It has been more than seven years since President Donald Trump signed the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) into law – and it has taken all seven years (including four during the Biden Administration) for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a final rule implementing its provisions.
Even the Washington Post admits that the new Part 53 rules, intended to reduce review times from decades to 18 months or less, will make President Trump’s goal of revitalizing the U.S. nuclear energy industry more competitive – “to everyone’s benefit,” says the Post.
The old NRC permitting review process was built around light-water-cooled reactors (like the Westinghouse AP1000) and included prescriptive safety requirements specific to those designs – not the advanced reactors of all sizes being planned and built today.
Many nuclear companies are designing reactors that use liquid metals (like molten salt) or gases as coolants, enabling them to operate at higher temperatures. These reactors are ultimately safer than the (still very safe) water-cooled reactors, as they rely on natural forces like gravity or convection rather than pumps and motors to automatically stop the reactor in case of an incident.
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