American nuclear is In the blood of Isaiah Taylor, 25, his great-grandfather worked on the Manhattan project. In 2023, Taylor, who abandoned the school to work in technology, launched his own nuclear business, Valar Atomics. He is currently developing a small test reactor, named after the Taylor's great-grandfather. But the Company says that the too expensive regulations imposed by the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission (CNRC), the country's main regulatory body for nuclear reactors, forced Valar atomics to develop its test reactor abroad.
At the beginning of April, Valar Atomics, in addition to another nuclear startup, deep fission, as well as states of Florida, Louisiana and the law of the state of Arizona, signed a trial against the NRC. The trial, initially brought in December by Texas, UTAH, and the nuclear company Last Energy, blame the CNRC for “restrictively regulation of the new construction of nuclear reactors which rarely occurs”.
The United States has historically been the world power of nuclear energy, but only Three reactors have come online over the past 25 years, while late and with balloon budgets. Meanwhile, other countries, such as China and South Korea, have run in front of the construction of reactors of all sizes. Some nuclear defenders say that the United States's regulation system, which imposes heavy requirements and ultra-long-term chronologies on projects, is largely responsible for this delay, in particular when it comes to developing new conceptions for smaller reactors-and that certain reactors should be removed from the scope of the NRC. But others have concerns about potential attempts to bypass the country's nuclear regulations for specific conceptions.
The CNRC has long been criticized for its ultra-bullet permit times, its ineffective processes and controversial back and forth with nuclear companies. “The regulatory relationship in the United States has been described as a legalistic and contradictory for nuclear,” explains Nick Touran, an approved nuclear engineer who runs the website What is nuclear. “It's a bit only American. In other countries, such as France and China, regulators are more cooperative. ”
The trial pushes these criticisms a little further, claiming that by governing smaller reactors, the CNRC badly felt a crucial element of nuclear legislation. In 1954, the congress adopted the Act of atomic energyThis created modern nuclear regulations in the United States. This law forced regulations for nuclear installations which used nuclear materials “in quantity such that it was important for common defense and security” or which use it “so as to affect the health and security of the public”.
“We would like CNRC to respect the law that has been written,” explains Taylor, who believes that the reactor on which his business is working outside this mandate. “What he would do for us is allowing innovation to reproduce. Innovation is what motivates the American economy. ”
“The CNRC will discuss the dispute, if necessary, in its court documents,” said the agency spokesperson Scott Burnell to Wired in an email.
Although we generally consider nuclear reactors as huge power plants, reactors can be much smaller: models known as small modular reactors, or SMR, generally produce a third party of a larger reactor, while even smaller reactors called micro -reacchers are designed Small enough to be transported by Semi-Camion. Due to their size, these reactors are intrinsically less dangerous than their large counterparts. There is simply not enough power in an SMR for an island -style fusion of three miles.
