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Amazon's recently acquired data center (foreground) in Salem Township, Pennsylvania, is a stone's throw from the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. In November 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission blocked the company's request to obtain more electricity directly from the plant. President Trump's nuclear-for-AI executive orders could bypass the traditional market and regulatory regime entirely by deploying reactors on federal sites. (Credit: Talen Energy)
As Big Tech turns to nuclear power to solve the artificial intelligence power problem, critics have cast doubt on energy developers’ ability to build new reactors on a timeline that will satisfy data centers’ energy needs.
High costs and lack of commercial economic viability have been persistent obstacles to new nuclear infrastructure development. But on May 23, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders that represent the most explicit government commitment to nuclear power for artificial intelligence yet.
Three of the orders explicitly mention AI as a driver for nuclear energy development and a potential beneficiary. One directive incentivizes the operation of privately funded advanced nuclear reactor technologies on federal sites—mainly national laboratories or military installations—allegedly to power AI infrastructure, labelled as “critical defense facilities,” and mandates the deployment of small modular nuclear reactors on one of these sites within 30 months.
Previously, tech companies were the most vocal advocates pushing for nuclear power to meet AI’s energy demands. Now the US government—heavily influenced by Big Tech’s hand—has made nuclear power for AI a national security priority, setting a goal of quadrupling the United States’ nuclear capacity from 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050. Whether government intervention can overcome the challenges that have plagued nuclear deployment for decades remains to be seen—and if so, at what cost?
Déjà vu. As with the rise of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s and 60s, the demand for nuclear energy is being created, justified, and incentivized by the government and its national security interests rather than by market forces.
Robert Duffy, a professor of political science at Colorado State University, summarized the history of the US nuclear power industry in a 2004 paper.
“The atomic energy subgovernment was endowed with additional prestige and power because of the program’s identification with national security issues,” Duffy wrote. “The actors in this tightly knit monopoly were united by the conviction that the development of atomic energy, first as a weapon but later as a means of generating electricity, was both necessary and desirable for the nation’s welfare.”
Duffy showed that the government’s rush to create a nuclear industry in the United States ultimately undermined that very industry. The hasty development, government incentives, and ambitious timelines led to cost overruns, safety problems, and public opposition that ultimately killed new nuclear construction for decades.
Today, the Trump administration is repeating history by declaring AI technologies driven by advanced nuclear power generators a key national security interest.
“There seems to be an aspect to the government’s interest in AI which is sort of positing that as the next nuclear weapons race,” Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, observes. “If you expect the most powerful countries in the history of the world, and the wealthiest corporations that have ever existed, which are trying to develop […] ‘digital gods,’ to not do everything they can to win that race, then you don’t understand human nature, and you don’t understand geopolitics,” Judson adds, paraphrasing what he heard from a panelist at the Nuclear Energy Institute’s nuclear finance conference in February.
But by trying to rush nuclear power development again for geopolitical reasons (then the Cold War, now the global AI race), the US government risks creating another failed—or at least costly and insufficiently safe—nuclear program.
AI’s unquestioned energy appetite. The government’s nuclear-first approach reflects the staggering scale of AI’s energy demands. Tim Fist, Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the Institute for Progress, says, “you’re roughly looking at tripling the amount of power used for data centers over the next five years, just coming from AI.”
The current global data center annual power consumption sits at around 40 gigawatts of installed electric capacity, but by 2030, he said AI data centers alone will require an additional 120 gigawatts, totaling about 160 gigawatts—just over half of Germany’s entire installed power generation capacity in 2023. Global consulting and auditing firm Deloitte similarly estimates data center electricity demand could rise fivefold in the next decade, reaching 176 gigawatts by 2035.
These massive energy requirements have prompted both the private tech industry and now the federal government to embrace nuclear power as their preferred solution (even as these massive energy requirements are being questioned after China’s DeepSeek showed it was possible to develop and train an AI chatbot at a fraction of the cost of and using 50 to 75 percent less energythan US ones). The Biden administration’s initial executive orders on AI infrastructure development laid the groundwork, but the Trump administration has gone a step further and explicitly targeted nuclear power as the answer to AI’s energy demands.
