Alright, so President Donald Trump went ahead and signed a bunch of executive orders on Friday to speed up nuclear energy development. Apparently, the industry has been “choked” by regulations for years, so they’re trying to loosen things up a bit. This all goes back to the Three Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania in 1979, which led to stricter rules to protect the public.
The orders are all about making it easier for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to build nuclear reactors on public lands. They want to power defense facilities and data centers with these reactors, and they’re also looking to speed up the review process and encourage uranium mining. Oh, and there’s a plan to reorganize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is supposed to be an independent watchdog for nuclear energy.
Some experts are a bit worried about these changes, though. They think that deregulation and messing with the NRC could end up doing more harm than good. John Burrows, from the Wyoming Outdoor Council, is particularly concerned about the NRC losing its independence. He thinks it could make it harder to get the public on board with these nuclear projects.
And get this, there’s talk of reducing staff at the NRC. Not really sure why that’s a good idea when they’re trying to ramp up nuclear projects. Joseph Romm, a senior research fellow, thinks it’s a bad move. He used to work at the Department of Energy back in the day, and he’s warning that weakening oversight could be dangerous. But hey, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out.
In the end, Trump and his administration seem pretty pumped about these executive orders. They’re all about pushing for “American energy dominance” and quadrupling nuclear power production in the next 25 years. But not everyone’s on board with the plan. Some folks, like Amber Reimondo from Grand Canyon Trust, are worried about the environmental impact of uranium mining. It’s caused a lot of harm in the past, so they’re not exactly thrilled about history repeating itself.
So yeah, there’s a lot going on with these executive orders. It’s a mixed bag of reactions, with some people excited and others feeling a bit uneasy. Who knows how it’ll all turn out in the end, but for now, it’s definitely stirring up some controversy.
