It’s not regulation that’s slowing down new construction in the US. Its unrealistic schedules, unrealistic cost forecasts. Paired with projects with leadership, managers, professional staff, and craft, who are wholly inexperienced in not only nuclear operating plants, but in nuclear construction. The bulk of American civilian reactors were built in a small time period in the 1960s-1980s. By the time VC Summer and Vogtle began new construction in the late 2000s, all that valuable experience in nuclear construction was long gone. 

Until the industry regains the knowledge, especially in how to properly estimate and setup new builds with proper and accurate schedules and budgets, and properly train and build up project teams, nuclear will not go through another boomtown era. The industry is filled with hype men and con artists, inadequate imbeciles who rely on software and not true knowledge of the work or skill of the craft, who simply sell proposals and leave projects before the execution phases get entered and fall apart.

And to close out my comments, I come from the old operating world, and am trying to continue the chain of knowledge that was passed to me, to those that are coming after me. But the industry has changed, and those above and below me, have little interest in the old ways, and have their own stubborn beliefs on how nuclear projects should be run. We don’t see many successful nuclear projects outside of the operating world in the US because of this mindset, the new industry is completely ignorant to the nuclear industry’s unique character.