Countries and startup companies resist the US Nuclear Regulation Commission

American nuclear is In the blood of 25-year-old Isaiah Taylor: His great-grandfather worked on the Manhattan project. In 2023, Taylor, who dropped out of high school to work in technology, launched her own nuclear company Valar Atomics. He is currently developing a small test reactor named after Taylor’s great -grandfather. But the company says that over -adjusting regulations imposed by the US Nuclear Regulation Commission (NRC), the country’s main regulatory authority for nuclear reactors, forced Valar Atomics to develop its test reactor abroad.

In early April Valar Atomics, in addition to another nuclear start, deep division, as well as the United States of Florida, Louisiana and the Arizona State Legislative Body, signed at A trial vs. NRC. The trial, originally filed in December by Texas, Utah and a nuclear company Last Energy, accuses NRC of “such limiting regulation (ING) new construction of nuclear reactors that it rarely happens.”

The United States has historically been the global nuclear power plant but only three reactors have come online in the last 25 years, all behind the schedule and with budgets for ballooning. Meanwhile, other countries, such as China and South Korea, competed forward with the construction of reactors of all sizes. Some nuclear defenders say that the US regulation system, which imposes clumsy requirements and ultra-long project deadlines, is largely guilty of this delay-especially when it comes to developing new designs for smaller reactors-and some reactors must be taken by NRC. But others have concerns about the potential attempts to circumvent the country’s nuclear provisions for specific projects.

The NRC has long been criticized for its ultra-pronounced times, ineffective processes, and controversial forward and forward with nuclear companies. “US regulatory relations are described as legalistic and racing for nuclear,” says Nick Turan, a licensed nuclear engineer who runs the website What is nuclearS “It’s kind of like a unique American. In other countries, such as France and China, regulators are more comprehensive.”

The lawsuit takes these criticism with one step forward, claiming that by regulating the smaller reactors, the NRC incorrectly reads a decisive plot of nuclear legislation. In 1954 the Congress accepted Atomic energy lawwhich has created modern nuclear regulation in the United States. This law has imposed provisions for nuclear facilities that have used nuclear material, “in such quantity that they are relevant to overall defense and security” or this uses it “in such a way as to affect the health and safety of the public.”

“We would enjoy the NRC to obey the law that was written,” says Taylor, who believes that the reactor that his company works on is sitting outside that term. “What it would do for us is to allow innovation to happen again. Innovation is what drives the US economy.”

“The NRC will go to court disputes, if necessary, in its court documents,” agency spokesman Scott Burnel told Wired in an email.

Although we usually think of nuclear reactors as huge power plants, reactors can be made much smaller: models known as small modular reactors or SMR usually produce a third of the energy of a greater reactor while Even smaller reactors They are known as microreacors are designed Small enough to be withdrawn by semitruckS Due to their size, these reactors are inherently less dangerous than their great colleagues. There is simply not enough power in SMR for a crash on the island of three miles.