Accelerating Nuclear Energy Deployment Through Executive Action

Executive Summary

The first week of 2025 marked a potential turning point for America’s nuclear renaissance through two landmark Executive Orders. While primarily focused on oil and gas, these orders — Declaring a National Energy Emergency and Unleashing American Energy — also create unprecedented opportunities to accelerate nuclear energy deployment. The emergency declaration provides immediate tools to address critical bottlenecks, while the broader policy reforms establish a foundation for lasting change. Together, they offer a powerful framework to revitalize America’s nuclear energy sector.

Unlocking Federal Authorities

The emergency authorities granted by the first order carry particular significance for nuclear energy development. By explicitly including nuclear energy in its definition of “energy” in Section 8(a), the order extends all emergency provisions to nuclear projects, creating powerful new pathways for acceleration. This inclusion enables agencies to leverage Defense Production Act (DPA) powers, subject to Presidential approval, in ways that could transform the nuclear supply chain.

Under these new authorities, agencies can prioritize contracts for critical nuclear components, ensuring manufacturers focus on the most urgent needs for nuclear project development. The DPA powers also enable the establishment of secure supply chains for essential materials and accelerated development of domestic uranium enrichment capabilities. Perhaps most significantly, these authorities allow for the strategic direction of industrial resources toward nuclear manufacturing, coupled with financial incentives to expand manufacturing capacity.

The process for invoking these authorities has been carefully structured to ensure both speed and proper oversight. Agencies must prepare specific recommendations demonstrating why normal procedures would be insufficient to meet critical timeline requirements, particularly for projects supporting data center development and AI leadership. These recommendations undergo review by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs before receiving final Presidential approval.

Complementing these emergency powers, the second order’s permitting reforms create a comprehensive framework for streamlining nuclear project development. Environmental impact assessments, site permitting for both traditional and advanced reactors, fuel cycle facility licensing, and nuclear waste storage facility approvals all benefit from new expedited processes. A coordinated multi-agency review system ensures that acceleration doesn’t come at the cost of safety or security.

Pathways for Accelerated Nuclear Energy Deployment

While primarily geared towards oil and gas, the Executive Orders create multiple pathways for accelerating nuclear project licensing. First, sweeping NEPA reforms fundamentally reshape environmental reviews while maintaining robust protection standards. These reforms move beyond simple timeline reduction to create predictable, efficient approval pathways that give project developers the certainty they need for long-term planning.

Second, a new coordinated infrastructure assistance framework centers on a comprehensive Department of Defense assessment of energy security needs. The Secretaries of Defense, Interior, and Energy will work together to evaluate capabilities for acquiring and transporting essential energy resources, identifying vulnerabilities that could impact both homeland defense and international operations. This coordinated approach ensures that energy infrastructure development aligns with both national security requirements and broader economic objectives, while providing concrete mechanisms for addressing identified weaknesses in our energy infrastructure system.

Third, through Defense Production Act (DPA) authorities, the orders create powerful mechanisms for supply chain development. Because a national emergency declaration is a prerequisite for leveraging DPA authorities, the energy emergency EO provides agencies with the opportunity to Agencies to enable priority contracts for critical components and provide funding mechanisms for supply chain development initiatives, subject to presidential approval. This tact could be leveraged to direct industrial resources toward nuclear energy priorities and establish public-private partnerships that can accelerate domestic manufacturing capabilities. This combination of authorities has the potential to rapidly rebuild American nuclear manufacturing capacity, if leveraged effectively.

Supply Chain Security and Development

The national security considerations woven throughout these orders could unlock additional mechanisms for protecting and strengthening nuclear supply chains that could fundamentally transform how we approach nuclear supply chain security and commercial deployment. Through the emergency declaration and accompanying policy directives, these orders create a sophisticated framework that goes well beyond traditional supply chain protection. The Department of Defense’s mandated infrastructure assessment, combined with special construction authorities under Title 10, creates pathways for addressing critical vulnerabilities in our nuclear infrastructure and supply chains. When coupled with DPA provisions, these authorities enable priority contracts for essential components and materials, accelerating domestic manufacturing capabilities while ensuring supply chain security.

Furthermore, the orders’ emphasis on expedited permitting for national security-critical projects creates additional opportunities for acceleration. As the Secretary of Defense identifies specific needs for nuclear power deployment, particularly in vulnerable regions like the Northeast and West Coast, the emergency authorities can be used to fast-track development while maintaining appropriate oversight. This creates a framework where national security considerations become a catalyst for deployment rather than a constraint.

