Nuclear Resurgence via Four Executive Orders

Originally published on Public Utilities FortNightly

In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at revitalizing and accelerating the growth of nuclear energy in the United States. The executive orders direct actions by the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other government agencies to support increased development and deployment of nuclear energy on aggressive timelines.

As part of the revitalization of nuclear energy, one of the executive orders sets a goal of expanding nuclear energy capacity to four hundred gigawatts by 2050 from the current one hundred gigawatts. Another order aims to reform the NRC and its licensing process, directing the NRC to establish hard deadlines to complete reviews of new reactor license applications within eighteen months and other licensing reviews within a year.

There is a lot to digest in the four orders, so PUF went to an expert on all matters nuclear, Stan Blanton, the managing partner who chairs the Nuclear Energy Practice at Balch & Bingham. Here, he provides insights into where the four executive orders intend to take U.S. nuclear energy.

PUF’s Steve Mitnick: NRC licensing was affected by four executive orders recently, with at least one directly on reforming NRC procedure. What is your take on the deadlines and structural changes to NRC?

Stan Blanton: First of all, anytime you’ve got the President of the United States signing an executive order, aggressively pursuing the development of nuclear power, it’s a good thing for the nuclear industry and for the country. So let me start with that.

As far as the NRC reform executive orders, I’d characterize that as more directional than detailed. The President has set out some goals for better risk informing the licensing process and the oversight process, but there are not a lot of specifics in there, and its left to NRC, DOGE, OMB, and a variety of agencies to develop that detail. I’m not sure how that’s going to work, to review from top to bottom the NRC’s regulations and suggest changes.

But the philosophy of risk informing the regulations to a greater extent, and getting away from the linear non-threshold model, which basically says there’s no level of radiation that’s safe, is progress. We live with radiation every day. 

Whether walking up a marble staircase, flying on a commercial jetliner, or going to the beach, you get some level of naturally occurring radiation exposure. The Executive Orders move the regulatory paradigm toward assessing what level of risk is acceptable versus the cost, in economic and other terms, of avoiding that risk.

For example, the Order recognizes that if you don’t build a nuclear plant, you’re going to build something else that may, and probably does have some impact on health or the environment. The Order directs NRC to take all that into consideration not only in the way they write their regulations, but the way they enforce their regulations. And NRC has made great strides on that front even before the Executive Order, but the Order recognizes that there is more that can and should be done.

That is good policy and will help nuclear plants get licensed more efficiently and operate more efficiently. We’re just going to have to see what the actual product is that comes out of that order before we can make any judgments about what the impact is going to be.

PUF: How doable is it at NRC? It’s a big organization and a lot of people took notice of those compressed deadlines, whether it’s for AP1000 or new technologies.

Stan Blanton: It typically takes NRC about two years to issue one new rule. Whether they can do a top-to-bottom review of all of their regulations and make changes in eighteen months – the deadline in the Order – remains to be seen.

That is a tall task. It’s possible that NRC could focus on a few specific rules, which could make large impacts. Or maybe it’s not the rules themselves, but the way they are implemented and enforced that could become more risk informed. 

So, maybe they can issue a series of policy statements or guidance documents, that guide staff conducting licensing reviews, inspections and enforcement of the rules, as opposed to a wholesale rewrite of their regulations through notice and comment ruling.

PUF: In the real world of trying to build, let’s say ten plants by 2030, how do you see the challenges, as well as the ability and strategies to overcome those?

Stan Blanton: Ten new plants and five gigawatts of uprates by 2030 is certainly an aggressive goal. Just by comparison, we’ve had eight gigawatts of uprates since 1970. So, getting five thousand new megawatts out of uprates is aggressive. As for new plants, I think it’s ten plants under construction, not complete. But that’s also ambitious.

There’s no way to complete ten new plants by 2030. But there’s a lot of activity in the industry. There are more players in the industry than at any time in the development space of the industry, than at any time in my career.

There’s a reason to expect that there will be some new plants started between now and 2030. Terra Power’s Natrium plant has started non-nuclear construction. Others have submitted construction permits for SMRs. 

And because the Vogtle 3&4 AP1000 plants are now operational, construction of additional AP1000s can easily be streamlined under NRC’s existing framework by leveraging the Vogtle experience. So, that’s an ambitious goal for no other reason than the construction infrastructure and skilled craft labor needed for that many units. But if you don’t set the bar high, you don’t get anywhere.

