NRC Proposes New Rule to Speed Up Microreactor and SMR Permitting
Key Highlights
- Part 57 proposes to cut traditional review times from 2-3 years to less than 1 year, significantly speeding up nuclear project approvals.
- The new rules will allow applicants to seek approval for fleets of identical reactors, reducing administrative burdens and costs.
- The regulation permits limited construction before full NRC approval, enabling faster project initiation.
Nuclear energy projects historically take a decade and many billions of dollars to build. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is trying to lessen both of those things under pressure from President Donald Trump to shorten construction and licensing reviews.
The NRC this month proposed new power plant licensing rules that could accelerate deployment of next-gen microreactors and small modular reactors (SMRs). Called Part 57 by the NRC, it reportedly intends to streamline license application reviews and maybe save close to $4 billion and up to $12 billion in the process.
NRC’s construction permit reviews normally take nearly two to three years to complete. If Part 57 is successfully brought into rulemaking, the reviews could wrap up in less than half of those traditional time frames.
President Trump has issued executive orders focused on ramping up next-gen nuclear technologies, while the U.S. Department of Energy has created new pilot programs to speed up microreactor and SMR engagement.
“This regulatory framework for microreactors marks a major step toward modernizing the licensing process for advanced nuclear reactors,” Chairman Ho K. Nieh said in the NRC press release. “Part 57 is designed to deploy microreactors with safety, scale, and speed.”
Part 57 would allow applicants to request approval for fleets of identical reactors, such as SMRs, instead of processing one permit at a time. It would streamline environmental reviews for projects with “demonstrated minimal impacts” and even allow nuclear developers to start limited construction on plants prior to receiving the NRC permit.
The NRC intends to hold a public meeting on the proposed new rule Part 57. The notice will be published in the Federal Register by May 6.
More than 90 last-generation U.S. nuclear reactors generate close to 20% of the nation’s utility-scale electricity and nearly half of its carbon-free power, but most of those are in power plants which were built decades ago. Only one nuclear project, the Vogtle 3 and 4 expansion, has been built and commissioned in the past decade.
Conventional nuclear reactors typically are built to generate as much as 1 GW or more in capacity. The process from application and review to construction and commissioning can take a decade, while the Vogtle project endured numerous delays and overruns bringing the costs above $30 billion.
SMRs and microreactors would involve passive safety features and be smaller in capacity at a few hundred MW down to 30 MW or as small as 1 MW per unit. They would be modularized models to simplify replication and could be trucked to sites. No SMRs or next-gen nuclear reactors have yet been built in the U.S.
The looming AI and data center energy crisis is pushing many companies and political leaders to push for new nuclear power to generate baseload and carbon-free electricity. Companies working for such SMR and microreactor designs include X-energy, Oklo, NANO Nuclear, Westinghouse, Valar Atomics, Radiant Energy, Kairos Power, Aalo Atomics, BWXT, GE Vernova-Hitachi and Terrestrial Energy.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.