The Trump administration advocates for nuclear power

While we have seen the acceptance and advancement of nuclear power explode in the United States just over the last year or so, the recent executive orders issued by President Trump have added a strong endorsement of nuclear power.

Reading through these executive orders, it seems that there are clear commitments to remove the roadblocks that are slowing down progress in the name of safety.

The primary roadblock over the last 50 years has been the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with its 3,000 employees. In addition to the $1 billion allocated in the Federal budget, at least 80% of the NRC budget is funded by fees paid by applicants for licensure, which amount to $300 per hour.

The tenor of the Order is to impel the NRC to establish procedures to ensure that new reactor applications are processed to completion in 18 months (or less) while renewal applications take 12 months (or less). These are ambitious culture changes for the organization, especially since they are ordered to do so while reducing staff. No agency of the US Government likes to reduce staff and, indeed, the NRC will claim that such an accomplishment is too onerous to achieve. Nothing new here. It remains to be seen whether the executive order is robustly enforced.

The Navy's seven-decade safety track record with nuclear-generated electricity to support national security began before the establishment of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and its subsequent regulatory framework. Commercial nuclear power plants utilize the light water reactor design, pioneered by the US Navy. All submarines and aircraft carriers are powered by nuclear energy. Operating more than 80 nuclear-powered ships, the United States Navy is currently the largest naval force in the world.

Nuclear power reactors remain the safest industry, by far, in the US and around the world. In fact, no person has been hurt by the normal operations of any commercial nuclear power plant anywhere in the world in almost 7 decades (Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents hurt nobody, and Chernobyl was not under "normal operations" when it catastrophically failed).

Given this safety record, it would seem very easy for the NRC to establish a process to certify systems that are already so safe. It begs the question of why we need the NRC at all. The point is that nuclear safety should be viewed under the scrutiny of a long record of safe operation, not by the myopic view imposed when very little operational data was available. This is especially true during a time when many people claim to want "clean air" and the demand for reliable electricity is expected to ramp up to unprecedented levels. We will now discuss the first of the recently published nuclear power executive orders.

NuScale, the only company successful in attaining a license for a Small Modular Reactor, expended 10 years and $500 million to attain such a license. This stoppage of progress should appall everyone.

It has been clear for several decades that the onerous regulations and nearly impossible task of attaining a license to build and operate nuclear reactors has pointed to the US Government as the primary obstructer for the nuclear power community.

Changes in regulations and delays in approvals have forced huge cost overruns. Nevertheless, the two reactors completed in this realm, Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia, still offer competitively priced electricity for the grid.

Therefore, removing the US government's obstacles to progress appears to be the path to even cheaper electricity through nuclear power. A further development, not yet resolved, is to open the electricity market to free enterprise. The cost reductions available through competition in this market are huge, indicating that such a move may be next in line. We certainly encourage the government to further withdraw from the mix and deregulate electricity from its current monopolistic framework.

The Executive Order, rightfully so, identifies the radiation protection model, the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model, as a further costly imposition on nuclear power plants with no added safety advantage. For a deeper analysis of this issue and a more sensible model called Sigmoid, No-Threshold (SNT), please consult Jack Devanny's excellent book, "How We Can Make Nuclear Cheap Again".