EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the prices, like PG&E in California. My rates have doubled in a few years to over $0.40/kWh and up over $0.50/kWh after I go up a tier depending on usage.

This is said a lot but I don't think regs as written are necessarily the major cost driver. I did a nuclear industry survey to ask what specific regulations people would want changed recently. The one where using commercial grade QA instead of nuclear grade is very interesting.

I think industry overreaction to the regs is possibly as large or larger of a problem than the regs themselves.

https://whatisnuclear.com/news/2025-05-23-regulatory-reforms...

I'm a bit miffed I can't find the article now, but I recall hearing it was more the reactor design approval process than the operational process regulations that interfered with and drove up costs. Every tiny detail of a site has to be taken into account, forcing modifications to existing designs such that every build ends up being bespoke anyway. On top of that, many of the rules around the design approval process are geared towards older generation reactors and newer generation reactors end up being cost ineffective because they need to account for things that don't apply to them.

If anyone remembers that article, I'd love to cite it here. If not, feel free to ignore what is otherwise unfounded speculation I guess.

Maybe this article?

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power...

There is some regulatory burden for sure. But the NRC has been very conducive to standardization, and approved construction and operation licenses of like 20 brand new latest generation water-cooled reactors in the first nuclear Renaissance (2006). It was Fukushima and fracking that killed that Renaissance, not regulations.

https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/large-lwr/col-hold...

The NRC has also been generous with advanced reactor licenses, granting construction licenses for the Kairos Hermes 1 and 2 molten salt cooled test reactors recently. And one for the Abilene Christian university's molten salt fueled reactor too!

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-approves-construction...

A lot of the tech world got it in their heads that nuclear regs are the main issue in nuclear when in reality it is still megaprojects construction management. The small advanced reactors are likely to be very expensive per kWh