According to an NPR report, US nuclear regulators have discreetly eased regulations to expedite the development of new power generation infrastructure, essential for supporting AI technologies.
A Wednesday report by NPR reveals that a U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) initiative, which aims to launch three innovative commercial nuclear reactors by July 4, is the impetus for the undisclosed revision of nuclear safety and security protocols.
The report indicates that “extensive, unpublicized changes were implemented to hasten the advancement of a new class of nuclear reactor designs,” specifically referring to small modular reactors (SMRs).
Additionally, the report highlighted that the project benefits from “billions in private equity, venture capital, and public funding.” Major technology companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta, who are among the project’s supporters, have expressed their desire for these reactors to eventually provide affordable and dependable power for artificial intelligence.
NPR reported acquiring more than a dozen of these new directives, which “drastically cut down hundreds of pages of security requirements for the reactors.”
Regulations Relaxed
- Relaxed groundwater standards: Groundwater protection is no longer mandatory. Instead, companies are now required to “consider” “avoiding or minimizing” radioactive contamination. Monitoring and documentation requirements have also been eased. The stipulation for employing the “best available technology” to safeguard water sources was removed, with phrases like “should be” or “may be” replacing “prohibited” and “must” in the revised rules.
- Environmental safeguards diminished: The new directive proposes “minimizing” environmental impacts “if practical,” rather than enforcing strict environmental protection. For instance, the original rule stating that “radiological activities that have the potential to impact the environment must be conducted in a manner that protects populations of aquatic animals, terrestrial plants, and terrestrial animals in local ecosystems from adverse effects due to radiation and radioactive material released from DOE operations” has been weakened to “consideration may be given to avoiding or minimizing, if practical, potential adverse impacts to aquatic animals, terrestrial plants, and terrestrial animals in local ecosystems from radiation and releases of radioactive material, using a graded approach.”
- Security regulations drastically cut: The new orders saw hundreds of pages of security rules removed. Over 500 pages of detailed documentation were condensed into a mere 23-page order, simplifying several vital sections into bulleted lists.
- Radioactive waste management guidelines abbreviated: NPR observed that a 59-page manual on radioactive waste was shortened to a 25-page order, which excluded requirements for waste packaging and monitoring.
The benchmark for initiating accident investigations has also been revised. NPR reported that “the new order elevates the requirement for an official accident investigation from incidents where workers are exposed to two times the legal limit of radioactive material, to those involving four times the limit.”
The DoE justified these alterations by claiming that “reducing unnecessary regulations will foster innovation within the industry without compromising safety.”
Nevertheless, NPR highlighted that “the new directives eliminate key nuclear safety tenets, particularly the “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA) principle. This principle mandates that nuclear reactor operators minimize radiation exposure levels below the legal limit whenever feasible. The ALARA standard has been a longstanding practice at both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for decades.”
The report indicated that “the removal of this standard could lead to the construction of new reactors with reduced concrete shielding, and allow workers to undertake longer shifts, potentially exposing them to increased radiation.” Such changes could result in decreased construction and operational expenses for these facilities.
More Than a Regulatory Adjustment
Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, commented that “[the DoE’s] quiet dismantling of fundamental nuclear safety protocols extends beyond a mere regulatory decision; it represents a complete overhaul of how enterprise infrastructure risk will be managed in the coming years. Historically, nuclear safety has relied not only on stringent engineering but also on multi-layered governance, independent supervision, and comprehensive system traceability.”
He added that enterprise leaders considering SMR-powered solutions “must now acknowledge that the reactors supporting their AI clusters might be governed by internal guidelines that are neither published, independently audited, nor subject to public challenge.”
Gogia emphasized that “this risk does not remain isolated at the grid edge; it permeates into boardrooms, risk registers, and business continuity strategies. The lack of oversight is not benign; it acts as a debt instrument, accruing interest until a failure inevitably occurs.”
