Nuclear power in the United States

As of July 2026, 41 reactors have been permanently shut down. The United States is the world's largest producer of commercial nuclear power, and in 2013 generated 33% of the world's nuclear electricity. With the past and future scheduled plant closings, China and Russia could surpass the United States in nuclear energy production.

As of January 2022, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had granted license renewals to a total of 94 commercial reactors. In early 2014, the NRC prepared to receive the first applications of license renewal beyond 60 years of reactor life as early as 2017, a process which by law requires public involvement. Licenses for 22 reactors are due to expire before the end of 2029 if no renewals are granted. Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts was permanently shut down on May 31, 2019. Another five aging reactors were permanently closed in 2013 and 2014 before their licenses expired because of high maintenance and repair costs at a time when natural gas prices had fallen: San Onofre 2 and 3 in California, Crystal River 3 in Florida, Vermont Yankee in Vermont, and Kewaunee in Wisconsin. In April 2021, New York State permanently closed Indian Point in Buchanan, 30 miles (48 km) from New York City.

Most reactors began construction by 1974. But after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and changing economics, many planned projects were canceled. More than 100 orders for nuclear power reactors, many already under construction, were canceled in the 1970s and 1980s, bankrupting some companies.

In 2006, the Brookings Institution, a public policy organization, stated that new nuclear units had not been built in the United States because of soft demand for electricity, the potential cost overruns on nuclear reactors due to regulatory issues and resulting construction delays.

There was a revival of interest in nuclear power in the 2000s, with talk of a "nuclear renaissance", supported particularly by the Nuclear Power 2010 Program. A number of applications were made, but facing economic challenges, and later in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, most of these projects have been canceled. Up until 2013, there had also been no ground-breaking on new nuclear reactors at existing power plants since 1977. On October 19, 2016, Tennessee Valley Authority's Unit 2 reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station became the first US reactor to enter commercial operation since 1996. Then in 2012, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved construction of four new reactors at existing nuclear plants. Construction of the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station Units 2 and 3 began on March 9, 2013, but was abandoned on July 31, 2017, after the reactor supplier Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2017. On March 12, 2013, construction began on the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant Units 3 and 4. The target in-service date for Unit 3 was originally November 2021. Vogtle Unit 3 reached "initial criticality" and started service on July 31, 2023, while Unit 4 entered commercial operation in 2024. These were the first new US commercial reactors to enter operation in more than five years, with a combined gross electrical capacity of 2,500 MW. In 2025, nuclear power produced 18% of the country’s electricity.

History

Emergence

Research into the peaceful uses of nuclear materials began in the United States under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission, created by the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Medical scientists were interested in the effect of radiation upon the fast-growing cells of cancer, and materials were given to them, while the military services led research into other peaceful uses.

Power reactor research

Argonne National Laboratory was assigned by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) the lead role in developing commercial nuclear energy beginning in the 1940s. Between then and the turn of the 21st century, Argonne designed, built, and operated fourteen reactors at its site southwest of Chicago, and another fourteen reactors at the National Reactor Testing Station (now Idaho National Laboratory) in Idaho. These reactors included initial experiments and test reactors that were the progenitors of today's pressurized water reactor (including United States naval reactors), boiling water reactor, heavy-water reactor, graphite-moderated reactor, and liquid metal cooled reactor, including the EBR-1, the first reactor in the world to generate electricity. Argonne and a number of other AEC contractors built a total of 52 reactors at the National Reactor Testing Station. Two were never operated; except for the Neutron Radiography Facility, all the other reactors were shut down by 2000.

In the early afternoon of December 20, 1951, Argonne director Walter Zinn and fifteen other Argonne staff members witnessed a row of four light bulbs light up in a nondescript brick building in the eastern Idaho desert. Electricity from a generator connected to Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) flowed through them. This was the first time that a usable amount of electrical power had ever been generated from nuclear fission. Only days afterward, the reactor produced all the electricity needed for the entire EBR complex. One ton of natural uranium can produce more than 40 gigawatt-hours of electricity—the equivalent to burning 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil. More central to EBR-I's purpose than just generating electricity, however, was its role in proving that a breeder reactor could create more nuclear fuel as a byproduct than it consumed during operation. In 1953, tests verified that this was the case.

The United States Navy took leadership early in the development of nuclear power in the US, seeing the opportunity to design ships that could steam around the world at high speeds for several decades without needing to refuel, and the possibility of turning submarines into true full-time underwater vehicles. The Navy assigned then-Captain Hyman Rickover, known for his talents in electrical engineering and propulsion systems in addition to project management, to the AEC to start the Naval Reactors project. Rickover's work with the AEC led to the development of the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), the first naval model of which was installed in the submarine USS Nautilus, and Rickover became known as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy." A nuclear power plant made the boat capable of operating underwater full-time, which it demonstrated by becoming the first vessel to traverse the North Pole by charting a route underneath the Polar ice cap in August 1958.

Another type of reactor called the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment was developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by Alvin Weinberg in the 1960s. The reactor logged more than 13,000 hours at full power during its brief run from 1965 to 1969, and was able to be shut down and restarted. It achieved all of its objectives, demonstrating the first fission of Uranium-233 for power generation and the feasibility of liquid reactor fuel, as well as greater safety and more efficient fission processes producing less long-lived actinide waste. The molten salt program ended in 1973, with the Atomic Energy Commission deciding to focus on other designs per direction from President Richard Nixon. Both government and industry experts are now reevaluating molten salt technology as an answer to the global energy challenge because it offers modular construction opportunities, produces less long-lived waste, and does not pose the core meltdown or hydrogen explosion risks inherent to water-cooled designs.

