DOE streamlines reactor authorization process for advanced reactor testing

The U.S. Department of Energy has developed a streamlined authorization process to help accelerate development of next-generation reactor designs. In response to executive orders issued in May 2025, DOE revised its process to expedite the review, approval, and construction of advanced reactors under the Department’s jurisdiction. The DOE reactor authorization process provides cutting-edge reactor concepts with a faster route to design approval and testing than traditional pathways developed decades ago with large, light-water reactors in mind.

Safety remains DOE’s number one priority. The DOE authorization process is fundamentally similar to the NRC process in all aspects of reactor safeguards and security. The main change is in how those requirements are spelled out. The updated DOE pathway places the emphasis on the safety standards themselves, rather than the fine details of how those standards should be achieved.

The reactor developer is responsible for ensuring the safety of the reactor. DOE’s job is to review the design and ensure that authorized reactors, fuel lines, and other nuclear facilities are designed, constructed, and operate in a way that protects workers, the public, and the environment.

Previously, the guidance for DOE-approved reactors was over 1,500 pages long, with 17 discrete steps that a design had to complete before construction could begin. DOE’s revamped authorization pathway cuts that process down to 11 steps and eliminates more than 900 pages of unnecessary, repetitive, and extraneous language.

The revised approach removed requirements in which DOE approved fine details of design and operations, including exactly how system engineers are trained, rather than ensuring that they were competent in maintaining their safety systems. Significant time and money was directed to generating reports instead of prioritizing safety for workers and the public. The DOE authorization pathway follows U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, and large chunks of those regulations were duplicated word-for-word in the old process.

DOE recently announced plans to fast-track approvals for advanced nuclear reactors to bypass lengthy federal permitting reviews that delay deployment of new energy. The decision would exempt certain nuclear reactor projects from federal reviews, including reviews triggered by the National Environmental Policy Act. Under NEPA, federal agencies are designated to review the potential environmental impacts a project may have, a process that currently can take years.