• The United States is experiencing renewed bipartisan support for nuclear energy, with recent legislation and investments aimed at expanding its role in the global market.
• A global nuclear energy renaissance driven by increased energy demands and climate change goals presents an opportunity for the US to challenge Russia’s significant influence in the sector.
• The US government and private sector, including tech giants, are actively working to develop and deploy advanced nuclear technologies to ensure energy security and reduce reliance on Russian nuclear energy sources.

In a time of extreme contention and relentless flux in United States politics, at least one thing appears to be a consistent bipartisan priority: defending the nation’s position as the world’s premier nuclear energy producer and expanding the nation’s presence in the global nuclear energy marketplace.

Nuclear energy is currently undergoing an international renaissance as energy demand continues to balloon and decarbonization goalposts draw nearer. As developing countries continue to electrify and expand their economies in the climate change era, baseload clean energy is an increasingly enticing option. And now energy demand in developed economies, too, is skyrocketing thanks to runaway energy demand from data centers, propelled in large part by the rapid expansion of energy-intensive Artificial Intelligence.

“The market, technology and policy foundations are in place for a new era of growth in nuclear energy over the coming decades,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) wrote in a report published in January. The IEA says that the world will produce more nuclear energy in 2025 than ever before. In addition, Birol stated that “more than 70 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity is under construction globally, one of the highest levels in the last 30 years, and more than 40 countries around the world have plans to expand nuclear’s role in their energy systems.”

While the United States is still the largest nuclear energy producer in the world, accounting for nearly a third of global capacity, the sector has been underfunded to the point of neglect in recent decades, as nuclear fell out of favor. Now, the U.S. aging nuclear fleet is in decline, with no new reactors currently under construction.

But public and private support for nuclear energy are at their highest point in a decade, and politicians on both sides of the aisle are clearly eager to retain the United States’ dominance in the sector. During Trump’s first administration, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act became law in 2019, facilitating a more advanced reactor licensing process. At the end of 2023, the United States was one of more than 20 countries that cooperated to launch the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy at the COP28 global climate conference. Then, in June of 2024, Congress passed the ADVANCE Act in a bipartisan landslide to increase the number of nuclear reactors coming online. And a few months later, Late last year, tech giants Google, Amazon, and Microsoft publicly pledged to invest in small reactors, an emerging technology that could provide cheaper, safer, and more reliable nuclear energy expansion.

And so far, the new Trump administration remains committed to the cause under its current term. Just last month, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said that the Trump administration intends to “lead the commercialization of affordable and abundant nuclear energy” in the interest of energy security.

And while the Trump administration is no enemy of Vladmir Putin, expanding U.S. influence in global nuclear energy markets would also serve to counteract Russian geopolitical leverage. The Atlantic Council recently urged that “In partnership with allies, the United States should advance financial and commercial solutions to help countries dependent on Russian nuclear energy diversify their domestic power programs,” before going on to emphasize that “the United States is well positioned to do so.”

The global nuclear energy renaissance has been a major boon to the Russian economy, as the nation’s state-operated nuclear energy firm Rosatom is a giant in international nuclear energy supply chains. Nearly one in five nuclear power plants worldwide are either in Russia or are Russian-built, and any other nation building a nuclear power plant likely has to go through Rosatom for at least some part of the process. Rosatom is a key player in markets for nuclear fuel, enrichment services, and providing lines of funding for new nuclear facilities, which are prohibitively expensive for practically any private company.

The nuclear energy sector has not only shielded the Russian economy from broader energy sanctions, it has also granted the Kremlin significant geopolitical leverage. But years of strong pro-nuclear policy in the United States, as well as demonstrated support from the private sector and especially Silicon Valley, have given the United States the opportunity to exert its own influence in the sector. Moreover, Trump’s “embrace of financial vehicles” to bridge public and private sectors could help fund new nuclear projects, which tend to carry monumentally expensive up-front costs.

Together, the Atlantic Council argues, “these factors bode well for the United States to substantially weaken Russia’s share of global nuclear markets and its geopolitical influence.”

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/US-Aims-to-Expand-Influence-in-Global-Nuclear-Energy.amp.html