He said, “[it is] now incumbent on CIOs, infrastructure leaders, and sustainability officers to recreate that risk scaffolding contractually, procedurally, and operationally or prepare to inherit the consequences when design intent is outrun by operational ambiguity.”
Hyperscalers Potentially Face Concerns
Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, stated that “from a technological perspective, one must consider the position of hyperscalers, who are directly motivated to secure power for their AI data centers. They are financing the development of these modular nuclear reactors, and now reports suggest that safety measures might be compromised to hasten their production.”
He noted, “If I were Google, Meta, or Amazon, I would be concerned. While it’s not anticipated that these data center locations would house nuclear reactors, thereby mitigating the direct risk of a radioactive incident, their financial involvement creates a reputational risk should these reactors malfunction and cause harm to individuals or the environment.”
Jackson observed significant public resistance to the growth of AI data centers, citing environmental worries regarding water consumption, energy demands, and potential emissions. He explained that financing nuclear power was intended as a means for hyperscalers to “reduce these reputational risks, given that nuclear power does not generate carbon emissions. However, if a nuclear power plant adversely affects worker or public safety, or pollutes the environment, that becomes a significant problem.”
The manner in which regulations have been revised also presents a concern. Matt Kimball, VP and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, expressed that he believes nobody appreciates rules and regulations being rephrased or amended discreetly. “Such actions easily fuel public suspicion. Moreover, it is somewhat challenging to provide a comprehensive commentary on the enacted rule changes, given their apparent substantial nature.”
Nevertheless, he further commented, “if these regulatory adjustments were implemented to facilitate a faster adoption of small modular reactors (SMRs), I can understand why certain modifications might be necessary, or why a distinct set of regulations for SMR deployment might be required. SMR technology is inherently designed to have a reduced environmental footprint, attributable partly to their smaller size (requiring considerably less fuel) and partly to their intrinsic design.”
The Referee Now Represents the Home Team
Kimball highlighted that although SMRs operate on the same fundamental principle as large-scale nuclear plants—using controlled fission to produce heat, which is then converted into electricity—their design mitigates environmental repercussions like groundwater pollution, water consumption, and the consequences of a failure. For instance, he explained that an SMR’s integral reactor design, where all components are housed within a single vessel, removes the need for external piping. This design ensures that any accidents would be self-contained, thereby lessening their environmental footprint.
Furthermore, he noted that SMRs can employ air-cooling, significantly decreasing water usage. He concluded, “These illustrate just a few ways in which an SMR diverges from the expansive industrial nuclear power plants typically associated with nuclear energy.”
Given these distinctions, Kimball stated, “I can appreciate why regulations formulated or enhanced in the post-Three Mile Island period might require re-evaluation for this emerging nuclear age. However, it is genuinely challenging to assess the extent to which these rules have become ‘relaxed’ and whether the reported changes primarily stem from differentiating SMRs from large-scale nuclear facilities.”
Lastly, he commented, “I believe there’s no extensive need to elaborate on the importance of nuclear power for hyperscale or AI data centers. We are entering the age of the gigawatt data center, and conventional power generation methods cannot satisfy this escalating demand. Nevertheless, it is imperative that we implement power infrastructure, like SMRs, in a manner that is responsible, ethical, and secure.”
Building on that, Gogia highlighted that for CIOs and infrastructure architects, the dangers surpass mere potential radiation leaks. He noted, “Of more immediate concern is that system anomalies—whether mechanical, thermal, or software-related—might not be documented, investigated, or escalated with the thoroughness expected from an NRC-regulated facility. This directly affects uptime guarantees, incident response, and the reliability of disaster recovery protocols. Power stability becomes less assured, maintenance windows could expand, and root cause analysis turns speculative, especially without stringent operational logs, exhaustive event tracking, or independent supervision.”
Gogia further explained that the most overlooked aspect of this transition “is not merely what was eliminated, but rather who now determines acceptable standards. The shift from independent NRC oversight to internal DOE authorization establishes a profound discrepancy between enterprise risk management practices and reactor safety governance. In essence, the arbiter is now part of the involved party.”
