Revive Nuclear Energy in America Reviving nuclear power in the U.S. is key to energy independence, lower costs, and cutting emissions—but bureaucracy, myths, and politics keep America lagging behind global leaders. By Edward Ring
https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/19/revive-nuclear-energy-in-america/
he United States used to be the undisputed leader in nuclear power and still has more operating reactors than any other nation, with 94 currently in service. But in the last 35 years, only one new nuclear power plant has been built in the U.S.—Plant Vogtle in Georgia, which only recently began commercial operations.
Meanwhile, 25 nuclear reactors are under construction in China, seven in India, four each in Turkey, Egypt, and Russia, and two each in South Korea, Bangladesh, Japan, the UK, and Ukraine. The nations of Argentina, Brazil, France, Iran, and Slovakia are all building one plant at present.
When it comes to nuclear energy, the world is leaving the USA behind, and despite a recent return to sanity with the incoming Trump administration, conventional wisdom in the US is that nuclear power is too expensive and too dangerous. Both are incorrect.
In California, where insanity retains a firm grip on energy policy, one might think nuclear power would nonetheless be getting serious consideration. After all, nuclear energy doesn’t generate greenhouse gases, which is the official explanation for every imaginable mishap in the Golden State, from wildfires to alleged gender inequality. Is California serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions? If so, then maybe if the myths of high costs and excessive risk could be debunked, California could embrace nuclear energy. It isn’t as if there isn’t precedent.
California was once home to six nuclear power plants, generating a total of 5.8 gigawatts. Three of them, Humboldt Bay, Vallecitos, and Santa Susana, were small-scale, generating barely 100 megawatts in total. But San Onofre, with three reactors that could have been retrofitted, took its 2.6 gigawatts offline in 2012. The other big plant was Rancho Seco in the Sacramento Valley, generating 913 megawatts until it was taken offline in 1989. Now, instead of building more nuclear power plants, California’s last operating reactors at Diablo Canyon are scheduled for shutdown. In the face of hyperbolic opposition, PG&E has applied to renew its license for another 20 years. This final surviving nuclear power plant generates 2 gigawatts of baseload electricity. California’s grid has the capacity to absorb at least ten times this much continuous, nonstop power.
Total electricity demand in California never drops below around 20 gigawatts, even during the middle of the night when total electricity consumption is at its minimum. So constant nuclear power generation at a minimum could be used up to 20 gigawatts. And even if California overbuilds its baseload electricity generating capacity, the excess production can be used to power desalination, generate hydrogen, or export to other states.
Proponents of renewables claim nuclear power is inherently more costly than renewables. This is inaccurate. In an article published by Ars Technica in 2020, science editor John Timmer explains the role that litigation and bureaucratic obstacles play in elevating the cost of nuclear power, estimating these costs account for one-third of the overruns. The other source of increased costs? “The largest increases were indirect costs: engineering, purchasing, planning, scheduling, supervision, and other factors not directly associated with the process of building the plant,” and “about a quarter of the unproductive labor time came because the workers were waiting for either tools or materials to become available. In a lot of other cases, construction procedures were changed in the middle of the build, leading to confusion and delays. All told, problems that reduced the construction efficiency contributed nearly 70 percent to the increased costs.” And finally, “R&D-related expenses, which included both regulatory changes and things like the identification of better materials or designs, accounted for the other third of the increase.”
Another fallacy underlying the misconception that nuclear energy is more expensive than emerging renewable technologies is based on how energy costs are calculated. A peer-reviewed paper from Robert Idel at Rice University published in 2022 discusses the difference between the traditional levelized cost of electricity analysis and the more recently introduced, and more accurate levelized full system cost of electricity. The study identified the lowest full system cost for renewables in the U.S., the blend of wind and solar on the Texas grid. By mixing input from both of these intermittent sources of electricity, the required storage capacity is minimized since solar and wind produce power at different times of day. Even in this case, when accounting for the cost of storage and new transmission lines, nuclear power was found to be half as expensive as these renewables. No accurate evaluation of energy costs can fail to take into account full system costs, which are inherently greater when, for example, you must install a high-voltage transmission line to connect a ten-megawatt wind turbine, floating in 4,000 feet of ocean, 20 miles offshore, to land-based battery farms and the grid.
Robert Zubrin, a nuclear engineer and author of the book “The Case for Nukes,” wrote a three-part series on clean energy for Quillette with a focus on the nuclear option. The third installment provides an overview and makes specific recommendations in the areas of regulatory reform, the licensing process, waste disposal, and progress and priorities in research and development. In terms of advancing the technology, he writes, “Breeder reactors could multiply our nuclear fuel resources a hundredfold. Small modular reactors could open up new markets unsuited to large pressurized water reactors and potentially make reactors much cheaper by enabling mass production in factories. High-temperature gas-cooled reactors and molten salt thorium reactors both hold great promise. New types of fission reactors for space applications are needed. The promise of thermonuclear fusion needs to be explored and developed.”
Can nuclear power ever be completely safe? This article from 2019 offers a useful summary of how France has managed nuclear power, which provides over 70 percent of that nation’s electricity. In particular, it is worth noting the success the French have had in recycling spent fuel, which enables a more efficient and secure supply of fuel and reduces radioactive waste. Every form of power generation carries with it an assortment of safety risks and environmental impacts. To belabor the question—because it is appallingly obvious a fraud of historic proportions is sleepwalking to fruition—why are environmentalists obsessed with eliminating oil, gas, and nuclear power, while ignoring the aquatic and avian slaughter and squandered billions that are coming to California with offshore wind?
Since 1976, California has had a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear energy generators until there exists in the United States the capacity to reprocess spent fuel rods into new nuclear fuel as well as long-term storage. But the conditions of the 1976 Warren Alquist moratorium are now satisfied. There are now fuel reprocessing technologies ready to be deployed in Ohio and elsewhere. The spent fuel is valuable and can be reprocessed into HALEU fuel quickly for advanced reactors across the U.S. This could allow for the immediate planning of new nuclear energy resources in California.
California once had electricity transmission and distribution plans that called for the state to be mostly powered by nuclear reactors. There were over a dozen sites identified, including Corral Canyon (Malibu), Bodega Head (Sonoma County), San Joaquin (Kern County), Stanislaus (Stanislaus County), Davenport Beach (Santa Cruz County), Sundesert (Riverside County), Vidal (San Bernardino County), Point Arena (Mendocino County), as well as legacy sites like Humboldt Bay (Humboldt County), Rancho Seco (Sacramento County) and San Onofre (San Diego County).
Massive development of nuclear energy would offer California a chance to act on two of its currently most cherished political objectives—electrifying its economy and dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We probably shouldn’t hold our breath.
But for the rest of the United States, bringing back nuclear energy would go a long way toward ensuring abundant and affordable electricity for everyone.
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