Jeff Duncan, a congressman from South Carolina, has written an op-ed in Newsweek calling for America to restore it nuclear energy leadership. He says although there are many factors that have led the US to fall behind Russia an China in nuclear power production, the most important need is to improve America's regulatory structure to foster innovation, investment and deployment. He says:
Leadership in nuclear energy is essential for our global competitiveness, national defense, clean energy future, and scientific advancement. Nuclear energy is safe, affordable, reliable rain or shine 24/7/365, and is the number-one source of emission-free power in the United States, providing 55 percent of the country's clean energy and 20 percent of the country's total electricity....
China, for example, has brought 21 reactors online in the past few years and has two dozen additional plants under construction. That's not to mention the 14 Chinese-designed reactors in various stages of development throughout the world. Russia is also gaining ground in the nuclear industry and had 16 Russian-designed reactors under construction around the world before the invasion of Ukraine....
There is no doubt the United States has the capability to reclaim our position as a world leader in this area, but certain impediments are holding us back. The federal government must modernize its regulations to reassert the vision of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which declared the development of nuclear energy shall aim "to promote world peace, improve the general welfare, increase the standard of living, and strengthen free competition and private enterprise."