Implementation Framework

Success requires a carefully phased implementation approach that balances immediate action with long-term sustainability. The initial six months should focus on establishing foundations: documenting emergency authorities, launching NEPA reforms, conducting supply chain assessments, and identifying critical projects for expedited processing. This groundwork enables rapid progress while ensuring proper controls remain in place.

The medium-term phase, spanning six to eighteen months, focuses on building permanent structures and processes. During this period, agencies should develop coordinated permitting processes, implement comprehensive critical minerals strategies, and build the institutional capacity necessary to manage these new systems effectively. Robust monitoring and evaluation systems will track progress and identify areas needing adjustment.

The long-term phase, extending beyond eighteen months, concentrates on creating lasting improvements to America’s energy infrastructure and regulatory systems. This includes building sustainable supply chains that can support ongoing energy development without relying on emergency authorities, reforming permanent regulatory structures to incorporate lessons learned, and developing the workforce capacity needed to support these new systems.

The Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Department of Defense can each initiate near-term actions to align processes around efficient deployment:

Department of Energy

Develop new expedited review procedures for reactor demonstrations

Create comprehensive supply chain vulnerability and resiliency assessments

Establish new programs to support domestic fuel cycle development

Review and streamline grant and loan programs for nuclear projects

Develop metrics for evaluating projects for national security implications

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Review and revise environmental review procedures

Streamline design certification process for new reactor types

Update emergency protocols to reflect new authorities

Develop expedited licensing procedures for national security-critical projects

Department of Defense

Conduct vulnerability assessments of industrial base supporting nuclear energy

Identify military use cases for advanced reactor technology

Undertake expedited pathfinding initiatives for SMRs on military installations

Agency Implementation and AI Integration

The Executive Orders’ emphasis on expedited processes while maintaining safety and security creates unique opportunities for artificial intelligence to transform both nuclear licensing and supply chain management.

Licensing: Advanced AI systems could significantly enhance the licensing and compliance capabilities of reactor developers, as well as both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy, through sophisticated document review, analysis, and draft generation. These systems are capable of processing vast amounts of technical licensing documentation, flagging potential issues, identify missing information, and ensure consistency across documentation sets, aligning particularly well with the second Executive Order’s emphasis on expedited permitting while maintaining rigorous analysis.

Safety Standards: AI technologies could also revolutionize safety assessments in the nuclear sector. By analyzing historical operational data, these systems can identify potential safety concerns before they become critical issues. AI can run advanced simulations of reactor operations under various conditions, evaluate proposed safety systems against regulatory requirements, and provide rapid assessment of design modifications. This capability becomes especially powerful under the emergency authorities granted in the first Executive Order, as it enables acceleration of reviews while enhancing, rather than compromising, safety standards.

Ongoing Compliance: AI systems can continuously monitor regulatory compliance of existing reactors by tracking requirement changes, identifying potential compliance issues in submitted documentation, suggesting modifications to meet regulatory standards, and ensuring consistency across different regulatory frameworks.

Supply Chain Security: The Executive Orders’ strong emphasis on supply chain security and critical minerals creates natural applications for AI, particularly under Section 9 of the second order and the Defense Production Act authorities in the first order. AI systems can provide real-time monitoring of nuclear supply chains by tracking global uranium supplies and processing capacity, monitoring critical component availability, identifying potential disruptions, analyzing geopolitical risks, and evaluating alternative suppliers and routes. This comprehensive monitoring capability directly supports the national security assessments required by both orders.

Quality Control: Quality control in nuclear supply chains could be significantly enhanced through advanced AI applications. Computer vision systems can automate component inspection, while sophisticated algorithms analyze manufacturing process data to predict potential quality issues before they arise. These systems can also verify supplier certifications and detect counterfeit parts, capabilities that become particularly crucial given the emergency authorities that might accelerate procurement processes. Additionally, AI can provide comprehensive risk assessment by evaluating supplier reliability, analyzing transportation risks, identifying potential points of failure, assessing cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and monitoring for potential supply chain infiltration.

The implementation of AI in nuclear energy applications under these Executive Orders requires carefully balancing acceleration with safety. While the orders provide the framework for such implementation through their emphasis on expedited processes and emergency authorities, success demands close coordination between agencies and careful attention to both technical and regulatory requirements. When properly implemented, AI technologies can help achieve the orders’ goals of accelerating nuclear energy deployment while enhancing rather than compromising safety and security standards.