Is the U.S. Ready for a Nuclear Energy Boom?

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Startups are aiming for an audacious reboot of America’s nuclear energy program. With massive energy demand for data centers and recent executive orders from President Trump that aim to quadruple nuclear-power generation in the next 25 years, the industry is having a moment. What will it take to meet these goals, and is it even possible? X-energy CEO Clay Sell and WSJ reporter Jennifer Hiller discuss how small modular nuclear reactors could lower the cost of building nuclear while meeting America’s energy needs and what the electric grid of the future could look like. Alex Ossola hosts. Further Reading: The Audacious Reboot of America’s Nuclear Energy Program Trump Wants to Expand Nuclear Power. It Won’t Be Easy New York to Build One of First U.S. Nuclear-Power Plants in Generation A Nuclear Power Plant in Your Backyard? Future Reactors Are Going Small Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:17.5	Hey, What's News listeners. It's Sunday, July 27th. I'm Alex Oslov for the Wall Street Journal.
0:23.6	This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world.
0:33.9	On today's show, startups are aiming for an audacious reboot of America's nuclear
0:38.5	energy program. The sector is receiving unprecedented private support and enthusiasm from the Trump
0:43.9	administration. Could the U.S. be seeing the dawn of a new nuclear age? We'll get into what
0:49.1	this would look like and what it would take to get there. U.S. electricity consumption reached an all-time high last year,
0:57.0	according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
1:00.3	And as AI continues to take off, that demand is only expected to grow.
1:05.5	Recent executive orders from President Trump
1:07.7	aimed to quadruple nuclear power generation in the next 25 years.
1:12.2	It's a challenging prospect. For many Americans, memories of meltdowns like Three Mile Island
1:17.7	in 1979 and Fukushima in 2011 still linger. Due to factors like competition from cheaper energy
1:24.7	sources, the number of new nuclear plants in the U.S. has declined since the 1990s.
1:30.4	And traditional nuclear plants can cost tens of billions of dollars to build.
1:35.4	Enter small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs.
1:39.3	Though designs vary, these small reactors can be built in factories at lower costs than a whole new plant
1:44.9	and shipped to where they're needed. But questions remain, like what it will take to make them
1:50.1	cost effective and whether they will be enough to meet America's energy needs. To talk about this,
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