As the United States considers how best to power its future, nuclear energy has reentered the conversation. Under the Trump administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has stepped up the pace on nuclear power, marking reviews “ahead of schedule,” issuing timely environmental impact statements for a commercial advanced reactor, and approving a small modular reactor design.
But until recently, a new generation of advanced reactors was held back by government regulations and systems that had not kept pace with changing technologies.
“For years, our nuclear regulatory system treated every new reactor like it was built in the 1970s,” said Christopher Barnard, president of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC). “That approach may have been well-intentioned, but it ended up slowing down innovative technologies that are needed to meet today’s energy moment.”
The story of Oklo, a California-based nuclear startup, illustrates how that situation has changed, as shifting political attitudes, particularly under the Trump administration, have accelerated the development and possible deployment of a revolutionary nuclear technology.
Oklo is developing a new generation of nuclear reactors known as advanced fission reactors. Unlike traditional nuclear plants, which are large, water-cooled facilities, Oklo’s reactors are compact, use liquid-metal cooling, and rely on passive safety features that automatically shut down the system without human intervention or outside power.
The Oklo reactor is designed to produce up to about 75 megawatts of electricity—enough to power tens of thousands of homes or a large industrial site. It can operate for years without refueling, and may eventually run on recycled nuclear fuel.
Supporters see such designs as a way to deliver reliable, carbon-free electricity while avoiding the safety and cost problems that plagued earlier nuclear plants. “Modernizing nuclear licensing doesn’t mean lowering safety standards. It means applying them intelligently, using risk-informed science and modern tools instead of paperwork for paperwork’s sake,” said Barnard.
But when Oklo became the first advanced reactor company to test the federal licensing system, its application failed — not because of its technology but because of outdated government approval processes.
In 2020, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) accepted Oklo’s application for docketing, a key step towards a full technical review. In a letter to Oklo, the NRC said acceptance was “in the best interest of the nation and the agency.” The next step, a safety review process, was brief. The NRC issued one round of questions, and Oklo answered them on time.
But in 2022, the NRC denied the application, saying the company’s approach to providing information was too “novel.” Historically, nuclear regulation focused heavily on exhaustive documentation and rigid checklists. Every component was treated as if it posed the same level of danger, even when engineering evidence suggested otherwise. In this process, reactor developers were often asked to submit enormous amounts of information upfront, leading to years of back-and-forth and frequent delays.
Oklo instead submitted information based on new tools, including advanced computer models and simulations that allow experts to quickly test thousands of potential scenarios, and “risk-informed” safety methodologies that focus on the parts of the reactor that matter most for accident prevention.
In effect, Oklo’s application arrived before the regulatory system could handle it.
“Oklo wasn’t the only start-up [seeking approval for a next-generation reactor],” says Dr. Todd Allen, Chair of the University of Michigan’s Nuclear Engineering Department. “But to their credit, or detriment, they were the ones willing to push the hardest. The NRC’s regulatory process was set up to regulate one type of reactor; that process was even funded by fees paid by power companies [with traditional reactors online.] So, there wasn’t even a funding mechanism to pay for reviewing the new generation of technology until Congress provided money for that purpose.”
In 2019 and 2024, during the first Trump and Biden administrations, respectively, laws were enacted that compelled the NRC to establish a technology-inclusive regulatory framework for advanced reactors. But it took until late 2024 for the NRC to actually launch such an approval system. That process acknowledges that smaller, passively safe reactors behave very differently from traditional reactors and employs many of the evaluation methods the NRC criticized in Oklo’s application.
In May 2025, President Trump signed executive orders directing the NRC to accelerate reviews of advanced reactors further and keep pace with innovation. The orders emphasized predictable timelines, earlier environmental reviews, and faster approvals where safety standards are met. The administration also gave the Departments of Energy and Defense limited authority to review test reactors not designed for commercial use.
Since then, the NRC has marked some advanced reactor reviews as ahead of schedule and approved a small modular reactor design.
But there is still work to be done. Judi Greenwald, CEO of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, says the NRC approval system must be able to efficiently approve a large number of reactor projects each year.
“Both the industry and the NRC are learning by doing, and we are seeing some [licensing successes],” says Greenwald. “But we need to get to a place where we can do this in a timely, orderly fashion for a large number of designs and projects.”
Oklo, meanwhile, continues to advance its reactor. The company has begun development work at Idaho National Laboratory and is targeting commercial deployment later this decade.
In an age when it seems America just can’t get things done, Oklo’s story demonstrates that a nimble government regulatory structure is as important as innovation to building the country’s future.
“What’s encouraging is that support for advanced nuclear has become bipartisan,” Barnard said. “From the Trump administration’s executive actions to earlier congressional reforms, there’s growing recognition that clean energy innovation and smart regulatory reform go hand in hand.”