Draft Executive Orders are aimed at accelerating the construction of nuclear power stations

The Trump government is considering various executive orders that are aimed at accelerating the construction of nuclear power plants to help meet the rising electricity demand, according to designs that are assessed by the New York Times.

The draft assignments say that the United States behind China have fallen in the expansion of nuclear energy and calls for a “wholesaler” of federal safety regulations to make it easier to build new factories. They imagine that the Ministry of Defense plays a prominent role in organizing reactors and installing them on military bases.

They would also set a goal to quadruple the size of the fleet of the nuclear power plants, from almost 100 gigawatt electric capacity today to 400 gigawatts by 2050. A gigawatt is sufficient to provide almost 1 million houses with electricity.

“Since the American development of new nuclear reactor designs has decreased, 87 percent of the nuclear reactors that have been installed worldwide since 2017 is based on Russian and Chinese designs,” is one concept order, entitled in a nuclear Renaissance. “

“These trends cannot continue,” is the order. “Swift and decisive action is required to start the Nuclear Renaissance of America.”

The four design orders are marked with “pre-decision” and “deliberative”. They belong to various potential executive orders about nuclear energy that are circulating, but it is not clear which, if present, according to a person who is familiar with the discussions, who spoke about a condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

It was also not immediately clear who had written the draft assignments or which phase of internal administration discussions reflected the documents. The White House refused to comment on whether orders would eventually be issued.

In one of his first acts in office, President Trump stated one “National Energy Emergency,” Saying that America had insufficient electricity stocks to meet the growing needs of the country, especially for data centers that perform artificial intelligence systems. Although most of Mr. Trump have focused on stimulating fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, have also supported nuclear energy administration officials.

“Our goal is to bring dozens of billions of dollars into private capital during this administration to have reactors built, and I am convinced that we will achieve that goal,” said Chris Wright, the energy secretary, during a hearing for a subcommission of a house permits on Wednesday.

In recent years, nuclear energy has attracted growing two -part support. Some Democrats endorse it because the plants do not broadcast planet -warming greenhouse gases, although environmental activists have expressed concern about radioactive waste and reactor safety. It is also backwards from Republicans who are less concerned about global warming, but they say that nuclear energy plants can strengthen American energy breach.

Technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon that have ambitious climate goals have shown interest In nuclear energy to feed their data centers, because the plants can walk 24 hours a day, something that wind and solar energy cannot do.

Yet the construction of new reactors in the United States has proved to be extremely difficult.

Although the nation still has the world’s largest fleet of nuclear power plants, only three new reactors have come online since 1996. Many utilities are afraid of the high costs. The two most recent reactors built in the Vogtle -Kerncentrale in Georgia cost $ 35 billion, double the first estimates and arrived seven years after schedule.

In response, more than a dozen companies started developing A new generation of smaller reactors A fraction of the size of that at Vogtle. The hope is that these reactors would have a lower price tag in advance, making them a less risky investment for utilities. This in turn can help industry reduce costs by repeatedly building the same type of reactor.

Until now, however, none of these next generation has been built.

One of the design -executive commitments blames the slow pace to the nuclear regulatory committee, the independent federal agency that supervises the safety of reactors and must approve new designs before being built. The design would order the agency to perform a “wholesale revision” of its regulations and to impose a 18 -month deadline to decide whether they approve a new reactor.

The draft order also insists on the agency to reconsider its safety limits for exposure to radiation, and says that the current limits are too strict and go beyond what is needed to protect human health.

It is unclear whether the President could recommend major changes to the nuclear regulating committee, which has established the congress to be independent of the White House. In recent months, Mr. Trump tried to exercise a larger authority About independent agencies, setting up a potential confrontation in the courts.

Some pronuclear groups have said That the nuclear regulatory committee is already starting to streamline its regulations in response to a dual bill that was adopted by the congress last year. But skeptics of nuclear energy say they fear that the pressure of the White House can cause the desk to cut the curves on safety.

“That is my most important worries,” said Edwin Lyman, the director of the safety of nuclear energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a frequent critic of the industry. “We are talking about new reactor technologies where there is a lot of uncertainty, and the NRC staff often raises many good technical questions. To be short-circuit, the sweeping would mean potential safety problems under the carpet.”

The concept orders suggest other possible steps, including the American army to use its deep pockets to finance reactors of the next generation. An option that is considered would be to designate certain AI data centers as “defense critical infrastructure” and allow them to be powered by reactors built on the Department of Energy facilities, so that projects can be revised by the nuclear regulatory committee.

Another order would appeal to the Minister of Energy to develop a plan to rebuild American supply chains for enriched uranium and other nuclear fuels, which in recent years are largely imported from Russia.

It is still to be seen whether such steps would be sufficient to herald a wave of new reactors, experts said. Under the BIDEN administration, the energy department has also made a great urge to expand nuclear energy in the United States, with some Signs of progress. Yet some of the federal offices that have led that effort are now being thinned by shooting, buyouts and cuts.

For example, the Loan Programs Office of the Energy Department, which offered almost $ 12 billion in loan guarantees to help finance the Vogtle reactors, is ready to lose more than half of its staff, according to various current and former employees. Who lose, pronuclear groups have saidCould an important program bump for the financing of new reactors.

“The big question is how to build a large order book with new reactors, so that the costs start to fall and supply chains are built up,” said Joshua Freed, who leads the climate and energy program on Third Way, a think tank in the center left. “There are many moving parts that have to come together.”

Christopher Flavelle contributed reporting.