Do more with less?
AAlthough the The Trump administration aims to accelerate nuclear energy through decrees, in practice, it has not yet allocated new funding, said Matt Bowen, a nuclear energy, waste and non-proliferation at the center on global energy policy of the University of Columbia. In fact, the initial White House budget proposed reducing $ 4.7 billion from the Ministry of Energy, including $ 408 million from the nuclear energy office allocated to nuclear research during the year 2026.
“The administration proposed nuclear energy and DOE office reductions more widely, and Doge pushes the staff,” said Bowen. “How do you do more with less staff, less money.”
The Trump administration puts the blame for the stagnation of the nuclear sector on the CNRC, which oversees the license and rectification processes that cost the industry of millions of dollars each year in accordance. In his decrees, Trump called for a major reorganization of the CNRC. Some of the changes offered, such as rationalization of the approval process (which can take years for new factories), can be welcomed because “for a long time, they were very, very, very slow,” said Charles Forsberg, nuclear chemical engineer. But there are concerns that decrees could make more than reduce administrative formalities.
“Each word of these orders is worrying, because the thrust of these orders is to essentially strip the nuclear regulatory commission of its independence from the executive branch, essentially canceling the initial objective,” said Lyman.
Some experts fear that with these new constraints, CNRC staff have less time and less resources to do their job, which could have an impact on the safety of power plants in the future. Bowen said: “This notion that the problem of nuclear energy is the regulation, and therefore all that we must do is deregulate, is both wrong and also very problematic.”
The next decades will indicate whether nuclear, in particular SMRs, can overcome economic and technical challenges to contribute safely to decarbonization efforts. Some, like Gehin, are optimistic. “I think we are going to accelerate,” he said. “We can certainly achieve a spectacular deployment if we put our state of mind there.”
But rendering financially competitive nuclear will make a serious commitment from the government and dozens of companies, which are still skeptical, said Shirvan. “I am absolutely, I would say, on a pessimistic scale with regard to the future of nuclear energy in the United States.”
This article was initially published on Undark. Read the original article.
