00:00I know you had a big event at the White House today. I wanted to ask you, has there been
00:04any
00:04progress in the effort to get these big nuclear projects going? I know they were supposed to be
00:09at least three by July 4th, 2026. That's coming up pretty soon. And then hopefully 10 big reactors
00:14under construction by 2030. But so far we haven't seen any actual tangible announcements. Can you
00:19give us a status update? Sure, I can. So there absolutely has been major progress being made
00:25since President Trump issued his nuclear executive orders just a year ago last month. As you have
00:31heard, the Department of Energy has announced the criticality with one of their 11 reactors going
00:36through the pilot project, which is a very big milestone in terms of reactor development. What
00:41the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing as the nation's nuclear safety regulator, we are preparing
00:46the licensing frameworks for applications for commercial deployment. So today I was at the White
00:52House here in support of an event that the Department of Energy is sponsoring to upgrade the power
00:59output of America's existing nuclear reactors. And the NRC has a very critical role in doing
01:05that. And we are doing that to ensure that we're going to provide credible, predictable and timely
01:10safety decisions so that we do not delay America's existing nuclear power plants in being upgraded to
01:19really meet America's urgent demand for electricity. So over the past 12 months, the NRC has taken
01:25some major steps to reform its licensing frameworks and how it conducts its safety regulatory reviews.
01:31We have actually renewed the operating licenses for 18 of the operating power reactors in the United States
01:38so they can continue operating for another 20 additional years. And we're expecting to receive
01:43more applications to increase the power outputs of the nation's reactors over the coming years.
01:49I want to talk to you about those upgrades first. So you're saying the power upgrades could add
01:52about 2.5 gigawatts of capacity by 2027 and about five by 2029. But you said the regulatory environment
02:01is increasingly central to the story. So does that mean that you are taking away regulations or lessening
02:07them to make that happen? How are you making this happen? And are you concerned that by streamlining some of
02:12those regulations, you might be taking away safety guardrails?
02:15Just to be clear, the NRC is not lowering its standards for safety. We are actually increasing
02:20our focus on safety by really looking at what matters most when we do our licensing activities. So
02:26we're introducing efficiencies in our internal workflows. We're introducing greater mechanisms for
02:31accountability and how the federal government manages its resources and oversees its work. So
02:36the NRC remains a strong regulator. And we continue to do so even in light of all the activity here,
02:42because it is important that, you know, we continue to deliver our safety decisions in a way that's
02:48credible. Chairman, what regulations did you need to streamline?
02:53So there are a lot of regulations in how the United States government oversees and licenses the
03:00reactors in this country. There's, you know, huge volumes of regulations. And we're taking a very
03:06close look at all of those regulations because many of these regulations were put in place nearly 70
03:12years ago when we knew much less about these reactor technologies than we know today. So there were
03:18conservatism that were included in these regulations that are no longer needed today based on
03:23the increased state of knowledge and the high levels of safety performance that exists in these
03:28facilities as well as the ones that are being designed. Can you give us an example though of
03:32one particular regulation that you have removed because you thought it was overly arduous?
03:36So right now we have not published all the draft regulations in the ones that we're updating here.
03:43But what I will say is that we did just publish a brand new licensing framework this past March that
03:50provides a licensing approach for any type of reactor that can be licensed in the United States.
03:57So the current regulations were really designed for the large reactors that are operating today.
04:02They are really not fit for purpose for the new technologies that are being designed. So just in
04:08last March, we introduced a technology neutral licensing framework to provide a safety focused
04:14review that can be done more efficiently. Chairman, there's been a lot of pushback from Americans on the
04:21build out of the build out of data centers to power artificial intelligence. It's an issue I'm
04:27hearing that's going to be coming up during midterms. It's becoming increasingly more political.
04:32Do you anticipate that being an obstacle here to the build out of nuclear in the U.S., the NIMBYism,
04:39essentially?
04:41Yeah, that's a great question. So as America's nuclear safety regulator, we don't really have any input
04:47into whether a data center is going to be deployed in any location in the United States.
04:52What our role is, however, is when an application for a reactor license to power a potential data center
05:01comes to the NRC, we are responsible for doing a rigorous safety review on time, on schedule,
05:07so we do not introduce any unnecessary delays in deploying the power. But as far as the decision to
05:13go forward with a data center, the NRC has no role in that. I mean, nuclear fusion and reactor
05:19technology has evolved, but the fundamentals of it haven't changed all that much at the larger sites.
05:24Anyway, you've got closed reactors, you've got open reactors, you've got light water, you've got heavy
05:27water reactors. Can you explain how these next-gen reactors work, how big they are in comparison to
05:33what we're used to seeing or thinking about? You know, we all think of little Simpsons giant concrete,
05:39you know, cascade coffins over these reactors. Is that what we're talking about here?
05:42Is this something completely different? We are talking about so many different designs.
05:47Today's fleet of 94 operating reactors are what you can consider large light water reactors.
05:54These were technologies that were developed in the 1950s and 60s and, you know, brought to America's
06:00grid through the 70s and 80s. The reactors that are being looked at today are much different than that.
06:06They use coolants that are not light water. They use other types of coolants, such as high temperature
06:12gas or gas or molten salt. They come in different sizes, large, medium, small and even micro reactors.
06:18And when you think about a large reactor, think a gigawatt, right? There's small modular reactors
06:23that are roughly around a hundred or so, a few hundred megawatts. Then you have these micro reactors
06:28that are far below 100 megawatts. So there's so many different types of designs. The other unique
06:33feature about these new technologies is the fuel itself. These advanced reactors are using different fuel
06:40types, using different manufacturing processes to create these fuels. And all of these reactors that
06:46are being developed now use what is called passive safety features so that you don't have to rely on
06:53very specialized systems or components to respond to any type of event in the reactor. And the fuel
06:58themselves are actually, you know, much more tolerant of severe conditions in case something happens
07:04inside the reactor.
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