INL Director Says Trump Is Ushering In Nuclear Renaissance

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Idaho National Laboratory Director John Wagner told an interim committee made up of Idaho legislators that President Donald Trump and his administration are ushering in a nuclear renaissance that Idaho will lead.

“I have been a nuclear engineer for over 30 years now, and during the majority of my career, we’ve been shutting down perfectly good operational nuclear power plants for economic reasons,” Wagner said Wednesday during the Idaho Legislature’s Interim Committee on Federalism at the State Capitol in Boise.

But Trump and the new U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright are changing the game for nuclear energy and research, Wagner said.

“I can’t even … emphasize properly how significantly different this is than any other action by an administration on nuclear energy in my lifetime,” Wagner said.

Building new nuclear reactors in Idaho and beyond

Idaho National Laboratory is one of 17 U.S. Department of Energy national labs, and is considered the nation’s leading nuclear energy research and development national lab.

Now, for the first time in 50 years, Idaho National Laboratory is in the process of building and permitting new nuclear reactors, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.

During his presentation, Wagner highlighted four executive orders that Trump issued in May regarding nuclear energy.

The executive orders call for reinvigorating the nuclear industrial base, reforming nuclear reactor testing, deploying advanced nuclear technology for national security and reforming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that was created by Congress to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials, Wagner told legislators.

Wagner said the executive orders enable up to 10 gigawatts of new nuclear reactors to be under construction by the end of this decade.

John Wagner addresses committee — Idaho National Laboratory Director John Wagner speaks to the Idaho Legislature’s Interim Committee on Federalism July 30 at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise. | Clark Corbin, Idaho Capital Sun

Overall, the executive orders include at least 30 direct tasks and aggressive timelines, Wagner said.

“Other than the two reactors in Georgia, we have not been building new reactors over the last three decades,” Wagner said “And so this is about reinvigorating that nuclear industrial base to enable the nuclear renaissance.”

This is the second time since spring that a committee of legislators has been briefed on Idaho National Laboratory ramping up its operations. In May, members of the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee toured the Hot Fuel Examination Facility and other buildings at Idaho National Laboratory’s Materials and Fuels Complex.

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