By Issues & Insights Editorial Board | December 12, 2025
After years of being scorned, derided and shrunk, the nuclear power industry is getting a boost from the Trump administration. Faced with rapidly growing demand for energy to supply a growing U.S. economy and booming AI sector, President Donald Trump’s Energy Department says it will help finance up to 10 new nuclear power plants – a huge reversal of decades of anti-nuclear sentiment and excessive regulation by the U.S. government.
You might be tempted to think: Oh, boy, another big government boondoggle. Nope. This is mainly reviving an industry that has languished largely due to excessive regulations and active political campaigns to make nuclear power a pariah among all possible energy sources.
This isn’t a massive subsidy. It’s a leg up, restarting an industry after decades of overt political hostility from Hollywood, journalists, activist groups, and the Democratic Party.
The private sector will do the work and generate the bulk of the financing.
“We want things built by and risk capital coming from the private marketplace, and most everything we’re doing is dominantly going to be funded by private capital,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the Washington Free Beacon. “But the government smothered the nuclear industry for 40-plus years. We’ve got to get it back up on its feet again.”
Wright calls it a nuclear “renaissance.” It’s one of the rare times use of that word is not hyperbole. The change of course follows Trump’s goal announced in May to quadruple U.S. nuclear energy output over the next decade, arriving at a crucial time for America’s energy future.
Even leftists now grudgingly acknowledge that switching to so-called renewable energy sources — such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal energy, and biomass — is not feasible for meeting growing U.S. and world needs. It’s painfully obvious, after decades of anti-nuclear propaganda and media scare-mongering, that only one energy source meets all the “green” criteria for efficiency, safety and cleanliness: nuclear.
Unfortunately, for three decades the U.S. has systematically allowed its atomic power infrastructure to languish and wither, leaving us with inefficient and not really clean renewable sources, instead of cleaner and cheaper, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear.
The total number of operating nuclear reactors peaked at about 112 in the early 1990s, falling to a little more than 90 today, a decline of 20%. And yet, nuclear plants still provide nearly 20% of all U.S. electricity on an annual basis, thanks to the industry’s plant upgrades, innovative new technologies and other efficiencies.
But we’re at a crossroads, and Trump fully understands this. Right now some 22 operating nuclear reactors at 18 separate sites are in the process of being deactivated. Their output must be replaced, or Americans will face even higher rates for electricity to heat, cool and light their homes.
Without replacing already lost capacity and future capacity, the U.S. will find satisfying its growing hunger for low-cost, reliable energy impossible. This means a reduced standard of living for all.
If you think that’s an exaggeration, it isn’t. In Europe, countries (we’re looking at you, Germany) have been decommissioning nuclear plants in favor of so-called green alternatives. The result is the massive deindustrialization of the European Union. According to World Bank data, per capita GDP in the European Union as a percentage of U.S. GDP fell from 77% in 2008 to just 50% in 2023.
As a result of poor energy choices along with a multitude of other productivity-killing policies, Europe is becoming an also-ran in the world economy. As the late, great journalist Charles Krauthammer once said, “Decline is a choice.”
Here in the U.S., blue states are emulating Europe, pushing up energy costs with needless regulations and restrictions, while red states pursue energy-friendly policies. The result, according to a recent study by the Institute for Energy Research: “The data is clear: bluer states tend to have much higher electricity prices than red states.”
This is why Trump’s nuclear “renaissance” is so important. It reverses our nuclear energy decline. Along with drilling for oil, and pursuing new technologies such as nuclear fusion and improved battery storage, nuclear power will help propel America into the future – a future of higher standards of living and opportunities for all, rather than the grim, dystopic, energy-poor America the left sees.
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists of the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day – without fear or favor.
Original article link
