Short Wave - Are Trump and AI driving a nuclear power boom?

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

A race started by President Trump is leading to the rapid construction of new, experimental nuclear reactors. If they work, they could power data centers for artificial intelligence. But critics worry that the breakneck pace is compromising safety and public trust. NPR correspondent Geoff Brumfiel talks about the potential risks and benefits, and whether this may lead to a new nuclear age.Read more of Geoff’s coverage of the U.S.’s new nuclear reactors here.If you like this episode, check out our episode about what happens inside a top-secret U.S. nuclear facility?Interested in more science and tech news? Email us your question at [e-mail] public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. It includes perks like bonus episodes, early access, archive access, curated playlists and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, short wavers, Regina Barber here. And you may not have realized it, but this is the U.S.'s summer of nuclear. The reactor is critical. First advanced reactor to ever make power by startup. We turned on a brand new advanced reactor. We made neutrons and we sustained efficient chain reaction. So as part of tech camp, we're looking at the U.

at the technological frontier for innovations that could change everything. And over the past few months, small nuclear reactors have been starting up at sites around the country. Right, Jeff? Yeah, that's right. And more are expected to come online soon, in part because of everybody's favorite topic, artificial intelligence. Yep. It's thanks to a program that President Trump launched a little over a year ago. I've signed an order directing and approval of many new nuclear reactors.

But the speed of which these new reactors are getting built has some people really worried. So today on the show, NPR correspondent, Jeff Brumfield, is tracking Trump's nuclear race. And we're going to talk about it. What are the risks? What could be the benefits? And is it actually going to lead to a new nuclear age? You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. So, Jeff, I guess the first thing to talk about is why the U.S. needs more nuclear power.

Like, what's the thinking here? You know, it comes back to what we talk about a lot these days, which is artificial intelligence. Because of AI, U.S. energy demand is going to skyrocket by about 130 percent between now and 2030, which it's just four years. I mean, not very long. It's huge. And, you know, the big tech firms, they have these climate commitments. And so they need more juice, but they don't want to be burning oil or gas. And so there's all sorts of talk around nuclear, restarting old nuclear.

plants and building new nuclear plants, and that's where this whole nuclear race comes in. But what makes this current nuclear revival different? So what's happening this time around is people are thinking smaller, interestingly enough. They're thinking of building these small experimental nuclear reactors. Many designs are either completely new or haven't been tried in decades. And these are reactors that can be built with venture capital. They have some technical advantages that we haven't seen before. They can operate at higher temperatures, less likely to melt down.

That's a big one. Yeah, yeah, that's big in the nuclear industry. And so the sort of flow of this VC money combined with the new tech is getting everyone very excited. And, of course, the goal is to maybe build lots of these little reactors at data centers, so you don't need to take power off the grid. But I should say this technology is still largely unproven. You know, I think that they're really having. been reactors of this type before.

So what was the catalyst that, like, started this new nuclear, like, small reactor race? It happened in May of last year. President Trump held an Oval Office event with some top nuclear executives. And he signed a series of orders that were designed to sort of help the nuclear industry in various ways, including one about reactor testing at the Department of Energy. It called for the creation of a pilot program that would approve at least three new reactor designs. And I'm going to read from the executive order here, quote, with the goal of achieving criticality in each of the three reactors by July 4th of 2026. Okay, that just happened,

but I don't know what criticality means in this instance, right? Right, right. So in the nuclear world, going critical roughly means just turning your reactor on. Basically, it means you're, yes, It means not only just working, but you're producing enough nuclear fissions within your fuel. You're splitting enough atoms that the fuel kind of gets this self-sustaining chain reaction going, that if you wanted to, you could turn up the power and generate electricity, but you're just sort of getting past that critical point where a nuclear burn begins. Okay, criticality, but that date that you gave me, that's like now. Right, right. And remember, Trump said this like a little over a year ago.

Okay. So, you know, we're talking about taking at least, again, at least three nuclear reactors from paper to actual nuclear fuel in reactors burning within roughly 12 months. And I'm not sure the U.S. has ever been able to do this before. Did they do it? They did it. They did. Wow. In fact, four reactors came online.

Wow. They even went past their estimate. Yes. Fascinating. They beat it by one. One of them went online at like 1230 in the morning on July 4th, just squeaked in under the deadline. You know, Department of Energy officials, they compared this to like a Manhattan Project type event, you know? But I got to say that kind of hints at some of the other sides of this that people are really worried about. Because if you know about the Manhattan Project, well, or even if you don't,

Turns out they did a lot of environmental damage when they started making nuclear weapons back in the day very, very quickly without a lot of oversight. And so there are people who are worried about, you know, the possibility that this new program is setting the nuclear industry up to be less safe in the future. Oh, wow. Okay. So I don't know a ton about, like, creating nuclear power for commercial use, but I do know that these reactors, And things require a lot of time to build. You got to pour the concrete. You got, like, a lot of specialized equipment installed.

