‘It’s time’: Donald Trump plans to quadruple nuclear power generation

US President Donald Trump aims to accelerate the slow-moving nuclear power industry through a series of executive orders signed last Friday.

Reactors under construction at Vogtle plant in Georgia. Picture: Reuters

US President Donald Trump aims to accelerate the slow-moving nuclear power industry through a series of executive orders signed on Friday last week.

He outlined plans to overhaul the US nuclear regulator, fast-track licences for new projects, boost domestic fuel supplies and use federal lands for reactors for the military or large data centres for artificial intelligence.

“It’s time for nuclear,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House attended by energy executives including Constellation Energy chief executive Joseph Dominguez.

The goal of the executive orders is to quadruple nuclear power generation in the next 25 years, a target that would require the industry to overcome a history of cost and timeline overruns.

Big tech is driving much of the push for more nuclear power. Building advanced AI systems will take city-sized amounts of power, turbocharging electricity demand projections for the first time this century. Tech giants have been on the hunt for power but are running into backlogged supply chains and challenges obtaining the specialised equipment needed to connect to the grid.

Amazon.com and Google are among those that have signed agreements to buy power from future nuclear projects. Meanwhile, the industry expects to lean heavily on power from current and future natural gas power plants and renewable power.

Although nuclear is seen as an attractive zero-carbon energy alternative to coal and natural gas, new plants take years to be approved and permitted and a decade or longer to build. Mr Trump’s executive orders seek to dramatically shorten that timeframe.

“We’re wasting too much time on permitting,” Constellation’s Mr Dominguez said at the White House ceremony.

A White House official told reporters last Friday that the administration expected nuclear reactors to be tested and deployed within Mr Trump’s term.

“America’s great innovators and entrepreneurs have run into brick walls when it comes to nuclear technologies,” White House office of science and technology policy director Michael Kratsios said in the briefing. The orders would “ensure America’s energy dominance and provide affordable, reliable, safe and secure energy to the American people”.

Mr Trump signed executive actions in January aimed at unleashing US energy resources, particularly oil and gas. The push to fast-track nuclear power comes as congress weighs a budget that could strip some tax credits from clean-energy projects, which will hamper America’s ability to build new power generation such as wind and solar.

Critics have long blamed the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for acting as a roadblock to new nuclear projects because of its lengthy review process. The NRC issues licences for constructing, operating and decommissioning nuclear power plants. The executive orders aim to speed up its process, mandating an 18-month timeline to approve new reactors.

Defenders back the NRC’s safety record.

In April the US Department of Energy said it had identified 16 sites that could be used for data centre development. The sites had energy infrastructure in place that could enable fast-track permitting for new energy generation, including nuclear, the DOE said.

Using government land means projects can go through an authorisation process that doesn’t necessarily involve the NRC. The agency could be used in an advisory capacity similar to the process used for the navy’s nuclear reactors, said Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear science and engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Helping the NRC become more efficient would be a benefit, but more direct political control “could actually weaken its independence credibility with the public”, Professor Buongiorno said.

The nuclear power industry has experienced a surge in popularity and public opinion in recent years, but the Plant Vogtle project in Georgia includes the only new reactors in the US. The first two reactors at the plant opened in the 1980s but adding two more reactors cost more than $US30bn, more than twice initial estimates, and are a key reason focus has shifted to smaller designs.

About 19 per cent of US electricity generation comes from nuclear power.

The Wall Street Journal