The President seems to set stretch goals, and maybe that’s a bit of a stretch goal, but if we get three new plants started and two thousand megawatts of uprates, rather than ten and five, that’s certainly positive momentum. One of the key features of the Executive Orders is the emphasis on nuclear workforce development, which is badly needed if we are going to come close to the scale of construction program envisioned.

Uprates are much more economical than building a new plant. Those megawatts are much less expensive than ordering a new plant, so I think there will be aggressive pursuit of uprates across the industry.

PUF: I thought all the uprates already were squeezed out of nuclear plants. You’re saying more can be done?

Stan Blanton: I know some uprates are being planned and that DOE has been fairly open to funding uprates under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act with the loan guarantees. It may take more enhancements to equipment or new equipment, but that’s still less expensive than to build a nuclear plant.

PUF: Nuclear fuel, and our dependence on foreign and unfriendly sources; what’s the latest and the potential for that to be become more secure?

Stan Blanton: Well, speaking of that executive order, that again sets a lot of goals and leaves the details up to the agencies to try to figure out how to accomplish the goals. Reprocessing is a worthy goal to try to make that technically and economically feasible.

Policies in the United States have inhibited reprocessing in the last forty years, but technically you can do it. In the past, for most of my career, it just wasn’t economical. You could mine, process, and store nuclear fuel cheaper than reprocess spent fuel.

But now, there is the situation in Ukraine and difficulty in importing fuel. I’m not sure what the tariff situation’s going to do to imported fuel. That might alter the relative expense. There are some good goals in the executive order about regenerating our fuel supply chain, but it takes money, and it takes details to be put around the goals in the executive order.

PUF: Are you optimistic about the future with these executive orders?

Stan Blanton: I’m very optimistic. It’s one of the many reasons I wish I was younger, where I could participate in more of it. This is two successive administrations that couldn’t be more different politically, that have both embraced nuclear power as a key part of their energy policy.

They both have recognized that we can’t meet our energy needs without nuclear power. And the last time we talked, we were talking about the ADVANCE Act, which had passed with a huge majority out of the Congress.

So, I think the federal government has recognized at every level how important the development of new nuclear power is. It’s not a political issue anymore. It crosses party lines.

I’m optimistic and I think we’re going to see new nuclear plants built. Based on the calls we’re getting, there’s a tremendous amount of interest.

As I said, there are more players involved than ever before. We’re also seeing and hearing about more creative structures for financing plants and uprates, hyperscalers getting involved, developers that won’t own or operate the plant getting involved. There are a lot of entities in the game now that weren’t in it before.

PUF: What are you trying to focus on to make the biggest impact in these exciting years?

Stan Blanton: I don’t know. I always pick up the phone, regardless of whatever anybody’s planning to do. We are very involved in the Palisades restart project, and I would like to see more of that.

The President’s executive order talks about restarting shutdown plants and repurposing some shutdown plants for data centers or government uses. But we also are working hard on new plant development and looking at some of these new ownership structures and financing structures. There’s a lot of activity there.

Advanced reactors and SMRs are coming. But I continue to believe that we are going to make a big mistake if we don’t take advantage of the lessons learned from building Plant Vogtle 3 and 4.

The opportunity to make an impact with a fleet of AP1000s across the industry is huge. I hope we don’t get so enamored with smaller reactors or frightened by the cost of large reactors, that we ignore those lessons and don’t take advantage of them.

It’s normal to do better the second time. We’re going to see even more improvements with the third, fourth, and fifth. We’re all looking for the point where we have learned all the lessons and the construction infrastructure is better developed, so we can take advantage of those lessons and build plants at an optimal cost.

It’s going to take somebody developing a plant and investing in that infrastructure. I don’t think one company can do that by itself. It’s going to take government support and industry cooperation.

PUF: What is the call to action for our readers?

Stan Blanton: State and federal policy needs to recognize the long-term value of nuclear power versus the short-term cost. We’ve got a budget debate going on in Congress now, and whether or not the tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act are going to survive is an issue.

Everybody needs to recognize, policymakers especially, that it’s going to take some investment that shouldn’t be put on one company or one owner to take all that risk. You have got to spread the risk.

The best way to do that is federal financial support. I’m gratified that the new executive orders encourage DOE to continue with loan programs. The tax incentives are very important, and they can be improved.

The application of those incentives can be improved, and that’s the best way for policymakers to invest in the industry and the need for more nuclear power is to help us get that infrastructure developed, and that takes money.