speed reactor construction

• The orders raise questions about just how quickly licensing decisions can occur at the understaffed commission that Congress has already directed to take the lead in approving advanced reactors.

The NRC wouldn't have a direct role in building reactors at the other agencies' sites.

• But the agency — which now can take five years to review new licenses — remains the regulator for non-federally sited reactors.

The big picture: The Trump administration wants to deploy a new reactor before Trump leaves office in early 2029, a senior White House official told reporters.

• Nuclear enjoys bipartisan support as a zero-carbon energy soruce that can meet rising demand from data centers and manufacturing.
• But cost challenges and fuel supply concerns around building new reactors continue to slow development.

What's inside: The first executive order speeds up reactor testing at the DOE national laboratories and sets up a pilot program for reactor construction over the next two years.

• The second order establishes a partnership between the DOE and Pentagon to build nuclear reactors.
• The third reorients NRC to lower regulatory burdens with a shortening license timeline.
• And the fourth focuses on expanding U.S. uranium mining and enrichment capacity.

Reactors on DOE and DOD sites would use those agencies' authorities to regulate nuclear facilities, the White House official said.

The other side: Former NRC chair Allison Macfarlane said backers of small modular reactors are "pushing the regulator around," but that it doesn't solve the nuclear industry's larger problems.

• "The real issue facing nuclear is that it simply costs too much and it takes too long to bring online (and here I mean construction — not licensing)," Macfarlane said in an email.
• "They won't actually make any progress without addressing this issue. Regulatory costs are a very small percentage of the overall costs to make nuclear reactors commercially viable."
• Ahead of Friday's orders, longtime nuclear watchdog Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists criticized the administration's approach in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
• "By focusing on the wrong issues—namely, by scapegoating the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)'s oversight over the industry's own inability to raise sufficient capital and competently manage large, complex projects—the orders would undermine the regulatory stability that investors demand, not to mention create the potential for significant safety and reliability problems down the road," Lyman wrote.

Between the lines: The overhaul of the NRC and emphasis on DOE and DOD actions — which Axios scooped earlier this month — are in line with recent announcements to identify possible reactor sites.

• Some Democrats have floated the idea as a way to speed up nuclear deployment.
• The Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a pro-nuclear think tank, said the executive orders need to be accompanied by adequate staffing and funding.
• "Recent DOE staffing reductions and proposed budget cuts undermine the department's efforts and make it harder to implement these executive orders," it said in a statement. "We urge the administration and Congress to adequately resource and staff DOE to meet this moment."

What they're saying: Developers "have run into brick walls when it comes to nuclear technologies," OSTP Director Michael Kratsios told reporters Friday ahead of the signing.

• "With these actions, presidents has shown the world that America will build again, and American nuclear renaissance can begin," Kratsios said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with comments from Allison Macfarlane and the Nuclear Innovation Alliance.