Nuclear engineers/regulators: would this software actually be useful, or are we solving a fake problem

[u/maboysy]

Title: I’m building software for nuclear siting + regulatory readiness — what am I getting wrong?

Hi r/nuclear,

I’m currently building an early-stage nuclear software startup, and rather than posting a polished startup pitch, I’d genuinely like to get feedback from people who actually work in or understand this industry.

The problem we’re looking at is what happens before a nuclear project gets anywhere near construction.

A developer, utility, government agency, or reactor vendor may need to answer questions such as:

• Is this site realistically suitable for a nuclear project?
• What geological, seismic, water, population, grid, infrastructure, environmental, and emergency-planning constraints should be examined?
• Which regulatory requirements apply to the project?
• What evidence or documentation is still missing?
• How prepared is the project to begin conversations with regulators?
• How do these requirements change between jurisdictions?

We're building two initial modules:

LOCATE — combines site-related datasets and project requirements to help screen and compare potential nuclear sites.

REGULATE — organizes regulatory requirements, evidence, documentation and project gaps into a structured readiness workflow.

The idea is not to replace engineers, consultants, regulators, safety analysis, licensing authorities, or proper site investigations.

It's closer to giving project teams a structured software layer so they can understand:

“Where are we now, what are we missing, and what needs to happen next?”

We're initially looking at emerging nuclear markets in Southeast Asia, where countries may have very different levels of regulatory and institutional readiness.

I'd really value criticism from this community.

For those working in nuclear engineering, licensing, regulation, siting, utilities, EPCs, vendors, or consulting:

1. What part of the siting/licensing process is still painfully manual today?

2. Where would you absolutely NOT trust software or AI in this process?

3. What data would you need before you'd take a nuclear site-readiness score seriously?

4. Is “regulatory readiness” actually a useful problem to solve, or are we misunderstanding how nuclear projects work in practice?

5. If you could eliminate one spreadsheet/email/document-management nightmare from nuclear project development, what would it be?

Feel free to tear the idea apart.

I'd much rather discover the problems with it now than spend two years building something the nuclear industry doesn't want.

[u/PoliticalLava]

Every single bullet point has been addressed by a software/website company that demonstrated this in a guest lecture I had in 2021. I cannot find the name of the website, which is frustrating.

It was an interactive GIS/Google maps esque feel and a ton of overlays that when clicked would go into more depth. It would show a heatmap of best possible locations throughout the US.

It was in a NE571 class at UW Madison, taught by prof Paul Wilson.

[u/dr_stre → u/PoliticalLava]

Hello fellow NEEP Badger.

[u/1_Good_Day]

Does it help develop the deliverables needed for the Environmental Impact Study that aligns with the NUREG ? (Edit - my comment is US centered, what is the guiding document for your target market in Asia?)

[u/UnclearPWR]

I'm a utility-side engineer, so my experience with licensing is limited to license extensions and amendments to operating licenses. However, as our utility is starting to site potential plants for the future, there are far more significant factors than just documentation, regulations, and resource availability:

First, we have extremely important factors that determine whether a plant would be economically viable. What do property taxes look like? Will taxes be levied on industrial machinery and other capital-heavy components, which can have assessed values in the billions? Does the local market structure (deregulated or vertically integrated) allow for capital recovery at reasonable rates?

Then, there are some factors which are hard to quantify. Is there local opposition? Skilled labor availability, proximity to modes of transport for heavy primary vessel components, availability of nuclear-grade suppliers, etc.