Posted on 12/12/2025 7:36:07 AM PST by MtnClimber
After years of being scorned, derided and shrunk, the nuclear power industry is getting a boost from the Trump administration. Faced with rapidly growing demand for energy to supply a growing U.S. economy and booming AI sector, President Donald Trump’s Energy Department says it will help finance up to 10 new nuclear power plants – a huge reversal of decades of anti-nuclear sentiment and excessive regulation by the U.S. government.
You might be tempted to think: Oh, boy, another big government boondoggle. Nope. This is mainly reviving an industry that has languished largely due to excessive regulations and active political campaigns to make nuclear power a pariah among all possible energy sources.
This isn’t a massive subsidy. It’s a leg up, restarting an industry after decades of overt political hostility from Hollywood, journalists, activist groups, and the Democratic Party.
The private sector will do the work and generate the bulk of the financing.
“We want things built by and risk capital coming from the private marketplace, and most everything we’re doing is dominantly going to be funded by private capital,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the Washington Free Beacon. “But the government smothered the nuclear industry for 40-plus years. We’ve got to get it back up on its feet again.”
Wright calls it a nuclear “renaissance.” It’s one of the rare times use of that word is not hyperbole. The change of course follows Trump’s goal announced in May to quadruple U.S. nuclear energy output over the next decade, arriving at a crucial time for America’s energy future.
Even leftists now grudgingly acknowledge that switching to so-called renewable energy sources — such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal energy, and biomass — is not feasible for meeting growing U.S. and world needs. It’s painfully obvious, after decades of anti-nuclear propaganda and media scare-mongering, that only one energy source meets all the “green” criteria for efficiency, safety and cleanliness: nuclear.
Unfortunately, for three decades the U.S. has systematically allowed its atomic power infrastructure to languish and wither, leaving us with inefficient and not really clean renewable sources, instead of cleaner and cheaper, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear.
The total number of operating nuclear reactors peaked at about 112 in the early 1990s, falling to a little more than 90 today, a decline of 20%. And yet, nuclear plants still provide nearly 20% of all U.S. electricity on an annual basis, thanks to the industry’s plant upgrades, innovative new technologies and other efficiencies.
But we’re at a crossroads, and Trump fully understands this. Right now some 22 operating nuclear reactors at 18 separate sites are in the process of being deactivated. Their output must be replaced, or Americans will face even higher rates for electricity to heat, cool and light their homes.
Without replacing already lost capacity and future capacity, the U.S. will find satisfying its growing hunger for low-cost, reliable energy impossible. This means a reduced standard of living for all.
If you think that’s an exaggeration, it isn’t. In Europe, countries (we’re looking at you, Germany) have been decommissioning nuclear plants in favor of so-called green alternatives. The result is the massive deindustrialization of the European Union. According to World Bank data, per capita GDP in the European Union as a percentage of U.S. GDP fell from 77% in 2008 to just 50% in 2023.
As a result of poor energy choices along with a multitude of other productivity-killing policies, Europe is becoming an also-ran in the world economy. As the late, great journalist Charles Krauthammer once said, “Decline is a choice.”
Here in the U.S., blue states are emulating Europe, pushing up energy costs with needless regulations and restrictions, while red states pursue energy-friendly policies. The result, according to a recent study by the Institute for Energy Research: “The data is clear: bluer states tend to have much higher electricity prices than red states.”
This is why Trump’s nuclear “renaissance” is so important. It reverses our nuclear energy decline. Along with drilling for oil, and pursuing new technologies such as nuclear fusion and improved battery storage, nuclear power will help propel America into the future – a future of higher standards of living and opportunities for all, rather than the grim, dystopic, energy-poor America the left sees.
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Thank you President Trump. The democRATs would be following Germany’s example.
These plants create jobs in local communities. And reduce prices which are skyrocketing already.
There is every reason to do this if we want AI and domestic production.
This is a very good thing.
Reluctance to develop nuclear power generation to its full potential over the last half century - has to be the most costly example of mass human retardation since the dark ages.
Well… that and replacing a commodity backed dollar with worthless fiat money.
The future was looking bright a century or so ago.
If you even casually study the energy sector you will be struck by the absolutely massive scale of the industry.
The only way you can make sufficient energy for the future is incorporating nuclear.
