Insiders speak about fuel vulnerabilities, proliferation risks, thorium, and the possible costs and benefits of DOGE.
America’s nuclear energy industry has something special going for it.
“Nuclear energy is one of the few issues that receives bipartisan support across the country,” Maria Korsnick, the president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told The Epoch Times in a statement.
Democrat-aligned billionaires like Bill Gates have invested heavily in advanced nuclear, as have Republican-aligned billionaires like John Catsimatidis. Meanwhile, sustained, large-scale opposition to nuclear power from the left has mostly dissipated, at least in the United States. Environmentalists increasingly see it as an attractive source of carbon-free baseload power.
Physicist James Walker, CEO of the microreactor firm Nano Nuclear Energy Inc., pointed out that the ADVANCE Act of 2024, key legislation for the deployment of new reactor technologies, was backed by Republicans and Democrats alike. As part of the Fire Grants and Safety Act, it gained overwhelming support from both parties in the House of Representatives, where it passed 393 to 13, and in the Senate, where it passed 88 to 2.
A Nov. 12 policy blueprint from the Biden White House outlines a plan to triple the country’s nuclear energy capacity over the next quarter century.
It certainly appears that the outgoing administration and Democrat-led Senate are pro-nuclear. Yet, with Donald Trump’s reelection, “there also might be additional benefit,” Walker told The Epoch Times.
He hopes the new administration will spur domestic production of a fuel used by advanced nuclear reactors. Russia and China dominate the supply chain for that fuel, which is called high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
Earlier this year, the U.S. banned the importation of Russian uranium, with any waivers set to expire by 2028. In October, the Department of Energy awarded six companies contracts for HALEU production.
“I can’t see, even under the new administration, that relationship being remedied enough that we can go back to sourcing Russian weapons-grade material,” Walker said.
At a Nov. 21 Heritage Foundation roundtable on nuclear energy, Constellation Energy’s David Brown said that American firms involved in producing low-enriched uranium, also supplied by Russia and other countries, have generally set the end of this decade as their launch date, but progress has been slow.
