Washington D.C. The following statement may be attributed to Judi Greenwald, executive director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance:
“NRC reform is essential to enable advanced nuclear energy in three timeframes. NIA’s previous publications have focused on the NRC reforms most urgently needed in the short and medium term, and this new NIA report focuses on reforms needed in the long term. Deploying advanced nuclear energy at a scale to meet our mid-century climate goals will require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to effectively and efficiently license tens to hundreds of new nuclear power plants every year. Currently, the NRC is not equipped to issue this large number of licenses, so improvements to the NRC’s regulatory process are needed to enable efficient and effective ‘high volume licensing’ in the 2030s and beyond.
“Our new report reviews the NRC’s current licensing process for new nuclear power plants and examines how the NRC could revise these processes to meet a demand for high volume licensing in the long term. We identify three steps in the NRC licensing process that most significantly constrain the NRC licensing capacity for future high-volume licensing and recommend proposals to alleviate these constraints. These recommendations, if implemented, would help resolve key barriers in the long term for licensing of advanced nuclear energy at scale to make a significant and meaningful contribution to clean energy production in the United States."
To view the full report, click here.