Doing more with less?

While the Trump administration aims to boost nuclear energy through executive orders, actual funding has not increased, according to Matt Bowen, a nuclear energy expert at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.The initial White House budget proposed meaningful cuts to the Department of Energy, including $408 million from the Office of Nuclear Energy for nuclear research in the 2026 fiscal year.

“The administration was proposing cuts to Office of Nuclear Energy and DOE more broadly, and DOGE is pushing staff out,” said Bowen. “How do you do more with less? Less staff, less money.”

The Trump administration attributes the nuclear sector’s struggles to the NRC, which oversees costly licensing and recertification. Trump’s executive orders call for a major reorganization of the NRC. Streamlining the approval process, which can take years, may be beneficial, as “for a long time, they were very, very, very slow,” according to Charles Forsberg, a nuclear chemical engineer at MIT. However, concerns exist that the executive orders could overreach.

“Every word in those orders is of concern, because the thrust of those orders is to essentially strip the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its independence from the executive branch, essentially nullifying the original purpose,” said Lyman.

Some experts worry that these constraints could reduce the time and resources available to NRC staff, potentially affecting power plant safety. Bowen stated: “This notion that the problem for nuclear energy is regulation, and so all we need to do is deregulate, is both wrong and also really problematic.”

The coming decades will reveal whether nuclear energy,particularly SMRs,can overcome economic and technical hurdles to contribute to decarbonization. Some, like Gehin, are optimistic: “I think we’re going to accelerate,” he said. “We certainly can achieve a dramatic deployment if we put our mindset to it.”

Though, making nuclear energy financially competitive requires strong government commitment and the involvement of numerous companies, with many remaining skeptical, according to Shirvan. “I am quite, I would say, on the pessimistic scale when it comes to the future of nuclear energy in the US.”