However, Deloitte’s analysis also predicts that new nuclear power capacity could meet only about 10 percent of the projected increase in data center power demand over the next 10 years. In the United States, where around 70 percent of the world’s most compute-intensive AI models have been trained, this translates to an immediate challenge: “Looking over the next five years, there’s these pretty serious energy requirements,” Fist explains. “90 gigawatts need to be built in the United States over the next 5 years.” That’s about 90 average-size new nuclear reactors. To put that demand in context, as of July 2024, 59 reactors were under construction worldwide, 23 of which were behind schedule.
Tech companies have increasingly aligned with Trump’s nuclear-for-AI strategy.
The appeal is obvious: Nuclear plants provide reliable, nearly 24/7 baseload power that data centers require. Judson notes that tech companies claim they need “the five nines of reliability,” meaning electricity available 99.999 percent of the time all year long. (The average capacity factor for nuclear reactors in the United States was 93 percent in 2023 and 70.7 percent for the 1971–2022 period preceding.)
So far, Amazon is the only major tech company that has made concrete nuclear investments, leasing land at Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant for a data center that could expand to 960 megawatts of capacity, Judson said. Microsoft and other companies have signed memoranda of understanding for future nuclear power purchases, but these deals—which now align perfectly with the federal government’s nuclear-first strategy for AI—remain theoretical.
The government’s nuclear-AI revolution. The May 23 orders represent the evolution in federal energy policy that began with general energy declarations and ended with explicit nuclear-AI mandates. On his first day in office, Trump signed executive orders declaring a national energy emergency and directing agencies to “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources,” which primarily focused on fossil fuel development but hinted at broader energy expansion.
Subsequent orders explicitly link nuclear expansion to AI competitiveness and national security. As White House Office of Science and Technology Director and former executive in the AI industry, Michael Kratsios, stated in a press release: “Over the last 30 years, we stopped building nuclear reactors in [the United States]—that ends now. Today’s executive orders are the most significant nuclear regulatory reform actions taken in decades.”
Each of the four orders addresses an area designed to accelerate nuclear deployment specifically for AI applications.
The first order directly mandates the development of nuclear power for AI as a national security priority, directing the Army Secretary to establish a program to build a nuclear reactor at a military installation within three years and requiring the Energy Secretary to work with private sector partners to deploy advanced nuclear technology for AI infrastructure within 30 months. These “advanced” technologies notably include small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors.
Another order requires a comprehensive overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reduce regulatory barriers, decrease dependence on foreign technologies, and require timely reactor licensing decisions—changes designed to speed up nuclear deployment for the energy-hungry AI sector.
Cementing prior Energy Department actions, a third order authorizes rapid nuclear deployment on federal land, with the government offering to lease federal sites for building new energy resources and data centers, streamlining permitting processes without involving private landholders.
Finally, the fourth order seeks to reinvigorate the US nuclear industrial base, including uranium mining expansion, domestic fuel enrichment capacity, and accelerated reactor testing at the Energy Department’s national laboratories.
As a White House fact sheet explains: “The federal government’s advanced computing AI infrastructure will require a substantial increase in scalable power solutions, which advanced nuclear reactors are well-positioned to provide. This will ensure our technological supremacy in the emerging technologies of both AI and nuclear power.”
The most crucial aspect of these orders is how they intend to solve nuclear power’s long-running economic problem: bypassing the traditional market and regulatory regime entirely by deploying reactors on federal sites. This approach would sidestep the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s traditional oversight and eliminate the need to make a conventional economic case for nuclear power.
According to Duffy, the federal government spent over $1.2 billion to develop reactor technology by 1962—twice the amount spent by private business. One Energy Department study from 1980 concluded that, without federal subsidies, nuclear electricity would have been 50 percent more expensive.
Today’s approach is even more direct. By allowing SMRs to be deployed on federal sites, the government creates an economic case by fiat. The federal government will fund the first fleet of reactors, eliminating the need for private companies to prove commercial viability. As Judson notes about the current situation: “[Nuclear reactor companies] don’t need to ask for subsidies. The government wants to make this stuff happen.”
This strategy echoes the 1950s playbook, when, Duffy noted, “the words and actions of government officials convinced the nuclear industry that in the future there would be nuclear power in America, with or without private sector involvement.”
