Trump plans to revive nuclear energy in the US: a number of decrees have been signed
Kyiv • UNN
Trump signed decrees to simplify the approval of nuclear facilities and stimulate the construction of experimental reactors in the United States. He calls for the resumption of construction on sites where installation was canceled.
Trump signed decrees to revive nuclear energy in the USA - media
US President Donald Trump has signed a number of decrees aimed at reviving the country's nuclear energy sector. This is reported by ARS Technica, writes UNN.
Details
As reported, the orders issued by the White House include plans to simplify the reactor approval process and stimulate the construction of experimental reactors by the Department of Energy. But they also contain wording that is inconsistent with other administration priorities and fundamentally misinterprets the use of nuclear energy.
According to the publication, only four new reactors have been started in the US in the 21st century at existing sites. And two of them were later canceled due to project implementation delays and rising costs. The two reactors that were put into operation also suffered from significant delays and cost overruns.
Researchers who studied construction records found that many delays occurred because workers had to wait for equipment or the completion of other work on the site. As the media writes, this may indicate that the lack of a well-developed supply chain of reactor parts is a significant factor. And the latest major changes to safety regulations came in response to the Fukushima accident, which revealed key vulnerabilities in traditional designs.
A large number of startups have proposed projects that take into account previous causes of failures. Many of them are SMRs, or small modular reactors, which promise economies of scale by building the reactor at a central facility and then delivering it to the installation site. But so far, only one reactor of this type has been approved in the United States. And the only planned installation of this design was canceled because the projected cost of electricity became uncompetitive.
It is reported that such a problematic environment makes investing in nuclear energy extremely risky. However, now is the time when natural gas, wind and especially solar electricity prices are incredibly low. And this makes it difficult to justify the large initial costs of nuclear energy, as well as the long time it takes to implement projects before the invested investments start to generate profit.
One of the nuclear energy decrees also calls on the Department of Energy to provide financial support to the industry to stimulate the construction of new plants. And the state agency is already doing this through a loan guarantee program. Despite the fact that these guarantees have not led to new construction projects in more than a decade, the decree calls for efforts to ensure "10 new large reactors with completed projects under construction by 2030".
While the Biden administration has approved payments to support the operation of nuclear power plants, Trump is calling for funding to be used to reopen some plants that could not operate cost-effectively before - something that has not been done in the US before. He is also calling for money to be directed to resume construction at sites where reactor installations have been cancelled, although only two of these projects are less than a decade old.
Similar unrealistic timelines and other conditions are present in the "Deployment of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies" order. It is designed to encourage some of the proposed small modular reactor installation projects that are currently under development. The document orders the army to install one of them on a military base, which will be put into operation within the next three years. In addition, the Minister of Energy must conclude contracts with companies for the construction of three test reactors by July 4, 2026.
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It is expected that the accelerated schedule will be due to the granting of the possibility to the Minister of Energy to simply ignore any aspect of the environmental expertise complained about by the companies building the reactor: "The Minister must, in accordance with current legislation, use all available powers to cancel or accelerate the environmental expertise of the Department for permits, approvals, agreements leases and any other activity requested by the applicant or potential applicant".