1. Develop Public-Private Partnerships to Enable New Technologies
There are many advanced nuclear companies innovating for 21st century nuclear energy. These technologies are substantially different from current nuclear power technologies, and can be utilized for broader applications. Due to the complexity of new nuclear technologies, initial deployments would benefit from public private partnerships. This should include financial and facility support to demonstrate first of a kind technologies, as well as agreements to purchase energy from initial facilities to meet public-sector needs.
2. Continue Regulatory Reform for Advanced Nuclear Reactors
Since the operational profile of advanced reactors is substantially improved and different from existing reactors, their regulatory framework should also reflect those characteristics. Recent public policy reforms, like those included in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, have pushed the NRC to make improvements, but much more can be done. Key areas for further reform include environmental regulations, staffing, and security rules.
3. Establish Advanced Fuel Supply
Many advanced reactors require slightly more enriched fuel to operate than is used in today’s reactors. This fuel, known as HALEU (High Assay, Low Enriched Uranium), could also benefit existing reactors through longer runtimes and higher fuel efficiency.1 Unfortunately, the fuel supply and regulatory infrastructure for commercial HALEU does not exist in the United States. A HALEU fuel supply is essential to enable advanced reactors.
Background
All 96 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States (U.S.) are “light water” reactors, which are variations on a technology first demonstrated in 1950. The light water reactor (LWR) has been a vital contributor to U.S.’ electricity mix since the 1960’s, supplying about a fifth of our electricity supply.2
American engineers are developing a new generation of reactor designs that are cheaper and more efficient than the reactors of the 20th century. Some designs include small modular reactors (SMRs), which can be mass produced, providing cost efficiencies. SMRs can be either light-water or non-light-water cooled.

The High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory3
Companies like NuScale Power are developing light-water cooled SMRs that can provide reliable electricity to major cities, remote towns or military installations.4 Other companies, including GE Hitachi and the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower, are proposing advanced fast neutron designs.5,6 Many advanced nuclear reactor designs use fuel far more efficiently than traditional reactor designs, resulting in less waste. In fact, some designs can even use waste as fuel. These new designs have the potential to address the U.S. nuclear waste problem by using the waste as a fuel source, effectively removing costly political headaches.

Companies, from large multinationals to agile startups, are developing the next generation of nuclear reactors across America.
Source: Thirdway7
In 2019, dozens of North American companies are working on next generation nuclear.8 These entrepreneurs see the demand for clean, reliable electricity as a sizeable market opportunity and most are supported by private capital. Though many new nuclear designs are being developed here in the U.S., companies are increasingly looking abroad to demonstrate their technologies because of expensive and arduous U.S. regulations.
Multiple advanced reactor companies are looking to deploy in Canada due to a perception that the licensing process is less arduous and the government is more supportive. Other companies like ThorCon are looking to deploy their reactor in developing countries like Indonesia.9 Our regulatory regime must be reformed to maintain U.S. global leadership in nuclear power.
1. Develop Public-Private Partnerships to Enable New Technologies
The upfront risk of commercializing any new technology is daunting, and nuclear research and development (R&D) is both legally and financially challenging. Targeted performance-based assistance can help.
Public-private partnerships are also an option for government procurement of clean electricity, which has the double benefit of decarbonizing our government’s energy needs and de-risking first of a kind designs. The Department of Defense is investigating the use of microreactors for both domestic deployment and forward deployment in battle conditions.12,13 In 2020, the Department of Defense announced three vendors to compete to demonstrate a small mobile nuclear reactor by 2023.14 While these microreactors will be developed by private companies, and look very different from light-water designs, their development can support the commercial advanced nuclear industry.15 These types of government partnerships can allow the government to support and stimulate a nascent technology while meeting strategic objectives.
2. Continue Regulatory Reform for Advanced Nuclear Reactors
In early 2019, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (P.L.115-439) became law and directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to develop a technology inclusive and risk-informed licensing process for advanced reactors. The NRC has begun implementing many updates and modifications to the licensing process and the safety basis, for which it deserves credit.16 However, the nuclear licensing process is complex and involves many parts besides the safety review of the reactor itself (which was well-addressed by NEIMA). There are additional regulations that cover topics such as the environmental impact and security of the reactor.
One of the most important regulations to revisit is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)17. All federal actions require some level of environmental assessment, including the licensing of nuclear reactors. In past nuclear licensing actions, the required Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was thousands of pages long and took many years to complete. As some of these new reactors could be as small as a quarter of an acre in land-area, and may not rely on nearby water sources for cooling, they should not require the same level of environmental review as a large light-water facility.18 ClearPath dove into this area submitting an environmental reform memo to the NRC, and in 2020 the NRC staff announced their decision to move forward with developing a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) for the construction and operation of advanced reactors.
3. Establish Advanced Fuel Supply
Today’s current nuclear power plants use uranium enriched to about 5% of the Uranium-235 isotope. In contrast, advanced reactors are often designed to use up to 20% Uranium-235 (this is known as High Assay Low Enriched Uranium or HALEU). This higher enrichment for advanced reactors allows longer runtimes (e.g., 5-10 years of continuous operation) and could create less nuclear waste.
Many of these companies are gearing up to begin testing, but there is currently no commercial supply of HALEU available domestically. Any delay in access to HALEU will further delay the development of these essential technologies and without a strong demand signal from industry, commercial companies will not invest in the facilities needed to produce HALEU. Therefore, in the short term the only options for advanced nuclear developers are to either import from foreign countries such as Russia, or utilize a Department of Energy (DOE) solution.
Properly dealing with this issue will require dedicated solutions. More on these are in a ClearPath white paper on the topic.
Sufficient development of the supporting regulatory and technical infrastructure for higher enriched fuels is required. The various parts of the regulatory infrastructure for nuclear fuel need to exist before the supply chain is complete (such as transportation canisters, and regulations on enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities). The DOE should partner with companies and the NRC to ensure that these supplemental issue are addressed in time.