DOE And NRC Sign Addendum To Fast Track Commercial Reactor Licensing

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently signed Addendum No. 9 to their 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), paving the way for faster follow-on licensing of advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel technologies.

This agreement, signed Oct 24th and effective immediately, comes as major concerns have been raised by reactor development companies and industry observers regarding the double work that may be required of developers when they bring their tested products over to the NRC. Demand for clean, reliable energy by data centers and major industrial companies has created a stronger need for change in the path to reactor design commercialization, with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon signing long-term offtake agreements with reactor operators Constellation, NextEra, and Talen.

The addition to the MOU comes from the directives out of Trump’s executive orders signed back in May of this year. From section 5.d of the executive order “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”:

“Establish an expedited pathway to approve reactor designs that the DOD or the DOE have tested and that have demonstrated the ability to function safely. NRC review of such designs shall focus solely on risks that may arise from new applications permitted by NRC licensure, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE or DOD processes.”

Surprisingly, the DOE and NRC took the executive order one step further and included a streamlined licensing process for nuclear fuel facilities as well. It becomes less surprising when we remember the current administration has highlighted multiple times the desire to reduce the reliance on foreign nuclear fuel supplies. Even with the Russian uranium import ban, the US is still importing over a fifth of the required enriched uranium from Russia through last year. The US government is looking to expand the domestic capacity of every step in the fuel chain as quickly as possible.

The new addendum will directly impact the companies already announced by the DOE as participants in their pilot reactor and fuel programs:

• Reactor developers: Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear, Atomic Alchemy, Deep Fission, Last Energy, Oklo (two projects), Natura Resources, Radiant Industries, Terrestrial Energy, Valar Atomics
• Fuel facilities: Standard Nuclear, Oklo, Terrestrial Energy, TRISO-X, Valar Atomics

Additional companies are expected to be announced for both of the programs in the near future, as the DOE still looks to expand the number of participants as an effort to increase the chance of success.

There are multiple companies currently involved that are worth highlighting. Oklo is the most involved company, with three reactor projects — Aurora, Pluto, and Atomic Alchemy — currently receiving high-speed treatment, and three nuclear fuel facilities on the fast track as well. Terrestrial Energy enjoys double involvement with their integrated molten salt reactor design and unique fuel. Valar Atomics has also earned a spot in both programs, alongside industry leadership on the reactor side from Aalo and Radiant, and on the fuel side with Standard Nuclear.

Part IV.C of the addendum discusses the new agreement between the NRC and DOE, with two separate statements for advanced reactor designs and nuclear fuel line facilities:

“NRC establishes an expedited pathway to approve advanced reactor designs [nuclear fuel line facilities] that have been authorized and tested by DOE and have demonstrated the ability to function safely that focuses on risks or safety issues identified during the NRC licensing review that may arise from, among other things, design changes in new applications to be licensed by the NRC, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE review.”

This removes the previous risk of a company designing a reactor, getting the DOE to approve it, building an operating it for months or years to develop proficiency and improvements, only to have the NRC tear it apart to meet a different set of requirements that results in a loss of the work put in to the reactor up to that point. The NRC will now skip reviews regarding design features that are no different in the commercial product than they are with the design built under the DOE.

There are likely more MOUs to be released in the near future, specifically relating to coordination between the DOW and the NRC for all the same reasons. This will stem from the Army’s recently announced Janus Program, which looks to hyper-speed the development of microreactors, such as that recently launched by Nano Nuclear, and drive consolidation and standardization of the nuclear equipment/manufacturing supply chain.