What is 20x35?

Key Objectives

Actions Needed to Achieve 20x35:

1. Streamline Licensing for New Reactors: New reactor technologies require consistent and quality engagement between advanced reactor developers and the NRC in order to successfully license. While initial reviews for these novel technologies may take longer, once licensed and operational, subsequent license reviews should be much more efficient. The lack of a streamlined regulatory schedule for repeated licensing adds delays and uncertainty in the review process. The NRC should create a more efficient review schedule that streamlines processes for initial and subsequent licenses to improve predictability for reviews. Legislation is also moving through Congress to strengthen the NRC’s mandate. Furthering this effort is essential to ensure the NRC can meet the demands of advanced nuclear licensing.
2. Modernize Permitting & Environmental Processes: Advanced nuclear reactors and fuel facilities require multiple permits for construction, operation, and fuel handling, each with stringent guidelines for public notices, community comment-gathering, stakeholder intervention, mandatory hearings, and advisory committee reviews. While these important processes have always been lengthy, the impact on project timelines was less significant for large reactors that took a decade to build. Now, with new nuclear technology that is safer, smaller, and designed to be built faster, Congress must update the permitting and environmental statutes for the NRC to allow for more streamlined reviews that align with the pace of advanced nuclear technology.
3. Support early deployments of multiple advanced reactor designs to ensure timely project delivery and sharing of best practices: The US workforce has limited recent experience constructing new nuclear reactors—new advanced reactor deployments can help overcome this learning curve. Building any new large-scale technology will incur higher costs, as supply chains and efficiencies in construction will need to be developed. Flexible federal support for projects 1–5 of any technology will help navigate these early mover challenges and support the growth of the industry for subsequent projects. Deploying these technologies at home is a necessary first step towards competitiveness overseas, and the special characteristics of innovative US reactor designs represent a potential edge in global markets for decades to come.
4. Instituting a holistic and integrated strategy on US nuclear exports: Our primary international competitors are vertically-integrated and state-owned enterprises with the full backing of their national governments. Among these competitors are Russia and China, our geopolitical rivals who are aggressively engaging new markets and now threaten to undermine the robust international safety, security, and nonproliferation standards that the US has led in shaping for decades. Our commercial presence in the international nuclear energy market directly affects US national security and foreign policy interests. Thus, integrating programs and efforts across federal agencies with a long-term, strategic vision for supporting US nuclear exports is urgently needed.
5. Enhancing the capacity of federal agencies to engage international partners and markets: While efforts to accelerate the deployment and commercialization of advanced nuclear are ongoing, the US must engage early and often with partner countries and prospective markets. Some states require assistance on the development of regulatory and institutional foundations for their nascent civil nuclear programs, and key agencies such as State Department and NRC must be empowered with the necessary resources and authorities to engage with and support embarking nuclear nations. We must also enable our export financing agencies, such as Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), to better provide competitive debt-equity financing packages for countries interested in US nuclear technology.