In 1963, the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township, New Jersey (seen here circa 1971) was the first reactor built without any direct government subsidy. It was considered as a “loss leader” with which reactor vendors sought to demonstrate to utilities that nuclear reactors were an economically viable technology. The strategy worked and utilities began purchasing many nuclear reactors even before the Oyster Creek unit started commercial operation in December 1969. (Credit: US government, via Flickr)
Sticky problems. Even without the economic hurdles, the fundamental problem remains timing, and presidential orders cannot change the laws of physics. As Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear policy analyst and main contributor to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, bluntly states: “I doubt that any SMR would be operating 10 years from now in the Western world.”
Schneider’s skepticism isn’t unfounded. Construction times for nuclear plants average around 10 years, he said, and that’s just the construction phase—which only begins with the pouring of reactor foundations. Even with the Trump administration’s regulatory streamlining and federal site access, the reality of nuclear development timelines clashes directly with AI’s immediate energy needs. “All of these deals with nuclear companies are about future power plants maybe coming online in the 2030s, but all the AI data centers are being built today,” Judson observes.
Small modular reactors have long been promoted by the industry—and now also the government—as a solution to nuclear power’s problems, promising faster construction, lower costs, and standardized designs. The Trump administration’s nuclear orders specifically enable SMR testing and deployment on federal sites, betting that government support can make SMR promises a reality.
But the reality has proven far more complex, even with unprecedented government backing. Canada’s recent approval of the world’s first SMR in a G7 country demonstrates both the promise and the problems. The project’s price tag sits at nearly $21 billion Canadian dollars ($15.1 billion US dollars) for four reactors at Ontario’s Darlington site, roughly $12.5 million US dollars per megawatt—far exceeding the costs of renewable alternatives that can be deployed in a fraction of the time. Even more so, Judson says the energy company GE Vernova-Hitachi chose to pursue its SMR project in Canada because the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regulations allow construction permit applications to be submitted with much of the design still incomplete. “The jury is very much still out on whether the BWRX-300 [SMR design] will prove feasible to build on time and on budget, but what we know so far is not encouraging,” he adds.
The long-term management of nuclear waste also poses a sticky issue to new nuclear development, especially the relatively higher waste per gigawatt from SMRs compared to full-scale reactors, which has no permanent solution yet. “If they want to build nuclear power plants at data centers, or build data centers at nuclear power plants, these are sites that are also going to be storing nuclear waste,” Judson points out.
The Trump administration’s aggressive 30-month timeline for nuclear deployment doesn’t give much time to work these issues out. The administration proposes reforms and new U-turn policies for managing and recycling spent fuel storage, but those policies would likely come as new nuclear power plants are already underway.
Without a permanent nuclear waste repository and management policy, every new nuclear facility becomes a de facto long-term storage site. This is particularly problematic for proposed “micro reactors” that would be shipped to sites with fuel already loaded for a pre-determined short period. “Where are these micro reactors going to go after they’ve powered a data center for 10 years?” Judson asks. “Are they going to start piling up dead micro reactors at the data center sites?”
Energy industry impacts of the nuclear-AI boom. Even with the most aggressive government nuclear policy intervention in decades, the disconnect between nuclear industry promises and deliverable reality may continue to widen. Companies like Oklo exemplify this gap, Judson said. Originally marketing a 1.5-megawatt micro reactor, the company’s application was rejected by the NRC as incomplete, he said. Oklo subsequently signed a series of agreements with Switch (an AI technology provider) to build 12 gigawatts of nuclear reactor capacity for the company’s data centers. But as Judson reveals, these “agreements” were power-purchase contracts that Oklo plans to fulfill initially with natural gas generators and potentially transition to nuclear power only if their reactors are ever built and approved.
This pattern reveals a fundamental paradox: Even companies well-positioned to benefit from the Trump administration’s nuclear-friendly policies are hedging their bets with conventional generation sources that can actually be deployed on AI’s timeline.
Fist outlines what he sees as a realistic deployment sequence that challenges the government’s nuclear-first timeline: “I think in the near term, if you want to build fast, it’s kind of solar and battery storage and natural gas. And then, a couple of years after that, you can start bringing on large-scale geothermal online. And then after that, it’s more like small modular reactors.”
The May 23 orders promote this dual-energy solution. One order states that, “In conjunction with domestic fossil fuel production, nuclear energy can liberate the United States from dependence on geopolitical rivals.”
