Going Nuclear
The Essentials Newsletter, Forty-Second Edition
In December 2023, I wrote a newsletter providing background on the nuclear power sector and its overlap with the electric sector. Since then, we’ve had a change in administration and congressional leadership at the federal level, resulting in some realignment of funding and an emphasis on several areas impacting energy, including nuclear energy. In this edition of The Essentials, I’ll delve into the status of the nuclear power sector in this new environment.
Before we jump in, a quick reminder about a few things. The civilian nuclear sector, as defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), encompasses civilian nuclear infrastructure, including nuclear power reactors, medical isotopes, reprocessing facilities, and the utilization of nuclear materials in specific medical, research, and industrial applications. Nuclear weapons are, thankfully, overseen by the Department of Defense.
According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, the non-weapons nuclear sector in the U.S. includes: 92 active power reactors; 31 research and test reactors; eight active nuclear fuel cycle facilities; and 20,000 licensed users of radioactive sources for medical diagnostics and treatment in hospitals, depth measurements at oil and gas drilling sites, sterilization at food production facilities, research in academic institutions, and examining packages and cargo at security checkpoints.
After scientists working on the Manhattan Project in the U.S. developed the first operational nuclear bombs deployed in Japan to end World War II, the scientific, industrial, electric, and military communities reconvened around the beneficial uses of nuclear technology. Like the current debates on the appropriate uses and regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) and intentional gene editing, such a debate occurred then about how to derive benefits from the massive downside that had already been demonstrated. From my perspective, once Pandora’s box is opened on any of these technologies, whether then or now, we must carefully weigh the risks and potential rewards as a society. If we overregulate, we stifle the potential benefits; however, if we underregulate, we could increase the risks.
The outcome of the post-World War II discussions about nuclear was to move forward in developing nuclear reactors to produce electricity. The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois created the first nuclear reactor to produce electricity in December 1951. In 1953, President Eisenhower spearheaded a program called “Atoms for Peace,” through which significant investment was funneled into developing nuclear power for electricity. While other reactor types have been tried over the years, the most successful have been the pressurized water reactor (PWR), initially developed for naval use, and the boiling water reactor (BWR). Westinghouse developed the first fully commercial PWR in 1960, at a nuclear plant that operated for 32 years. Other countries, such as Canada, the former Soviet Union, and France, developed their own reactor types, but most converted to PWR or BWR variations over the years.
The deployment of nuclear power plants has resulted in few fatalities compared to other sources of electricity. Still, concerns about the potential release of radiation from a failure (as exemplified by the accident at Three Mile Island in New York in the late 1970s) dampened the push toward nuclear power in the U.S. for about 25 years. During that time, the U.S. nuclear power sector sought to improve efficiencies in existing plants, resulting in a steady state where approximately 20% of electricity was generated by nuclear power, despite increasing demand. In parallel, the U.S. Navy continued to deploy nuclear submarines.
A resurgence of interest in deploying nuclear power emerged in the early 2000s because of its emissions-free profile and high capacity factor (the measure of how much of its available capacity a power plant uses to generate power over time). At that time, U.S. electric utilities began to pursue the construction of new large-scale nuclear plants or the restart of plants that had been put on hold, such as the Watts Bar plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. It became clear that new nuclear units coming online in regional transmission organization (RTO)/Independent System Operator (ISO) regions was unlikely due to the structure of those markets – one that effectively divorces the generation of power from ultimate customers from a financial perspective. Future bill payments by those very customers are often used to finance large-scale, expensive power plant development. Hence, most serious efforts to pursue new nuclear power plants in the U.S. to date have been in the Southeast and West, outside of RTO/ISO regions. The financial constructs of RTOs/ISOs have also challenged existing nuclear power plants to operate within their footprints, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by many policymakers and regulators, especially in the current administration.
Underpinning this resurgence of interest in nuclear power development by the electric sector has been a marked change in the level of support for it by everyday citizens across the political spectrum. I have witnessed this change unfold over time from the vantage point of an electric sector government relations executive who has interacted with six different presidential administrations throughout my career – three of which were Democratic and three Republican – and numerous iterations of leadership in Congress across both political parties. While Republican support for nuclear energy was evident upon the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which provided loan guarantees and tax credits for new nuclear power plants, that bill went through “regular order,” requiring some support from Democratic Senators to reach the 60-vote threshold.
