Nuclear Power

A clean grid needs power that runs around the clock, and nuclear is the proven source that does. But the United States has forgotten how to build it. Its two newest reactors, at Vogtle in Georgia, cost $35 billion and finished seven years late, while China has 36 reactors under construction. The number of certified American nuclear suppliers has fallen from roughly 500 to about 100 since the 1980s, the country still leans on Russia to enrich its reactor fuel, and 95,000 tons of spent fuel sit at more than 70 sites with nowhere to go. The Mission for Nuclear Power will prove that America can build reactors again, quickly, safely, and at a cost that falls with every unit.

This mission will:

• Build the first wave of reactors on military bases, with the Department of Defense building and operating them, and switch on at least one full-size reactor within the president's first term.
• Pick one proven design for full-size reactors, starting with the Westinghouse AP1000, and one for small modular reactors, and build each again and again in batches, the way France and South Korea drove their costs down. Several microreactor designs will compete on bases first, and the fleet will standardize on the ones that prove themselves.
• Hold every builder to a fixed price, with the reactor company putting up its own money so cost overruns come out of its own pocket.
• Keep the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the safety regulator for every reactor that sells power to the grid, with a faster review for certified designs on federal land.
• Rebuild the American nuclear industry, with new enrichment plants for standard fuel and the higher-enriched fuel small reactors need, a national heavy-forging plant for the largest reactor parts, and a revived base of component suppliers.
• Train hundreds of thousands of workers through an expanded Navy reactor-operator pipeline, a pipeline that moves welders, pipefitters, and electricians from declining fossil fuel industries into nuclear careers, and a new National Nuclear Academy.
• Get more power out of the 94 reactors already running through equipment upgrades and better fuel, the fastest clean power available.
• Solve the waste problem with an independent National Nuclear Waste Corporation that can finally spend the $51 billion Nuclear Waste Fund ratepayers have already paid in, and a consolidated storage site hosted by a community that volunteers and is well rewarded for it.

Every country that expanded nuclear power quickly did the same thing. It picked a design, standardized it, and built it over and over. The United States did the opposite, funding many designs, building one of each, and letting every utility customize, so costs never came down. Building on military bases answers the hardest questions about the first reactors. The land is federal, the security is already in place, and the military has run reactors safely for more than 70 years. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation will finance the fleet and the industrial base behind it.

The first reactors will be the most expensive, and the Department of Defense will absorb that early premium. As costs fall with each unit, utilities financed by the RFC will build their own on the same design, with the same trained workforce and supply chain, and proven small reactors will reach data centers, factories, and remote towns. The result is clean power that runs day and night, hundreds of thousands of good jobs, and a nuclear industry able to keep building for decades.