President Donald Trump is eyeing the nation’s nuclear capacity and not exclusively from a defense perspective.
Trump late last week signed a series of executive orders meant to streamline the construction of nuclear power plants as demand for energy skyrockets amid the artificial intelligence boom.
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“It's a brilliant industry,” the president said before signing the orders Friday, NBC News reported. “You have to do it right."
The suite of orders would speed up the review process for new nuclear projects, including forcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to make decisions on new licenses within 18 months. The orders would also expand uranium mining and enrichment, promote nuclear energy research and allow the U.S. Department of Energy to build reactors on federal land.
Artificial intelligence and the data centers that power them were front of mind for officials. Demand for energy in the U.S. is expected to grow 25% by 2030, according to a report by consulting firm ICF International released last week.
“We're including artificial intelligence in everything we do. If we don't, we're not fast enough. We're not keeping up with adversaries,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters before the orders were signed. “You need the energy to fuel it. Nuclear is a huge part of that.”
This work is already well underway in the private sector.
Google, Meta and Amazon were among the 14 companies that signed the World Nuclear Association’s Large Energy Users Pledge in March, which aims to at least triple the globe’s nuclear capacity by 2050.
Nuclear developer Elementl Power announced that it is developing three new reactor sites in partnership with Google earlier this month.
The flurry of activity follows Constellation Energy Corp., the largest nuclear reactor operator in the nation, announcing plans to restart part of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island facility last September, part of a 20-year deal to provide power to Microsoft.
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