While the Trump administration has made nuclear power central to its AI strategy, it shows less concern for climate considerations than its predecessor. Judson suggests that even in light of new executive orders, this may reduce pressure on tech companies to choose nuclear over fossil fuels: “What I’m seeing is at least some recognition that the power, at least for now, is going to be coming from fossil fuel generation […] and less pressure on the industry politically from the White House to make it seem otherwise.”
The federal government has moved beyond simply supporting AI infrastructure to making nuclear power central to the United States’ AI strategy. But as Duffy’s historical analysis makes clear, government enthusiasm and subsidies don’t guarantee success and can even kill a nascent industry at birth.
The question is no longer whether the government supports nuclear power for AI—it’s whether government intervention can make new nuclear reactors built on AI’s timeline without compromising safety or repeating past mistakes. The answer may determine not just the future of US energy policy, but the United States’ position in the global AI race itself.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s historic role of assuring safety is changing as the White House shifts some responsibility to the Department of Energy. A DOGE representative told the chair and top staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the agency will be expected to give “rubber stamp” approval to new reactors tested by the departments of Energy or Defense. The meeting was held after President Donald Trump signed a May 23 executive order that would supplant the NRC’s historical role as the sole agency responsible for ensuring commercial nuclear projects are safe and won’t threaten public health.
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Trump Administration Says It Won't Publish Major Climate Change Report on NASA Website as Promised:
Associated Press, by Seth Borenstein, July 14, 2025
The Trump administration has taken another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people. Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. The most recent report, issued in 2023, found that climate change is affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority communities, particularly Native Americans, often disproportionately at risk. Earlier, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports, which the space agency said it planned to do. But NASA has now aborted those plans.
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House Releases Interior-EPA Spending Bill with Deep Cuts:
E&E News, by Kevin Bogardus, Garrett Downs & Michael Doyle, July 14, 2025
House Republican appropriators unveiled their fiscal 2026 funding legislation for the Interior Department and EPA, with steep cuts proposed for both agencies. The bill would approve about $38 billion for agencies under its purview, nearly $3 billion below the fiscal 2025 amount. Interior would get about $14.8 billion and EPA would be funded at $7 billion, a 23 percent cut for the agency. The legislation is, however, more generous than Trump’s budget request. The bill would appropriate about $9.2 billion above what the White House requested.
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House Republicans Buck Trump a Bit on NOAA Cuts but Savage NSF Funding:
Under the Commerce-Justice-Science bill, House Republican appropriators would cut NOAA by nearly $400 million for fiscal 2026 - amounting to a six percent cut from current levels. Republicans say the bill includes “reducing spending on reckless climate change efforts.” The National Science Foundation, however, would see a steep reduction in new spending legislation - a 23 percent cut of $2 billion.
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U.S. Threatens to Abandon the International Energy Agency Over Its Green-Leaning Energy Forecasts:
The U.S. may depart the IEA without changes to forecasting that Republicans have criticized as unrealistically green. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, “We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw.” Wright’s criticism of the agency that gets millions of dollars in U.S. funding is in line with Trump’s broader pro-fossil fuels thrust, and his skepticism about climate change and some environmental measures adopted under previous administrations.
The first half of 2025 showed the promise of the giant climate law passed under Biden. Solar power generation surged in the first half of 2025, a growing number of batteries were connected to the grid, and electric vehicles sales hit new records. Those clean energy trends are now expected to dim. EIA estimates that solar installations would fall from 36-GW in 2027 to about 18-GW in 2028, and less than 5-GW in 2029. Wind projects, which were already struggling with transmission constraints and growing opposition, are in tougher shape. Onshore wind installations are expected to fall from 8-GW in 2026 to 3-GW in 2027, and a little more than 2-GW in 2028. Cox Automotive initially projected EVs would account for 10 percent of new sales this year, but it downgraded that estimate to 8.5 percent after the Republican law was finalized.
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Trump’s Push to Keep Coal Plants Running Could Cost Consumers Billions:
DOE’s emergency orders to keep coal plants running could cost U.S. utility customers billions, and states are pushing back. 100+ planned closures could be blocked before Trump’s term ends. RMI says these orders could drive up U.S. power costs by roughly $15 billion annually by propping up aging fossil fuel plants. State regulators warn that reversing closures at the last minute - like what happened at Michigan’s J.H. Campbell plant in May - adds tens of millions in unexpected costs, undermines clean energy plans, and destabilizes long-term grid strategy.
