Diversification and the common ground

Who would have thought, just a few years ago, that we would see so many long-standing barriers to new nuclear development falling like dominoes? Public opinion, policy, regulatory reform, finance and investment, design maturity, nuclear fuel enrichment, and fuel fabrication capacity have all advanced with remarkable speed in the United States.

Conventional wisdom holds that the most effective way to scale up the nuclear supply chain is to do so strategically, matching investments to the needs of reactor developers.

A perfect example is the recent $17.5 billion award from the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing to finance long-lead procurement of major equipment for AP1000 projects. By buying down the risk of investing in the fabrication of reactor pressure vessels, steam generators, reactor coolant pumps, and other critical components, the federal government has become an important enabler of nuclear supply chain expansion. Likewise, the federal government's $2.72 billion investment in expanding domestic uranium enrichment capacity was aimed squarely at a well-understood supply chain gap.

But the relationship works both ways. Reactor developers are increasingly evolving their designs to take advantage of existing U.S. supply chains and technologies from adjacent industries. Think of robotic welding systems originally developed to construct offshore wind monopiles now being adapted to assemble advanced reactor pressure vessels. More broadly, imagine a nuclear industry that fully leverages the digital manufacturing capabilities of aerospace, the modular construction techniques of shipbuilding, and the megaproject execution expertise of the oil and gas industry.

The nuclear industry of the future will look different from the one we know today. It will include new players, new technologies, and new ways of doing business. Its success will depend not only on strengthening the nuclear capabilities we know we need but also on borrowing proven technologies, processes, and expertise from industries that have already solved similar problems. That's the secret sauce that can accelerate the nuclear resurgence.

The same principle applies to the nuclear workforce. Yes, we need many more skilled construction and manufacturing workers, and we certainly need more nuclear engineers than our universities are graduating today. Those remain the foundation and the pinnacle of the workforce pyramid. But the broad middle of that pyramid will be filled by professionals who may never touch a nuclear component yet will be indispensable to building a competitive and productive industry. They will come from aerospace, manufacturing, construction, software, finance, and countless other sectors, bringing valuable experience with them.

That's where we at ANS plan, through the expansion of our professional development programs, to make a tangible contribution to the nuclear renaissance: by ensuring that this diversity of experience is grounded in a common understanding of the technology and a shared commitment to our values of safety and excellence.

The dominoes are falling fast, folks. I can't wait to see what next year brings.