Developers Say More Federal, State Lawmaking Needed to Sustain US Nuclear Renaissance

With four new domestically developed small modular reactors achieving viability since June 4 and up to four more set to do so by year’s end, the “nuclear renaissance” championed by successive administrations in the United States is on the cusp of doing what proponents have promised for decades—changing the world.These prototypes are not only the first novel reactors to meet the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) “criticality” requirements since 1973, but will be the progenitors of mass-produced, portable, and scalable reactors that, if timelines progress as planned for several, will be factory-made for sale by 2027 and number in the tens of thousands by the early 2030s.The surge in nuclear energy development is a confluence of dramatically increasing demand for electricity to power data centers and accommodate the integration of artificial intelligence into a digitalized economy, rare sustained cross-aisle consensus in Congress and state legislatures, and President Donald Trump’s commitment to advance new reactor designs that have languished untested for a half century.In fact, many of these prototypes aren’t “new” technologies.Iterations of some have been on corporate drawing boards and analyzed by university engineering departments for decades.Some components, processes, and physics have already been extensively tested in field and lab experiments.But while previous administrations—including his first—supported nuclear energy with kind words, Trump has incentivized the industry with up to $300 billion in loan authorities, sponsored a slate of permitting reform legislation, and issued executive orders to modify the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and streamline reactor licensing approvals from a decade to 18 months.In the wake of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024 (ADVANCE Act) adoption, the first major nuclear energy bill approved by Congress in a generation, the president issued four May 2025 “nuclear renaissance” executive orders that call for licensing 10 new reactors by 2030 and quadrupling the nation’s nuclear energy production by 2050.To help make that happen, DOE selected 10 developers in August 2025 to participate in a pilot program to test 11 “first mover” innovations with at least three going critical by the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4.That goal was eclipsed when Aalo Atomics’ Aalo-X became the fourth since Antares Nuclear’s Mark-0 did so on June 4 to attain criticality at 12:20 a.m. on July 4.Trump’s executive orders “changed the policy environment overnight, removing barriers that have constrained nuclear energy for decades, and setting a hard deadline against the backdrop of America’s 250th birthday,” Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Director John Wagner said.“That challenge galvanized an industry. That challenge galvanized us. They have dramatically changed our world at this laboratory and will soon change the world beyond this laboratory.”Qualifying for the program comes with access to DOE’s 890-square-mile INL that Wagner manages, where atomic power was first used to create electricity in 1951, and where U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright praised “first-movers” during a June 25 “Celebration of the Golden Era of Nuclear Power” in Idaho Falls.“It’s you, the people in this room, this state, this lab, this community, who are driving this pivot that will change the world,” he told 4,000 lab employees, reactor developers, and investors during a presentation at Idaho Falls’ Mountain America Center.“We will look back in history and remember this pivot. We cannot understate what’s going on here—and you are making it happen.”Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on June 25, 2026, signs a plaque commemorating Aalo Atomics’ Aalo-X test reactor’s installation at Idaho National Laboratory, less than 10 days before it became the fourth new reactor design to achieve criticality in less than a month. John Haughey/The Epoch TimesNRC’s Part 57Reactor developers and INL staff told The Epoch Times that despite Trump’s executive orders and loan authorities, the “nuclear renaissance” needs federal and state legislative buttressing, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must pass Part 57, a proposed micro-reactor regulatory framework that trims permit and license reviews from at least five years—often more than a decade—to six to 12 months.Under the proposed Part 57 rule, when the commission issues a license for a prototype reactor, the developer doesn’t need further approvals to mass replicate.The rule would save developers and taxpayers as much as $12 billion in reviewing reactor proposals just on its docket, the commission estimates.The rule was posted on the Federal Register in April with public comment closing July 15. Commissioners are expected to debate and adopt a final rule in late 2026 or early 2027.The “streamlined, risk-informed, and flexible licensing pathway” in Part 57 “just blows me away,” Wagner said during a June 24 tour of DOE’s Rhode Island-sized lab on eastern Idaho’s Arco Desert.“The traditional thinking in the traditional nuclear community scoffs at” the abbreviated timelines.But without it, licensing small reactors designed to be mass-produced one-by-one—like it’s been done since the late 1940s—will defuse nuclear momentum and dramatically stunt commercial and investment interest, developers said.“Part 57 really opens up the idea that you can basically approve one standardized design,” Antares Nuclear Licensing Director Jason Andrus said.The commission has “this concept called ‘generic finality.’ They can review it and then confirm, ‘Hey, this is all safe,’ and then what you’re doing on an individual application is proving that this site is appropriate for putting that approved reactor on.”If approved by early 2027, Deployable Energy Co-Founder and Chief Commercialization Officer Sanjay Mukhi said implementation would be “quite perfectly timed” for licensing its Unity reactor, which attained criticality at INL on June 30.“Making sure that that regulation gets through is going to be incredibly beneficial for us to get to commercial deployment,” he said.Last Energy External Affairs Manager Jacob Jimenez said Part 57 is flexible in reviewing varied technologies, such as its pressurized-water 5 megawatt PWR-5 prototype at Texas A&M University, but stridently focused on “what we can prove is safe” before issuing a license to commercially produce a new type of reactor.“That’s what Part 57 is proposing,” he said, “and we’ve been advocates for that kind of regulation for a long time.”The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, one of 17 national labs, is 85 percent of the size of Rhode Island, has more than 6,500 employees, a $2 billion budget, and is where dozens of energy-related projects are being conducted. John Haughey/The Epoch TimesNext UpWright told The Epoch Times that “one of the things that’s very important” in sustaining progress in nuclear energy development is pressuring Congress to focus on permit reform, not just for reactor projects but for all energy infrastructure.Among permit reform bills near adoption is the SPEED Act, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), which trims federal environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act.The measure awaits Senate hearings after the House adopted it in December in a 221–196 vote.“We’re working on a bipartisan permitting reform right now that will be helpful for large [projects], but certainly for nuclear construction,” Wright said.“There’s some more things as well, but permitting reform is top to do.”The House Committee on Energy and Commerce will soon discuss six nuclear energy-related proposed bills on July 14 by its Energy Subcommittee that Chair Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) assured “will help maintain momentum for U.S. nuclear deployment.”Among them is the Nuclear REFUEL Act, which would expand spent-fuel recycling and its use in reactors, and the American Enrichment Deployment Act, which updates licensing procedures for uranium enrichment plants to eliminate U.S. reliance on Russian uranium.The six-bill package also includes proposals to require the DOE to publicly disclose its reactor authorization decisions, increase salary caps for NRC senior staff, and do away with uncontested public hearings for reactors that are not “novel” or have “noteworthy issues.”Radiant Energy President Tori Shivanandan praised Congress for “the great work they’ve already done” before noting there is “state work that we all have to do” in harmonizing regulations, processes, and commercial requirements across state lines.“We want to sell in 50 states. It’s not actually possible today to sell in all 50 states. There’s real on-the-ground state regulatory work we have to do,” she said.Wagner said after decades of inertia, it isn’t just the money, the Trump administration’s deregulatory push, and developers’ enthusiasm that excites him and INL staffers.“The dialog has changed too—from energy transition to energy addition and abundance,” he said. “We feel that difference and, frankly, in a good way.”