by Audrey Streb
The Lion
A nuclear energy startup beat the clock by a month when its advanced reactor reached a milestone pivotal for safe operation, advancing a goal set by President Donald Trump last year.
Trump signed a series of executive orders in May of 2025 that called for American nuclear power to be quadrupled by 2050 and for three pilot nuclear reactors to reach criticality – a vital milestone where a nuclear reaction becomes self-sustaining – by July 4, 2026.
The success is tempered by concerns about regulations and other factors that currently limit nuclear power’s growth, something experts addressed with The Lion…
“These nuclear entrepreneurs that are working on stuff at the labs … They’re working on great technology, they’re doing great things, but if they don’t get that LNT fixed, they’re going nowhere with all of it, and the industry has just been terrible,” Steve Milloy, Energy and Environment Legal Institute senior fellow and a former Environmental Protection Agency transition team member for the first Trump administration, told The Lion. “I don’t know what the nuclear industry is waiting for. I don’t know what the administration is waiting for. The clock is ticking on all this stuff.”
