Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (AP) – With the promise of a more recent and cheaper nuclear power on the horizon, the American states argue to position themselves to build and provide the next generation of the industry while political decision -makers are planning to widen grants and pave regulatory obstacles.
The advanced conceptions of reactors of competing companies fulfill the regulatory pipeline of the federal government while the industry presents them as a reliable and friendly way to meet Electricity requests from technology giants Desperate to feed their fast -growing artificial intelligence platforms.
The reactors could be operational in 2030, giving states a short track to deploy the red carpet, and they are confronted with persistent public skepticism on the safety and increasing competition of renewable energies such as wind and solar. However, reactors have high-level federal support, and public services in the United States are working to integrate the energy source into their portfolios.
Last year, 25 states adopted legislation to support advanced nuclear energy and this year, legislators introduced more than 200 invoices favorable to nuclear energy, said Marc Nichol of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a professional association whose members include owners of power plants, universities and unions.
“We have seen states acting at ever increasing levels for a few years now,” said Nichol in an interview.
Smaller and more flexible nuclear reactors
The smaller reactors are, in theory, faster to build and easier to site than conventional reactors. They could be built in the factory from standard parts and are presented as flexible enough to immerse themselves for a single customer, as a data center or an industrial complex.
Advanced reactors, called small modular reactors and microreactors, produce a fraction of the energy produced by conventional nuclear reactors built worldwide for the past 50 years. When conventional reactors produce 800 to 1,000 megawatts, or enough to supply approximately half a million houses, modular reactors produce 300 megawatts or less, and micro-rector produces more than 20 megawatts.
Amazon and Google technology giants are Invest in nuclear reactors To obtain the power they need because states compete with large technologies and others, in a Race for electricity.
States adopt nuclear energy
For some state officials, nuclear power is a source of carbon -free electricity that helps them achieve the leaflet reduction goals. Others see it as a source of energy always on replacing a wave of acceleration of coal retirement power plants.
The governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, proposed last month more than $ 90 million to help subsidize a project of Tennessee Valley Authority to install several small reactors, stimulate research and attract nuclear technology.
Long a supporter of the VAT nuclear project, Lee also launched the Tennessee nuclear energy fund in 2023, designed to attract a supply chain, including a billion dollars Uranium enrichment plant presented as the largest industrial investment in the state.
In UTAH, where Governor Spencer Cox announced that “the Gigawatt operation” to double state electricity production in a decade, the Republican wants to spend 20 million dollars to prepare nuclear sites. The president of the State Senate, J. Stuart Adams, told colleagues when he opened the chamber session in 2025 that UTAH was to be the “nuclear center of the nation”.
Texas governor Greg Abbott said his condition was “ready to be n ° 1 in advanced nuclear energy” while Texas legislators are considering billions of nuclear energy incentives.
Michigan legislators are considering millions of dollars of incentives to develop and use reactors, as well as to form a workforce in the nuclear industry.
A state, Indiana legislators have adopted legislation this month to allow public services to seek more quickly the cost of building a modular reactor, canceling a several decades old prohibition designed to protect taxpayers against swollen, ineffective or worse, abandoned, abandoned.
In Arizona, legislators are considering a bill supported by public services to soften environmental regulations if a public service builds a reactor on the site of a large industrial power user or a power station to remove coal.
Great expectations, an uncertain future
However, the devices are faced with an uncertain future.
No modular reactor works in the United States and a project to build the first, this one in Idaho, was Finished in 2023Despite federal aid.
Last year, the American Ministry of Energy, under the president of the time, Joe Biden, estimated that the United States will need 200 additional gigawatts of new nuclear capacity to keep the pace of future electricity requests and reach net zero-gases with warmer warming in 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
The United States currently has just under 100 nuclear operating gigawatts. More than 30 advanced nuclear projects are being studied or planned to be operational in the early 2030s, said Nichol du Nei, but they would only provide a fraction of the 200 gigawatt objective.
The work to produce a modular reactor has drawn billions of dollars in federal subsidies, guarantees of loan and more recently tax credits signed by Biden.
These were essential to the nuclear industry, which expects them to survive under the president Donald Trumpwhose administration he sees as a supporter.
Make challenges and competition from renewable energies
The United States remains without a long-term solution to store radioactive waste, security regulators are under pressure from the congress to approve conceptions and there are serious questions about the affirmations of the industry that small reactors are effective, safe and reliable, said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear security to the union of the scientists concerned.
In addition, Lyman said: “The probability that these will be deployable and instantly 100% reliable from the exit is simply not consistent with the history of nuclear energy development. And it is therefore a much more risky bet. ”
Nuclear also has the competition for renewable energies.
Brendan Kochunas, assistant nuclear engineering professor at the University of Michigan, said that advanced reactors could have a short window to succeed, given the regulatory control they undergo and the progress of energy storage technologies to make wind and solar energy more reliable.
These storage technologies could develop more quickly, reduce the costs of renewable energies and, ultimately, have an economic meaning that nuclear, said Kochunas.
The construction chain for construction reactors is another question.
The United States has no high-quality concrete and steel design skills to make a nuclear power plant, Kochunas said.
This introduces the prospect of higher costs and longer deadlines, he said. Although foreign suppliers can help, there is also the fuel to consider.
Kathryn Huff, a former senior official of the energy department, who is now an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said that the capacity of enrichment in uranium in the United States and its allies must develop in order to support the production of reactors.
The primary reactors of their kind must be operational near their target dates, Huff said: “For anyone who has faith that a second or third or fourth is built.”
___
Follow Marc Levy on x to: https://x.com/timelywriter.