When President Obama took office in early 2009, many of his appointees to the Department of Energy appeared overtly supportive of nuclear as an option. In 2011, when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was struck by an earthquake and tsunami, destroying the surrounding grid and the plant’s backup power generation, operators were unable to cool the reactors sufficiently to contain radioactive contaminants, which were released into the environment. While no deaths were directly attributable and only one death tangentially related to this release of radioactive material, the world reaction was severe, with Germany going so far as to decommission its fleet of nuclear power plants. In contrast, President Obama did not advocate for such an approach. Instead, the DOE became more vocally supportive of nuclear power, with Energy Secretary Chu advocating for the development of small modular reactors for electricity production, and the President requesting $39 million in seed money for such development. This support continued into President Trump’s first term and then into President Biden’s term. I attended an event in 2024 with the energy lead for President Biden’s Department of Defense, where the focus was squarely on leveraging the naval nuclear fleet and experience to advance nuclear power plants that serve defense facilities and the general public.
Of course, there are still people on both sides of the political spectrum who don’t think nuclear is viable – libertarians think it’s too expensive and heavily subsidized. At the same time, some environmental groups believe the health and safety risks are too significant. However, the majority of Americans' support has inspired the industry and garnered additional support from the federal government in terms of regulatory relief and financial assistance. According to a Pew Research survey released in 2024:
A majority of U.S. adults remain supportive of expanding nuclear power in the country, according to a Pew Research Center survey from May. Overall, 56% say they favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity. This share is statistically unchanged from last year…Americans remain more likely to favor expanding solar power (78%) and wind power (72%) than nuclear power. Yet while support for solar and wind power has declined by double digits since 2020 – largely driven by drops in Republican support – the share who favor nuclear power has grown by 13 percentage points over that span.
This political sea change has many underpinnings, not the least of which is a widely supported focus on emissions-free resources that can generate electricity regardless of weather fluctuations, as I mentioned in my earlier comment about nuclear’s “capacity factor.” Many on the left who understand electric grid operations believe it is a better option than natural gas for such “baseload,” highly reliable power, while many on the right have long believed in nuclear’s potential as a secure, highly reliable, and clean resource. But now, in President Trump’s second term, with the demand for electricity skyrocketing due to data center demand driven by AI use, nuclear power has almost become a “darling” in terms of support from the federal government and significant commercial interests.
According to a report issued by the Nuclear Energy Institute in 2024:
Demand for clean, reliable energy in the U.S. is skyrocketing...Interest in new nuclear is sharply up with nearly a dozen projects moving toward permitting by the end of this decade. This forecasted progress is predicated on the continuation of the policies that level the playing field for nuclear power and creating regulatory processes that will ensure safety in a timely and efficient manner.
Given this background, it may come as no surprise that the recently passed budget reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), included several provisions benefiting nuclear power. But what may be slightly harder to believe is the lack of push-back from the Democratic side of the aisle on such provisions. As PoliticoPro reported on July 14, 2025:
GOP lawmakers’ support for funding to build new reactors never wavered during the often acrimonious intraparty negotiations. And unlike the rollbacks for renewable energy incentives and new tax breaks for fossil fuels that angered Democrats, the support for the nuclear industry drew no objections from the minority party.
Even with this boost, one of the major hurdles to bringing new nuclear online – whether traditional BWR technology, advanced reactor technology, or small modular reactor technology – is the restrictive regulatory process. As noted above, over-regulation can stifle innovation, but under-regulation of one of those “Pandora’s box”-type technologies can potentially impact safety. However, the extremely long timelines for relicensing consideration (much less initial licensing) by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have been a significant roadblock for decades. In May, as part of an executive order to address such delays (and keying off a bill passed in the last Congress called the Advance Act, which sought to “streamline reactor permitting and reduce licensing fees”) according to PoliticoPro, President Trump “directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed the evaluation and approval of new construction and operation licenses. The NRC also recently published a rule to extend the duration of reactor design certifications from 15 to 40 years.”
One other element strikes me as important, and it goes back to the support needed from DoD in spurring significant nuclear power development. With nuclear power generation’s origins in the Army and Navy, and an excellent track record of safety in our nuclear submarine fleet, the time appears to be ripe for even more collaboration between the military and commercial nuclear sectors, at least in the short term. There are other details to be worked out, even with the tailwinds I’ve mentioned above, but if I were a betting person, I would bet on our country “going nuclear.” In a big way.