Like, how on earth did companies do this in a year? So, first, these are really small test reactors. They're not, you know, the giant ones that you see, you know, in The Simpsons. Yes, exactly. And they're not hooked up to the grid or anything like that. They're proof of concept reactors. Okay. But even then, these reactors had to go through engineering and safety reviews.

And that's where this Department of Energy program I spoke about comes in. You see, since the 70s, nuclear reactors have been overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They're kind of the ultimate safety bureaucrats. And they've had this really, really good track record with one little blip, three-mile island. Other than that, things have been great, right? Yes. We haven't had a lot of accidents. We haven't had a lot of incidents.

They've kept the industry relatively safe. but everything's been very, very slow. So this new pilot program was set up in part to bypass the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It turns out the Department of Energy is allowed to regulate certain kinds of experimental reactors. So first of all, they kind of got around the NRC that way. But that's not all the Energy Department did. In January, myself and Shortwave's very own Arun Nair reported that they actually rewrote their own internal rules for nuclear safety and security to help speed along the approval of these

reactors. Yeah, you two like broke that story, right? That's right. Yeah. So tell me more about what the Department of Energy did to speed everything along. Right. So I've actually pulled up my story here and I'll just give you a few examples. So in the old rules, they said things like groundwater must be protected from radiological contamination. And in the New rules, they say things like consideration must be given to avoiding or minimizing potential radiological contamination from groundwater from nuclear energy authorized facilities and radiological activities. So changes to environmental rules was a big one.

Another huge one was security. They consolidated over 500 pages of security rules into a single 23-page document. So those are but two examples of over seven. 750 pages of rules that were cut from these internal nuclear orders that the Department of Energy used to regulate its own people. Wow. Okay. So I can imagine after you reported this that some people were concerned about safety. Oh, yeah.

So first and foremost was Ed Lyman. He's from the Union of Concerned Scientists. And, you know, he was worried about safety. He is worried about environmental protections. security was also a big one for him. Of course, if you've done all the rules, you can do things quickly. But we learned over, you know, again, the past 80 years that if you want to do things right, you have to go by the book. And, you know, other people I spoke to were very concerned about the lack of public engagement

because the Department of Energy was sending these new orders in draft form to the companies they were supposed to be overseeing. But at no point were they even telling the public they were doing this. So I spoke to Katie Huff, who used to run the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy. She's now at the University of Illinois. In the best world, the public should expect as much openness from the government as is possible, not just as is convenient or as is, you know, appropriate for your timelines. And if it's possible to share with the companies at this point, then there is a really important question about why it's not public. So what do the government and those companies say about all this?

Right. So the Department of Energy gave me a very lengthy point-by-point response to my reporting, which I actually appreciated. Okay. And the bottom line, they said, is that safety is their number one priority and that these changes help unstick this long-stuck nuclear industry. Quote, the reduction of unnecessary regulations will increase innovation in the industry without jeopardizing safety.

When I've spoken to industry folks, I've heard something similar. So, for example, Isaiah Taylor, CEO of a company called Valor Atomics, they actually just got their reactor up and running in Utah in mid-June, and we're powering a little AI microchip that they run a website off of. It's kind of cute. Isaiah told me he thinks building these test reactors

are actually going to make things more safe. Okay. This is really actually where safety comes from. It comes from testing and being robust in your hardware and getting experience. So really, like, getting the data before they build the commercial reactors, he says they can take that to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who will eventually oversee this, and they can build a much safer reactor with some actual data. And I, you know, it's an interesting argument. Okay. So we've met this deadline.

Now what happens? Well, there's still several companies to go. We should see more reactors going critical this fall, which will be interesting. As I just mentioned, you know, the next thing they all have to do is take the data from these test reactors and go through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the much more independent safety body that oversees commercial nuclear power plants. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is actually rewriting its rules too. And so it'll be interesting to see how that all plays out. I'll be watching that very closely. And then, assuming they get approval, there's the potential that these reactors are going to start appearing all over the country. Wherever there's a data center or a bunch of data centers, you might see a little cluster of these small modular reactors. But I do want to say one more thing, Gina. Okay.

Which is, I don't know if they have proven yet that these reactors are actually economically viable. And so I think there's been this assumption that regulation is what's holding the industry back, but nuclear power is very expensive, even when you're doing it on a smaller scale. You still need operators, nuclear engineers, a lot of specialized equipment. And so I think it remains to be seen whether this is going to be, say, as economically viable as renewables and batteries or natural gas or other things that are powering data centers today. Jeff, thank you so much for sharing your reporting on these small nuclear reactors. I'm going to look forward to more information in the fall. Yeah, it's definitely a very exciting time. Short waivers, I hope you liked that episode.

And if you did, make sure you follow us on the NPR app or wherever you're listening to our podcast. This way you won't miss a new episode. Like next week's Tech Camp episode about a universal vaccine, one vaccine to rule them all. This episode was produced by Burley McCoy and edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez. It was fact-checked by Jeff Brumfield and Tyler Jones. The audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.