Just don’t put the plants in a tsunami zone.
Getting rid of nuclear power was part of the Port Huron Statement agenda, which called for unilateral disarmament. We're in the process of getting rid of that agenda, and when its postwar advocates are finally dead and buried, so will it be.
There has been a revolution in the production of electric energy from nuclear sources. These new small modular nuclear reactors are so compact, they may be manufactured almost on an assembly line in a factory, loaded on freight cars or eighteen-wheel semi trailers, transported to site, and installed up and running in days.
https://www.nuclearbusiness-platform.com/media/insights/top-5-smr-tech
This means nothing. Virtue signaling. The treehuggers control all building. Get rid of them and you MIGHT be able to get one unit on line in <7 years.
Might.
I personally would like it if we had a bunch of small nuclear power plants spread out all over the country.
This would be the easiest, cheapest and most resilient way to meet our electricity needs.
Not a few big plants but a bunch of small ones.
Many small beats few big every time there are problems.
And there are always problems.
Which is why red states are moving forward and not the Blue states.
We desperately need one in New England.
-SB
50% of my stock market profile is invested in Energy stocks. From oil companies to those who provide electricity, I have a wide range of stock devoted to this sector.
The democRATs would be following Germany’s example.
—
Have no fear, these plants take years to build, and before then, the Dems will be back in power - just in time to cancel all the contracts/permits.
Even better, though I’m weirdly fond of the giant cooling towers.
Note:
What you see, are massive cooling towers.
Nukes generate lots of heat, so the power plant main work is cooling.
The “smoke” is water steam.
Certain people often darken the steam, to scare population and show supposed pollution.
April 16, 2018, The senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Exelon predicts there will be no new nuclear plants built in the United States. Because of the plants' size and security needs, the costs become prohibitive.
Only a decade ago, nuclear reactors were cash cows. But a combination of low natural gas prices and a boom in solar and wind power has rendered them unable to compete in states with price competition for power. Five of the country’s nuclear plants have shut down in the past decade. Of the remaining 99, at least a dozen more may close in the next. ...The average American operational nuclear plant is 37 years old. -https://theconversation.com/the-demise-of-us-nuclear-power-in-4-charts-98817
List of cancelled nuclear reactors in the United States..By the end of the 1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as dramatically as once believed. This was particularly galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were ultimately cancelled[2] and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_nuclear_reactors_in_the_United_States
Nuclear energy is one of the largest sources of emissions-free power in the world. It generates nearly a fifth of America’s electricity and half of its clean energy. During this process, it creates spent or used fuel (sometimes incorrectly referred to as nuclear waste) but it’s not the green oozy liquid you might be thinking of when watching "The Simpsons." In fact, some in the industry actually consider it a valuable resource.
1. Commercial spent nuclear fuel is a solid Spent fuel refers to the nuclear fuel that has been used in a reactor. The fuel used in today’s commercial reactors is made up of small ceramic pellets of low-enriched uranium oxide. The fuel pellets are stacked vertically and encased in a metallic cladding to form a fuel rod. These fuel rods are bundled together into tall fuel assemblies that are then placed into the reactor. The fuel is a solid when it goes into the reactor and a solid when it comes out.
2. The U.S. generates about 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel each year This number may sound like a lot, but the volume of the spent fuel assemblies is actually quite small considering the amount of energy they produce. The amount is roughly equivalent to less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. And, the clean energy generated from this fuel would be enough to power more than 70 million homes—avoiding more than 400 million metrics tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
If we take that a step further, U.S. commercial reactors have generated about 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel since the 1950s. If all of it were able to be stacked together, it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards. The nation’s spent nuclear fuel is initially stored in steel-lined concrete pools surrounded by water. It’s later removed from the pools and placed into dry storage casks that are made of steel and concrete or other materials used for protective shielding.
5. Spent fuel can be recycled That’s right! Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled to make new fuel and byproducts. More than 90% of its potential energy still remains in the fuel, even after five years of operation in a reactor. The United States does not currently recycle spent nuclear fuel but foreign countries, such as France, do.
There are also some advanced reactor designs in development that could consume or run on spent nuclear fuel in the future. Learn more about our work with spent nuclear fuel.Finally,
Nuclear power is the only large-scale energy-producing technology that takes full responsibility for all its waste and fully costs this into the product.
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