US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright was part of an official briefing with members of a high-powered American nuclear industry delegation headed for India on Sunday.
During the course of the briefing, US-based nuclear firms that have prior exposure to India or have received official approval from the US Department of Energy in recent months to transfer nuclear technology to Indian entities were invited to share insights on the investment potential of the Indian market with others in the US industry grouping.
The ‘executive mission’ is headed to India Sunday with a twin-pronged agenda: to take stock of India’s nuclear energy landscape less than six months after a landmark legislation opened up this critical sector and to communicate the American industry’s interest, as well as coordinate US government messaging, on the emergent opportunities.
Organised by the Washington DC-based Nuclear Energy Institute — the lobby group for America’s commercial nuclear industry — and the US India Strategic Partnership Forum, the visiting delegation is expected to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Union Power Minister Manohar Lal, besides likely meetings with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.
Over the last 15 months, a handful of American nuclear companies have bagged ‘specific authorisations’ from the US government with respect to a restrictive American regulation referred to as “10CFR810” — (Part 810 of Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954). This authorisation permits these firms, subject to certain conditions, to transfer technology to India entities — which is otherwise not possible under the 810 regulations. Most of the firms that secured clearances are part of the visiting delegation.
Deliberations planned during the course of the delegation’s five day schedule (May 17-21) also include meetings with the Department of Atomic Energy’s top brass, NITI Aayog, other energy ministries and representatives of state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd and NTPC Ltd.
The delegation will likely arrive in Delhi on May 17 and stay on till May 19, before heading to Mumbai on May 20 for a series of meetings spanning two days.
Story continues below this ad
US Ambassador Sergio Gor and the US Embassy staff are likely to set the agenda for the delegation’s series of formal meetings that get underway on the morning of May 18. The Mumbai leg may include meetings with private sector energy players including Reliance Industries Ltd, Adani Group, Tata Power Company Ltd, JSW Energy, Vedanta, Larsen & Toubro Ltd, Tata Consulting Engineers and Hindalco Industries.
A shift in nuclear sector governance
Earlier, in December, Parliament passed the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025, marking a major shift in governance of the tightly-controlled nuclear power sector.
For the first time, the Act opened up the sector’s operations side and areas like fuel management to private players, that had been under tight public-sector control for decades.
Along with a larger role for the private sector in nuclear plant operations, the new legislation also paves way for deployment of imported Light Water Reactor-based projects, aided by foreign funding. It opens up the possibility of more imported LWR-based nuclear projects of the kind being set up in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu by the Russians. India is also keen to look at the possibility of the deployment of small modular reactors or SMRs. Though India’s civil nuclear programme has expertise in manufacturing pressurised heavy water reactors — 220 MWe PHWRs all the way up to the new 700 MWe reactors — an impediment of sorts for the country’s nuclear establishment is its reactor technology.
Story continues below this ad
Based on heavy water and natural uranium, the PHWRs are a technology that the nuclear establishment has a mastery over, but one that is increasingly out of sync with the LWRs that are now the most dominant reactor type across the world. The Americans, the Russians and the French are among the leaders in LWR technology. Further, India’s dominant nuclear technology, its mainstay PHWRs, has scalability issues.
The Centre’s shift toward external nuclear collaboration stems from two primary policy objectives: the desperate need for base load alternatives to coal-fired capacity to overcome the limitations of renewables, and more importantly, the external outreach for nuclear collaborations is driven more by the need for capital than the need for techno
logy, a top government official had indicated ahead of the passage of the nuclear amendments.
The SHANTI Act was passed amid Opposition’s concern over the entry of private players and changes in the liability regime, particularly the whittling down of provisions fixing responsibility on equipment suppliers in the event of a nuclear accident. The new Act replaced two earlier legislations — the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 (AE Act) and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 (CLNDA) — effectively redrawing the rules that govern the nuclear power sector. From who can build and operate plants and how accident liability is capped, to the role of the safety regulator and the mechanisms for dispute resolution and compensation, all of these have been tweaked or changed.
