President Trump announced that his administration is making moves to weaken nuclear regulations in an effort to bring on the so-called nuclear renaissance. Proponents of nuclear power have been interested in heralding a new boom in nuclear power, calling it the 'nuclear renaissance' because very few nuclear plants have been built since the 90's, especially not at the rate they were being built in the 70's and 80's.
Read more about Trump's plans by clicking on the link: Trump seeks to loosen environmental regulations to ‘unleash’ nuclear energy by Rachel Frazin in The Hill
But experts say that loosening the radiation protection standards won't speed up nuclear energy production – and even place vulnerable communities at higher risk for health issues cause by radiation exposure.
Katy Huff writes in Scientific American, "As a nuclear energy advocate and former Department of Energy official, I want to see more nuclear energy on the grid soon. But loosening the protections of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model is not supported by current research. Some experts warn that relaxing it could especially place women and children at higher risk of damage from radiation."
Additionally, the Energy Institute at HAAS says, "this nuclear renaissance has a waste management problem."
In addition to bringing up excellent points about the nuclear waste issue, the article says, "The renewed push for nuclear energy is not really about climate necessity. It seems to be driven by anxiety about reliability in a strained power system, industrial policy aimed at rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity, and the commercial interests of firms chasing revenue streams tied to data centers and federal support."