Reforming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s [NRC] outdated radiation protection framework is essential to unlocking nuclear energy’s potential. Reconsidering the linear no-threshold (LNT) radiation standard could help streamline construction and lower costs, strengthening the President’s nuclear agenda without compromising safety.

The LNT model assumes that any amount of ionizing radiation, no matter how small, carries some increased cancer risk, and that this risk rises in a straight line with dose. In practice, this assumption contributes to conservative engineering requirements and exposes projects to legal challenge. Analysts from the Idaho National Laboratory argue that revising it could meaningfully reduce capital costs and construction timelines while “correct[ing] misconceptions about the risks associated with nuclear technologies.” The NRC will soon consider this change.

The model was extrapolated from high-dose data, much of it drawn from survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then applied to the very low doses typical of normal plant operation. The problem is that it sets aside the dose rate, which is central to actual risk. In other words, it is like treating drinking 14 alcoholic drinks spread across a week as equivalent to drinking 14 drinks in an hour. The model greatly overestimates the risks of low doses. 

A growing body of low-dose research, including studies of nuclear workers, medical imagers,  and populations in areas with high natural background radiation, has found little to no detectable harm at these exposure levels. Some studies have even reported possible protective effects, though this hypothesis remains disputed. Research on nuclear workers, nuclear medical imagers, and radiology professionals show lower overall mortality, an actually beneficial effect.

President Trump’s May 2025 Executive Order on NRC reform explicitly directed the commission to reconsider LNT, but did not mandate a change. Because LNT is a regulatory assumption, not a statutory law, the NRC can revise it through its own rulemaking.

>>>READ: The Department of Energy Takes on ALARA

Moving toward a standard calibrated to low-dose evidence could enable simpler, cheaper designs, particularly small modular reactors and microreactors, lowering the construction and decommissioning costs that weigh on project economics. It would also reduce the regulatory uncertainty that drives up insurance premiums and financing costs, and trim the litigation that stretches out project timelines. Easier siting and narrower grounds for activist legal challenges are steps necessary to achieve the administration’s ambition of 300-plus gigawatts of new nuclear capacity.  

 None of this means declaring radiation harmless or loosening safety. A revised standard would still preserve substantial safety margins, calibrated to actual low-dose evidence rather than to a worst-case assumption. The goal is a regulatory threshold that takes risk seriously without overstating it, one that lets nuclear plants be built and run both efficiently and safely. There is precedent: the first US commercial nuclear plant was built under pre-LNT standards, constructed in roughly four years and operated for 25 years before its retirement in 1982.  

Combined with the supply-chain loans, plant restarts, NRC timeline reforms, and DOE pilot programs already underway, revisiting LNT could help turn today’s nuclear momentum into a durable expansion, making advanced nuclear a leading option for new firm, carbon-free power in the United States.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.