By Thomas Catenacci
Excerpt:
The Trump Department of Energy is preparing to finance up to 10 nuclear power plants in an effort to usher in a nuclear energy “renaissance,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon.
The agency will use its rebranded Office of Energy Dominance Financing to provide low-interest loans for the reactors, Wright said. The financing is designed to provide a “nudge” to an industry that has struggled for decades to get new projects up and running.
Wright’s comments came as he toured the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a government facility that focuses on cutting-edge nuclear energy research, on Monday.
“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,” Wright told the 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.”
“We are going to use our loan program office at the Department of Energy for credit-worthy hyperscalers that are putting equity capital in front of us,” he continued. “We’re going to back that up with low-interest loans. We’ll supply it to maybe the first 10 reactors that get built. That’ll incentivize people to move fast.”
The Energy Department’s intent to finance new nuclear projects is an extraordinary signal that the Trump administration is serious about deploying a new wave of nuclear reactors. President Donald Trump has identified nuclear as a strategic sector for shoring up both energy and national security. In May, he set a lofty goal of quadrupling the nation’s nuclear capacity over the next decade.
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The partnership between the government and private developers was on full display during the tour Monday: The bus transporting the group drove by the site where Silicon Valley startup Oklo, with the enthusiastic support of Trump officials, recently broke ground on its first advanced nuclear reactor. It’s an active construction site and a sign that the administration’s nuclear ambitions may not be far off.
