U.S. States Advance Nuclear Power!

Meeting the Incoming Trump Administration Half-Way

A nuclear power renaissance is not happening like magic! Over almost six years, President Trump, with significant elements of the private sector, the Department of Energy (DOE), Congress, and our states have invested in cutting edge nuclear science and engineering. They have passed legislation, begun streamlining regulations, and promoted research and workforce development in our universities and colleges, to bring to life a new generation of “advanced nuclear reactor" designs and a new nuclear age.

Buoyed now by the November 5th re-election of President Donald Trump, dramatic developments are set to unfold, perhaps now center-stage, that can transform baseload energy infrastructure and drive the rebuilding of America's industrial and manufacturing base. It is now up to an informed and aroused American citizenry to make this happen in the coming months!

Our States Enter the Nuclear Fray

It is very good news that the incoming, pro-growth Trump administration -- with President Trump himself committed to "build big beautiful power plants" and "cut the price of energy in half" -- is being met 'half way' by state-level public and private sector leaders who are boosting nuclear power and nuclear technology, science and supply chains, for their states.

These state-level developments have been underway over the last two years, driven by mounting electricity brownouts, blackouts and rising energy prices, and the insane "green" solar and wind fiasco promoted by the avatar Biden. Now, in the past year, full-throated state support, with announced new state plans, state-level legislation, and dedicated financial resources for nuclear power have dramatically and publicly surfaced. Also very importantly, these deliberations and proposals have focused on the development of the needed future workforce. Equally, deliberations and proposal have gone directly to the issue(s) of new "supply chains" - the scaling up, and economic benefits thereof, of major new manufacturing capabilities, utilizing advanced materials, advanced tooling, and the production of the finished components needed to build out America's energy future - and beyond.

States Boost Their Role

Shaking off the nightmare of four years of monetarist and fiscal insanity under "Biden," states are unleashed. Below follow many of the U.S. State initiatives, and certainly there are more.

Tennessee

On October 31, the Tennessee Nuclear Energy Advisory Council released their 120 page Final Report and Recommendations to Governor Bill Lee and legislative leaders incorporating two broad strategies. First, to advance "new nuclear and specifically advance the Clinch River Nuclear Reactor project." Second, to build the Tennessee nuclear workforce and supply chain, including for, "nuclear industries such as fusion energy and radiopharmaceuticals." ¹ Tennessee is intent on clearing regulatory hurtles and coalition building, and has already created the Tennessee Nuclear Energy Supply Chain Investment fund. Recall that Tennessee is home to the federal Tennessee Valley Authority and, not coincidentally, the Oakridge National Laboratory. Kairos Power, a SMR nuclear power startup, is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct two advanced reactors on Oakridge federal lands.

In the Tennessee final report, Appendix D: Tennessee Nuclear Education Inventory Summary states:

"The development of a targeted technical workforce requires a coordinated education pipeline that spans K through PH. For a nuclear workforce, it is important that nuclear knowledge is integrated into the curriculum of each organization: elementary school, middle school, high school, technical academies, community colleges, universities and industrial apprenticeship programs (page 108 of the report).

Texas

As if dueling for first place honors, the State of Texas, our nation's largest energy producer and a manufacturing behemoth, released the final report of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group on November 18th. ²

It was back in August of 2023 that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Public Utilities Commission of Texas Chair, Kathleen Jackson, to form a working group, "to study and plan for the use of advanced nuclear reactors in Texas." Governor Abbot already supported the agreements between X-energy and Dow to build a small modular reactor (SMR) in Seadrift, Texas, to provide electricity and process heat to the enormous Dow chemical complex there.

As Texas legislative recommendations, the high-level nuclear working group lists the following, many echoing the aforementioned Tennessee report:

• A Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Authority

• A Texas Nuclear Permitting Officer: A single point of contact.

• Workforce Development Program for Community Colleges and Universities

• Texas Advanced Manufacturing Institute

• Texas Nuclear Public Outreach Program

• A Texas Nuclear Energy and Supply Chain Fund

• A Texas Nuclear Energy Fund

The Texas study, drawing also on NRC reports, lists over fifty potential sites for new nuclear reactors. It also cites the initiatives of other states, including Tennessee, in already promoting advanced nuclear power projects.

Simultaneous with the release of the Texas working group final study, the Texas Nuclear Alliance held its first major event, addressed by both of Trump's first term Energy Secretaries, Ernest Moniz and Rick Perry, also a former Texas Governor.

The Dam Breaks

Of course, leaders in blue (or purple) states have also come around to nuclear power. Michigan will see the reopening of the 800 MW Palisades baseload nuclear power plant in late 2025. There is more. Holtec International is already planning to construct a couple of small modular reactors at the Palisades plant by 2030 to nearly double the power generation at the site. The SMR-300 is one of seven advanced reactor designs supported by Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program and the only one based on proven light-water reactor technology. (One key feature of the SMR-300 is that it can also operate in places like the desert.)³

Michigan's Nuclear Feasibility Study workgroup had presented their Nuclear Feasibility Study Final Report to the Governor and Michigan Legislature back in March 20, 2024.⁴

In early December, the Michigan state House energy committee heard testimony on a nuclear energy legislative package. State Representative Joey Andrews told Moody on the Market that the package of bills he’s worked on with multiple colleagues has an R&D tax credit for small modular reactor research, would define advanced reactors in statute, and a grant program directed towards developing a nuclear and hydrogen workforce.

In "blue" California, Diablo Canyon's Unit #1 and Unit #2 nuclear power reactors are both slated for renewal by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the next year or two. The Diablo plant could continue generating baseload power, operating 24/7, for another 20 years or more. ⁵

Power Needs Promote State Action

Steps taken in the states of Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Wyoming are summarized in the latest, December issue of The News Reactor, published by the National Conference of State Legislators. The newsletter issue also has an overview of a range of internet, cloud and AI companies now partnering -- or seeking to partner -- with new and emerging nuclear power producers. ⁶

As well, Republican state senators in New York state unveiled a comprehensive energy legislation package that includes studying the feasibility of bringing the shuttered Indian Point nuclear plant back online. Indian Point Energy Center was shut down permanently by Entergy on April 30, 2021. The governor called a state Future Energy Economy Summit, and in November a request for "market interest" in advanced nuclear technologies in New York State was officially made.

In Iowa, there is now consideration of "doing something" with Iowa’s 1,970 MW Duane Arnold nuclear plant, this according to NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum. The Duane Arnold Nuclear Center was shuttered in 2020, but NextEra is now conducting studies and speaking to federal regulators about a reopening.⁷

In Florida, House Bill 1645 now requires the state's utility commission, the Public Service Commission, to study and evaluate the using advanced nuclear power technologies, including small modular reactors (SMRs), to meet the State’s electrical power needs. Their report will be submitted to the Governor and the Legislature by the beginning of April, 2025 -- less than five months from now.

Trump's Energy Optimism

Arguably the most ambitious component of recent U.S. efforts to promote advanced reactors occurred during the first Trump presidential administration. This was the Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which congressional appropriators created in 2019 and then formally authorized through the Energy Act of 2020. Overall, the program drove billions of dollars in research and prototype funding, with public-private collaboration centering around the DOE's 17 National Science Laboratories.

Congress also came around to supporting activities such as early-stage R&D in advanced reactors, reactor licensing reforms, and development of specialized uranium fuel supplies, and that continued even during the 'Biden' years. It is also now increasingly understood that we cannot afford to lose our baseload fossil fuel power plants as US electricity demand is set to double and then triple.

Successful, advanced reactors will serve a range of functions. Generation III+ baseload reactors, such as the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, is on-line in the U.S. (two) and China (closing on ten!) There is no substitute for baseload power, 24/7, and the AP1000's have already crossed the threshold of FOAK (first-of-a-kind) builds. Small modular reactors (SMR's) have not yet crossed that expensive FOAK threshold, and these are the reactors now most discussed as "advanced nuclear reactors." With the Westinghouse AP1000, costs will now dramatically be reduced as they are proven, modular in design, and their modules can now be factory built. The DOE also reports that 30,000 skilled American nuclear workers were trained-up in building Plant Vogtle's #3 and #4 Westinghouse reactors. This new capacity is often overlooked, in the political chatter promoting "capital lite" solutions.

It would be foolish to think that America's energy crisis can now be solved without massive capital investment, given that the crisis has evolved over decades of Wall Street-financed "green/brown" (re: National Resources Defense Council) and “flea-trade” utility deregulation policies⁸.

The capital requirements to build advanced nuclear power plants at scale and at levels required to meet the pressing and future needs of Americans are not yet clear. President Trump has spoken to the constitutional authority of the President to print dollars and deploy them to grow the real economy of the United States. Lincoln's "greenback" program is but one precedent. This writer addressed this matter most recently in his book, Rebuild the USA; The Trump Presidency and Beyond. This 450 page deep-dive, much of it sector-by-sector into the US economy, became available on Amazon on election day, November 5th.⁹ The subject has also been addressed separately, drawing on America’s successful use of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930's and 1940's.¹⁰

We will need to double and then triple the U.S. electrical grid by 2050 to meet energy, industry and population growth requirements. That means adding over 2,000 gigawatts of power -- which is equivalent to adding 2,000 large, 1.1+ gigawatt nuclear power plants. In reaching this goal, the development of fusion energy will come to play a major role. Citizens can be mobilized, along with our physical resources to meet these requirements, as this is as much an opportunity as a challenge! If we are sane, as a driver to the re-industrialization of our United States, this outlay will ultimately cost us all less than nothing.

1. https://www.tn.gov/governor/news/2024/11/21/tennessee-nuclear-energy-advisory-council-delivers-final-report.html

2. https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/TANRWG_Advanced_Nuclear_Report_v11.17.24c_.pdf

3. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/holtecs-small-modular-reactor-can-go-almost-anywhere-even-michigan

4. https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/commission/workgroups/nuclear-feasibility-study

5. https://www.moodyonthemarket.com/legislation-to-encourage-investment-in-nuclear-energy-in-michigan-could-advance-next-week/ See also: https://www.house.mi.gov/Document/?Path=2023_2024_session/committee/house/standing/energy,_communications,_and_technology/meetings/2024-12-04-1/documents/testimony/HB5606ToddAllen.pdf.

6. https://www.ncsl.org/resources/details/news-reactor-december-2024

7. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/2024/10/25/nextera-still-exploring-potential-iowa-nuclear-plant-restart/75832298007/

8. See: https://brianlantz.substack.com/p/our-future-must-determine-our-present

9. https://www.amazon.com/Rebuild-USA-Trump-Presidency-Beyond/dp/B0DM63BP5S

10. https://archive.prometheanpac.com/what_a_third_national_bank_can_do