Nuclear Construction Returns to the US: SMR Permit, Amazon Deal, Utah Mega-Project

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its first construction permit for a commercial small modular reactor, clearing the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a 300-megawatt unit at Clinch River, Tennessee, according to World Nuclear News. The approval, reported on 30 September, marks the first time a next-generation reactor design has moved from licensing review into actual construction in the United States.

That same week, Amazon and Constellation Energy announced a 20-year power purchase agreement covering 690 megawatts from the Calvert Cliffs Clean Energy Center in Lusby, Maryland, Data Center Dynamics reported on 1 October. The deal commits more than $3 billion to plant improvements and adds roughly 190 megawatts of new generating capacity between 2030 and 2032. Separately, a startup called Valar Atomics wants to place 456 small reactors on over 9,000 acres of federal land in Utah, NPR reported on 30 September, citing documents it reviewed exclusively. The project, called Project Beehive, would produce around 9.6 gigawatts of power for data centers, more than double Utah's entire average electricity output.

These are not isolated announcements. They are the visible edge of a regulatory and commercial shift that has been building since May, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the NRC to implement sweeping reforms by the end of 2026 and making it official US policy to quadruple the commercial nuclear fleet by 2050, according to Canary Media.

What the NRC is actually changing

On 30 September, Canary Media detailed a proposed 339-page rule that would reduce reporting requirements for nonemergency events, eliminate expiration dates for standard design approvals, increase staffing flexibility in control rooms, and modify seismic risk requirements. Patrick White, a nuclear scientist at the Clean Air Task Force, called it a "wholesale revision of NRC rules and guidance" and said the commission is "trying to look top to bottom and say, What changes do we need to make to the regulatory system if we want to accelerate deployment of nuclear?"

The volume of activity is unusual. The NRC has initiated dozens of rulemakings since last May, including a new licensing pathway for advanced reactors and a second pathway for "low-consequence microreactors," according to Canary Media. Lara Nichols, a former Duke Energy executive now at the law firm Troutman Pepper Locke, told Canary Media that one proposed change, greater flexibility to make design changes during construction without seeking NRC permission, could avoid the kind of delays that pushed the Vogtle AP-1000 reactors in Georgia nearly a decade past their original delivery dates.

The stakes are not abstract. The NRC's own regulatory code runs to hundreds of pages per package, and each change carries implications for public safety and for the pace at which projects can move from paper to concrete.

Not everyone sees the same picture. The US Energy Information Administration has not yet published updated cost or schedule projections for the SMR fleet, and the NRC has not disclosed how many additional construction permit applications are under active review.

What is clear, from the filings and the deals, is that capital is moving. Amazon's power purchase agreement with Constellation, announced this week, follows earlier efforts by the company to develop a data center campus adjacent to Calvert Cliffs. Amazon pulled out of that project in August, according to Data Center Dynamics, but the PPA keeps the company tied to the plant's output for two decades. The agreement also includes a retail supply arrangement covering Amazon operations across the 13-state PJM market.

Valar Atomics' Utah proposal is more speculative but larger in scope. NPR reported that the company has applied to the Bureau of Land Management for over 9,000 acres near Price, Utah, and has also sought around 650 acres of state land. The plan calls for nonnuclear construction to begin as soon as the end of this year, with the first reactors online in 2028. "It's concerning to see that the Trump administration, with the support of the state of Utah, is pushing this forward on significant acreage of public lands," Neal Clark, wildlands director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, told NPR. The Bureau of Land Management confirmed to NPR that it has received the application and is reviewing it for completeness.

Meanwhile, the broader nuclear supply chain is stirring. South Korea has announced plans for eight large-scale nuclear plants in the US as part of a $120 billion investment package, according to NucNet, and Bechtel and Westinghouse have agreed main EPC terms for a 3.75 GW plant in Choczewo, Poland, Construction Review reported on 30 September. Those are export deals, not US construction starts, but they point to a global reactor market that is warming up.

The US still has only a handful of reactors under construction. X-energy, backed by Amazon, is working toward four 80-megawatt reactors at a Dow Chemical facility in Seadrift, Texas, in the early 2030s, with up to $2.1 billion in federal cost-sharing funds, according to Canary Media. The project does not yet have an NRC license, though it received a key environmental approval in May and expects construction clearance in early 2027. CEO J. Clay Sell told investors on an August earnings call that he expected the government to contribute more funding as needed.

Costs remain the unresolved variable. Blown deadlines and budgets have long dogged the industry, and in 2023 contributed to the dissolution of the first small-modular reactor project with an NRC-approved design, Canary Media noted. X-energy estimated its ARDP scope at between $4.75 billion and $5.75 billion in early 2023 and has not publicly updated that figure.

The tension between ambition and execution is not new. What is new is the alignment of federal policy, private capital, and utility demand. Whether that alignment produces steel and concrete at Clinch River, Seadrift, and Price, or another round of missed dates, will be decided in the next two to three years.