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Trump's Trillion Dollar Spending Boost for Pentagon to Create Disastrous Amount of Carbon Emissions:
According to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute, a US-based research thinktank, Trump’s huge spending boost for the Pentagon will produce an additional 26 megatons (Mt) of planet-heating gases – on a par with the annual carbon equivalent (CO2e) emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia. The Pentagon’s 2026 budget – and climate footprint – is set to surge to $1 trillion thanks to the president’s One Big Beautiful Act, a 17% rise on last year. The budget bonanza will push the Pentagon’s total greenhouse emissions to a staggering 178 Mt of CO2e, resulting in an estimated $47 billion in economic damages globally.
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Trump Administration Memo Could Strike Fatal Blow with Strict Reviews for Solar and Wind Projects on Federal Lands:
Washington Examiner, by Callie Patteson, July 17, 2025
The Trump administration is taking new steps to stifle wind and solar energy development, requiring projects to get Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal signature to receive necessary permits. An internal memo sent to Interior Department staff said all wind and solar power facilities on Interior Department-controlled land must undergo strict political reviews from the secretary. This includes all decisions, actions, consultations, and other activities related to renewable energy projects
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Trump Taps Project 2025 Contributor David LaCerte to Fill Vacant FERC Seat:
LaCerte, who now works at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, served during Trump’s first term and helped on Project 2025, the conservative road map to “deconstruct the Administrative State.” LaCerte was a special counsel at the Baker Botts law firm for two years, starting in January 2023. While there, he worked on energy litigation and environmental, safety and incident response issues. If confirmed, FERC would have a 3-2 Republican majority. It is currently split 2-2 between Republicans and Democrats.
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Trump’s Rural Energy Freeze Hits the Midwest and GOP Districts Hardest:
Since 2014, the Rural Energy for America Program has provided more than $1.2 billion for more than 13,000 solar projects, making up about 70% of the total REAP dollars. More than $292 million went to energy efficiency, including for windows, lighting, heating, and efficient grain driers. Millions more were awarded for biogas, biomass, biofuels, wind energy, hydroelectric power, and other projects. More than three-quarters of REAP federal grants over the last decade have gone to Republican congressional districts. Ongoing delays and disruptions to a federal rural energy program threaten to disproportionately impact Midwest farmers and Republican congressional districts.
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has exempted more big polluters from lifesaving EPA guardrails. The agency exempted 53 plants from standards that curb emissions of ethylene oxide, chloroprene and other toxic gases, eight taconite processing facilities that prepare iron-bearing rock for steelmaking from the first-of-its-kind standard to limit mercury emissions, and exempted three more coal plants from Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. In April, Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin exempted 68 coal-fired power plants from MATS, allowing these massive polluting plants to release even more toxic chemicals into the air.
#SizewellC would consist of the 7th and 8th of EDF's EPR design.
So, what N is needed to deliver Nth-of-a-kind cost savings? Any ecomodernists out there want to hazard a guess? And maybe to back it up with their own money, not other people's (and defo not mine)?
Oh, before you claim that whatever is going on is EPR-specific, you serious do well to recall Admiral Rickover's wise words about the difference between academic and real reactors (see image).
The UK government recently committed anither £14.2 billion to Sizewell C, bringing the total to £17.8 billion ($24 billion) so far. If you thought the way the government negotiated with EDF over Hinckley C was bad (being left with only one potential provider), this is much worse: being left with only one provider and then committing 1/2 of the cost up front, before negotiating a power price.
"I'll give you a million pounds to start building me a house. While you do that, we'll negotiate the total price. Please be nice to me."
Note in the actual article that the data center will be built at Calpine gas plant in York County, not at the (nearby) Peach Bottom nuclear plant. I.e., colocating the 800+ MW data center at a gas plant implies that it will principally be powered by gas generation.
