Latest News

October 6, 2020 – The NRC staff issued SECY-20-0093, “Policy and Licensing Considerations Related to Micro-reactors”.

October 2, 2020 – Consistent with Section 103 of NEIMA, the NRC staff has begun efforts to develop a new regulation, through rulemaking, in establishing a “Risk Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors” for optional use by applicants for new commercial advanced nuclear reactor licenses.

June 15, 2020 – The DOE has recently completed its work with industry stakeholders in support of the advanced reactor Licensing Modernization Project (LMP). This project was led by Southern Company (on behalf of industry), coordinated through the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), and cost-shared by DOE.

June 12, 2020 – “The NRC staff developed a vision and strategy that was coordinated with industry stakeholders in the 2016-2017 timeframe. Its purpose is to assure that the NRC is ready to review potential applications for non-light water reactor (non-LWR) technologies effectively and efficiently.

June 5, 2020- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) accepted Oklo Power LLC’s combined license application for review. The application seeks approval to build and operate its Aurora reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site in Idaho.

March 9, 2020 – The TICAP is an industry-led and DOE cost-shared effort to develop technology-inclusive guidance regarding the expectations for the content for specific portions of the safety analysis report (SAR) that would be used to support an advanced reactor application.

December 4, 2018 – The Commission formally concurred with the NRC technical staff’s recommendations regarding the advanced non-LWR approach for allowing alternatives to large leaktight containment structures (see NRC SECY-18-0096).

April 9, 2018 – The NRC’s new Regulatory Guide 1.232, “Guidance for Developing Principal Design Criteria for Non-Light-Water Reactors,” helps developers of these technologies align their concepts with relevant NRC regulations and forms a key portion of the NRC’s advanced reactor regulatory framework.

December 17, 2017 – Following a successful series of semi-annual DOE-NRC workshops on Advanced Non-Light Water Reactors held in 2015 – 2017, the workshop format was transitioned to more frequent (6 weeks) periodic industry stakeholder meetings with NRC that are focused on specific topics of interest.

November 16, 2016 – The memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) describes the roles, responsibilities, and processes related to the implementation of the DOE Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative.