The United States mostly abandoned the construction of new nuclear power plants after 1990, but that is about to change. The Trump administration is attempting to jump-start a new atomic age with a program to build 10 new power plants by the mid-2030s. And federal officials say that dozens more facilities could come online after that.
“This is the start,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said to reporters, per The Associated Press. The administration is providing $17.5 billion to “speed the development” of the new reactors in a bid to meet growing electricity demand from “massive data centers,” said the AP. President Donald Trump has made a goal of “quadrupling domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years.” But critics say the plants are “too expensive and riskier” than solar, wind and “other low-carbon energy sources.”
“Trump’s big nuclear play is here,” said Robinson Meyer at Heatmap. That is no surprise. Support for nuclear power has become “surprisingly bipartisan, at least at the elite level,” with figures as disparate as Trump and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) seeking to speed the development of new reactors. They are taking cues from countries like France and Sweden that have expanded their low-carbon power supplies by “undertaking large, state-led nuclear energy buildouts.” This should have benefits for the warming climate, but highlighting that benefit carries the “risk of discouraging the Trump administration.”
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Nuclear power “should generate the cheapest electricity available,” said Alex Trembath at The Dispatch. Instead, the process of building new plants became “increasingly expensive over the decades” thanks to “overregulation, environmentalist opposition, and industrial mismanagement.” But the 57 plants that are online produce 20% of the nation’s power supply. Now it should be “time to build.”
The United States “used to be the world’s leader in nuclear power,” said The Washington Examiner editorial board. That ended because of “regulatory paralysis,” where “endless process had become an enemy of progress.” The Trump administration has now ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to “speed up licensing” and created a Reactor Pilot Program that makes it easier for companies to “build, operate, and test reactors” under supervision from the Department of Energy. That has not yet resulted in a completed nuclear plant, but the “restoration of ambition” under Trump could “bring the nuclear renaissance America has needed for half a century.”
What next?
Hopes for a nuclear revival have been “longer on aspiration than action,” but the new loan program “could move the needle,” said Axios. Developing so many plants at once should “create more efficient, scaled, standardized and cheaper supply chains” that will enable the subsequent production of additional plants.
Even as the number of plants expands, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that oversees the industry is preparing to make “huge cuts” to hours devoted to safety and emergency inspections, said CNN. The changes “must be approved by five NRC commissioners to be finalized.”