Also, note that the owner of the Peach Bottom reactors, Constellation, is in the process of acquiring Calpine and all of its gas generation plants, as part of its business strategy to capture as many PPA deals with data center developers as possible, knowing that increased utilization of gas plants is the default option for power hyperscale data centers where renewable energy development is happening too slowly to provide sufficient new generation. It will also have two perverse effects that will impose higher costs on other consumers:
higher market electricity prices driven by higher demand and marginal costs of gas
higher capacity market clearing prices, due to both higher peak loads from data centers and Constellation's market power in withholding some capacity and upbidding some capacity in the capacity auctions. Constellation has been doing this for years with its nuclear fleet in PJM, but once the Calpine acquisition goes through, it will have even greater market power.
Small nuclear reactors are no fix for California’s energy needs
A small modular reactor is constructed in China last year. These power plants are “small” only in output; their expense is huge.
(Luo Yunfei / China News Service / Getty Images)
By Joseph RommGuest contributor
April 18, 2025 3:03 AM PT
It might seem like everyone from venture capitalists to the news media to the U.S. secretary of Energy has been hyping small modular reactors as the key to unlocking a nuclear renaissance and solving both climate change and modern data centers’ ravenous need for power.
On Monday, the Natural Resources Committee of the California Assembly will consider a bill to repeal a longstanding moratorium on nuclear plants in the state, which was meant to be in place until there is a sustainable plan for what to do with radioactive waste. Defeated multiple times in the past, this bill would carve out an exception for small modular reactors, or SMRs, the current pipe dream of nuclear advocates.
SMRs are typically under 300 megawatts, compared with the combined 2.2 gigawatts from Diablo Canyon’s two operating reactors near San Luis Obispo. These smaller nukes have received so much attention in recent years mainly because modern reactors are so costly that the U.S. and Europe have all but stopped building any.
I’ve been analyzing nuclear power since 1993, when I started a five-year stint at the Department of Energy as a special assistant to the deputy secretary. I helped him oversee both the nuclear energy program and the energy efficiency and renewable energy program, which I ran in 1997.
So I know all too well that the hype is built on quicksand — specifically, a seven-decade history of failure. As a 2015 analysis put it, “Economics killed small nuclear power plants in the past — and probably will keep doing so.” A 2014 journal article concluded many of those “building support for small modular reactors” are putting forward “rhetorical visions imbued with elements of fantasy.”
But isn’t there a nuclear renaissance going on? Nope. Georgia’s Vogtle plant is the only new nuclear plant the U.S. has successfully built and started in recent decades. The total cost was $35 billion, or about $16 million per megawatt of generating capacity — far more than methane (natural gas) or solar and wind with battery storage.
As such, Vogtle is “the most expensive power plant ever built on Earth,” with an “astoundingly high” estimated electricity cost, noted Power magazine. Georgia ratepayers each paid $1,000 to support this plant before they even got any power, and now their bills are rising more than $200 annually.
The high cost of construction and the resulting high energy bills explain why nuclear’s share of global power peaked at 17% in the mid-1990s but was down to 9.1% in 2024.
For decades, economies of scale drove reactors to grow beyond 1,000 megawatts. The idea that abandoning this logic would lead to a lower cost per megawatt is magical thinking, defying technical plausibility, historical reality and common sense.
Even a September report from the federal Department of Energy — which funds SMR development — modeled a cost per megawatt more than 50% higher than for large reactors. That’s why there are only three operating SMRs: one in China, with a 300% cost overrun, and two in Russia, with a 400% overrun. In March, a Financial Times analysis labeled such small reactors “the most expensive energy source.”
Indeed, the first SMR the U.S. tried to build — by NuScale — was canceled in 2023 after its cost soared past $20 million per megawatt, higher than Vogtle. In 2024, Bill Gates told CBS the full cost of his 375-megawatt Natrium reactor would be “close to $10 billion,” making its cost nearly $30 million per megawatt — almost twice Vogtle’s.
SMRs are just one of several wildly overhyped false promises on which the world is poised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars by 2040, including hydrogen energy and direct air carbon capture.
But nuclear power is the original overhyped energy technology. When he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss — the Robert Downey Jr. character in “Oppenheimer” — predicted in 1954 that our children would enjoy nuclear power “too cheap to meter.”
