Kathryn Huff

Rule Changes

Now associate professor at University of Illinois

The Department of Energy has quietly rewritten its nuclear safety rules, removing over 750 pages of requirements—including the decades-old ALARA standard that kept radiation exposure 'as low as reasonably achievable.' The changes, shared only with regulated companies and not the public, aim to clear the path for experimental reactors to achieve criticality by July 4, 2026—a timeline nuclear experts call 'a pretty big understatement' in terms of its aggressiveness. In August 2025, Aalo Atomics broke ground on the nation's first experimental reactor under the new rules at Idaho National Laboratory, though DOE Secretary Chris Wright later acknowledged only one or two reactors might meet the July deadline.

Updated Jan 31