Yet by the time I joined the Department of Energy in 1993, nuclear power costs had grown steadily for decades. Since then, prices for new reactors have kept rising, and they are now the most expensive power source. But solar, wind and battery prices have kept dropping, becoming the cheapest. Indeed, those three technologies constitute a remarkable 93% of planned U.S. utility-scale electric-generating capacity additions in 2025. The rest is natural gas.
China is the only country building many new nuclear plants over the next five years — about 35 gigawatts. Less than 1% of this projected capacity would be from small reactors — while more than 95% will be from reactors over 1,100 megawatts. Now compare all that to the 350 gigawatts of solar and wind China built — just in 2024.
For the U.S., President Trump’s erratic tariffs make small modular reactors an even riskier bet. If the U.S. economy shrinks, so does demand for new electric power plants. And the twin threats of inflation and higher interest rates increase the risk of even worse construction cost overruns.
Also, China, Canada and other trading partners provide critical supply chain elements needed to mass-produce SMRs — and mass production is key to the sales pitch claiming this technology could become affordable. That logic would apply only if virtually all of the current SMR ventures fail and only one or two end up pursuing mass production.
So, can we please stop talking about small modular reactors as a solution to our power needs and get back to building the real solutions — wind, solar and batteries? They’re cheaper and cleaner — and actually modular.
Joseph Romm is a former acting assistant secretary of Energy and the author of “The Hype About Hydrogen: False Promises and Real Solutions in the Race to Save the Climate.”
The White House has introduced radical changes that threaten to disrupt the effectiveness of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The agency was formed in 1975 to be an independent regulator, separating it from the promotional role pursued by its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission. The NRC has set safety requirements that have become the global gold standard for nuclear regulation. The White House actions threaten to undermine this record.
Conversations with fellow former NRC chairs and retired NRC experts reveal a shared concern that the changes will have unintended, dangerous consequences. In February, the White House issued an executive order that intruded on the traditional autonomy of independent agencies, thereby giving the White House the capacity to control NRC regulatory actions and allow politics to infect regulatory decision-making. A series of executive orders on nuclear matters issued in late May compounded the challenge. One of the executive orders focuses on the reform of the NRC. It would establish arbitrary deadlines for decisions on construction permits and operating licenses, regardless of whether the design offers new and previously unevaluated safety challenges. Other provisions demand the review of all the extensive NRC regulations within 18 months. The other executive orders allow the construction of nuclear power reactors on federal lands—sites belonging to the Energy Department and the Defense Department—without any review by the NRC.
Then, on June 13, the Trump administration firedChristopher Hanson, an NRC commissioner and former chair, without any stated justification. These actions all serve to weaken protections for those who work in or live near reactors. Given the anticipated expansion of reliance on nuclear power, the drastic staff reductions contemplated by the White House come at the wrong time.
There is always room to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the regulatory process and adapt it to the evolution of nuclear technologies and their implementation. Recognizing that, past and current NRC commissioners and technical staff have set in motion changes to reduce the regulatory burden and speed the deployment of reactors at a lower cost. The changes are prudent and reasonable and support the promise of expanded reliance on nuclear energy. Congress has also encouraged those efforts and further instructed the NRC to make more improvements to the process through the bipartisan ADVANCE Act signed into law in 2024. All of this was underway before the White House interference.
The NRC has protected the health and safety of Americans for 50 years without a single civilian reactor radiation-related death. The lessons of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident have long been woven into the safety regime, and every commercial reactor in the United States is safer today because of major safety steps taken after the destruction of reactors in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Since Three Mile Island, the agency has licensed approximately 50 power reactors to operate. It has recently issued construction permits for advanced reactors ahead of schedule. And the NRC has cleared utilities to boost the power of many existing reactors and has licensed them to run longer than originally planned.
We are concerned about the unintended safety consequences that a reduced NRC independence and a schedule-driven regulatory paradigm threaten to bring.
We fear the loss of public confidence that can befall a safety agency when expediency is seen to be given priority. Reducing the NRC’s independence while mixing promotion of nuclear energy and responsibility for safeguarding the public and environment is a recipe for corner-cutting at best and catastrophe at worst.
We are also concerned that such steps could damage the reputation of US reactor vendors worldwide. A design licensed in the United States now carries a stamp of approval that can facilitate licensing elsewhere, including the many countries that plan to embark on a nuclear power program. If it becomes clear that the NRC has been forced to cut corners on safety and operate less transparently, US reactor vendors will be hurt.
The US nuclear industry is helped by the fact that it has a strong independent regulator behind it. The White House’s executive orders may produce the opposite effect from their stated purpose.
Editor’s note: The authors are former chairs of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
With a new social media account, a name change and an appearance from a former Miss America, Constellation Energy recently held a rally to bolster support for a nuclear renaissance near the site of one of the biggest atomic accidents in US history.
“When I say 'nuclear', you say 'energy',” Grace Stanke, the 2023 Miss America winner-turned-nuclear energy engineer and advocate, shouted to the crowd at the site of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also took part in the rally with 400 in attendance, many of them Constellation Energy employees.
“This restart will safely take advantage of existing infrastructure while creating thousands of energy jobs and strengthening Pennsylvania’s legacy as a national energy leader,” the Democratic Governor said.
Initially named Three Mile Island Unit 1, (TMI1), the reactor, which is shut down, now goes by the name Crane Clean Energy Centre.
This name change followed last year's announcement by Constellation Energy and Microsoft of a two-decade power purchase agreement, under which the plant will resume operations to fill a potential energy grid gap created by power-hungry AI data centres.
That announcement raised eyebrows in part because Three Mile Island played a large role in creating a stigma around nuclear energy that has lingered in the US for many years.
In 1979, the core of the plant's Unit 2 reactor was partially exposed, leading to a temporary evacuation of the nearby area and a lengthy clean-up.
Debate and studies continue into the potential health effects stemming from the accident. A recent Netflix documentary also reignited interest and controversy about Three Mile Island (TMI).
Constellation touched on the 1979 accident in its announcement of the Microsoft deal with Microsoft, attempting to make clear the damaged reactor was not going to be part of the new project.
“The Unit 1 reactor is located adjacent to TMI Unit 2, which shut down in 1979 and is in the process of being decommissioned by its owner, Energy Solutions,” the Constellation said. “TMI Unit 1 is a fully independent facility, and its long-term operation was not impacted by the Unit 2 accident.”
Yet despite the recent rally held by Constellation, and even amid several polls showing nuclear energy receiving more support in recent years, not everybody is on board with the project.
“The name change is not about remembering, it’s about forgetting,” said Eric Epstein, director of Three Mile Island Alert, a grass roots safe energy organisation founded in 1977, two years before the Unit 2 accident.
Mr Epstein, who unsuccessfully filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to oppose the name change, has not backed down from his critiques of Constellation's partnership with Microsoft, and for that matter, the much touted nuclear renaissance driven by AI energy demands.
“The name change is intended to honour Chris Crane, the former CEO of Exelon, who presided over a massive nuclear corruption scheme resulting in a $200 million fine,” he said.
The name change is an “attempt to establish a fictional narrative divorced from past misdeeds,” he told The National.
As well as Mr Epstein's concerns about nuclear waste storage, the lingering clean-up at Unit 2 and fears about potential over-running costs that might burden taxpayers, he has alleged that Pennsylvanians will not be benefiting from the electricity generated once Crane Energy Centre goes online.
“The partnership between data centres and nuclear power plants has the potential to meet the needs of data centres, but does nothing to address the energy needs of businesses, consumers and farmers,” he recently told the Pennsylvania public utility commission.
Yet in terms of nationwide public sentiment, Mr Epstein might be fighting an uphill battle.
According to Pew Research polling last month, about 59 per cent of US citizens now support nuclear energy as a way to meet the country's energy demands.
Other US technology companies have joined in the push for nuclear energy to plug the electricity gap potentially posed by AI technology.
Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, recently teamed up with Constellation for a 20-year power purchase agreement to revive a nuclear plant in Illinois.
“Nuclear energy from the project will be used to support Meta’s operations in the region,” Meta said. “We’re building AI technologies that are transforming the global economy and the way people connect … our data centres enable these innovations.”
As for the Crane Energy Centre in Pennsylvania, Constellation says the plant, originally set to reopen in 2028, is ahead of schedule with some of its regulatory processes, and may be online as early as 2027.
Meanwhile, some still warn the AI tech bubble could burst, meaning many of these deals could be risky. For now, however, the AI investments, data centres and overall infrastructure in need of energy show no sign of slowing down.