Start of commercial nuclear power

From the successful naval reactor program, plans were quickly developed for the use of reactors to generate steam to drive turbines turning generators. In April 1957, the SM-1 Nuclear Reactor in Fort Belvoir, Virginia was the first atomic power generator to go online and produce electrical energy to the U.S. power grid. On May 26, 1958, the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States, Shippingport Atomic Power Station, was opened by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of his Atoms for Peace program. As nuclear power continued to grow throughout the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) anticipated that more than 1,000 reactors would be operating in the United States by 2000. As the industry continued to expand, the AEC's development and regulatory functions were separated in 1974; the Department of Energy absorbed research and development, while the regulatory branch was spun off and turned into an independent commission known as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC or simply NRC).

Pro-nuclear power stance

As of February 2020, Our World In Data stated that "nuclear energy and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels as regards human health, safety and carbon footprint," with nuclear energy resulting in 99.8% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.7% fewer than coal; 99.6% fewer than oil; and 97.5% fewer than gas.

Under President Obama, the Office of Nuclear Energy stated in January 2012 that "Nuclear power has safely, reliably, and economically contributed almost 20% of electrical generation in the United States over the past two decades. It remains the single largest contributor (more than 70%) of non-greenhouse-gas-emitting electric power generation in the United States. Domestic demand for electrical energy is expected to grow by more than 30% from 2009 to 2035. At the same time, most of the currently operating nuclear power plants will begin reaching the end of their initial 20-year extension to their original 40-year operating license, for a total of 60 years of operation." It warned that if new plants do not replace those which are retired then the total fraction of generated electrical energy from nuclear power will begin to decline.

The United States Department of Energy web site states that "nuclear power is the most reliable energy source", and to a great degree "has the highest capacity factor. Natural gas and coal capacity factors are generally lower due to routine maintenance and/or refueling at these facilities while renewable plants are considered intermittent or variable sources and are mostly limited by a lack of fuel (i.e. wind, sun, or water)." Nuclear is the largest source of clean power in the United States, generating more than 800 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year and producing more than half of the nation's emissions-free electricity. This avoids more than 470 million metric tons of carbon each year, which is the equivalent of removing 100 million cars off of the road. In 2019, nuclear plants operated at full power more than 93% of the time, making it the most reliable energy source on the power grid. The Department of Energy and its national labs are working with industry to develop new reactors and fuels that will increase the overall performance of nuclear technologies and reduce the amount of nuclear waste that is produced.

Advanced nuclear reactors "that are smaller, safer, and more efficient at half the construction cost of today's reactors" were part of Joe Biden's clean energy proposals when he was candidate for U.S. President prior to 2021.

Opposition to nuclear power

There has been considerable opposition to the use of nuclear power in the United States. The first U.S. reactor to face public opposition was Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in 1957. It was built approximately 30 miles from Detroit, Michigan and there was opposition from the United Auto Workers Union. Pacific Gas & Electric planned to build the first commercially viable nuclear power plant in the US at Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco, California. The proposal was controversial and conflict with local citizens began in 1958. The conflict ended in 1964, with the forced abandonment of plans for the power plant. Historian Thomas Wellock traces the birth of the anti-nuclear movement to the controversy over Bodega Bay. Attempts to build a nuclear power plant in Malibu, California were similar to those at Bodega Bay and were also abandoned.

Nuclear accidents continued into the 1960s with a small test reactor exploding at the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One in Idaho Falls in January 1961 and a partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan in 1966. In his 1963 book Change, Hope and the Bomb, David Lilienthal criticized nuclear developments, particularly the nuclear industry's failure to address the nuclear waste question. J. Samuel Walker, in his book Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, explained that the growth of the nuclear industry in the U.S. occurred in the 1970s as the environmental movement was being formed. Environmentalists saw the advantages of nuclear power in reducing air pollution, but were critical of nuclear technology on other grounds. They were concerned about nuclear accidents, nuclear proliferation, high cost of nuclear power plants, nuclear terrorism and radioactive waste disposal.

There were many anti-nuclear protests in the United States which captured national public attention during the 1970s and 1980s. These included the well-known Clamshell Alliance protests at Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant and the Abalone Alliance protests at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in California, where thousands of protesters were arrested. Other large protests followed the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

In New York City on September 23, 1979, almost 200,000 people attended a protest against nuclear power. Anti-nuclear power protests preceded the shutdown of the Shoreham, Yankee Rowe, Rancho Seco, Maine Yankee, and about a dozen other nuclear power plants.

Historical use of Native land in nuclear energy

Nuclear Energy in the United States has greatly affected Native Americans due to the large amount of mining for uranium, and disposal of nuclear waste done on Native lands over the past century. Environmental Sociologists Chad L. Smith and Gregory Hooks have deemed these areas and tribal lands as a whole "sacrifice zones", due to the prevalence of mishandled nuclear materials. Uranium as a resource has largely been located in the southwestern US, and large amounts have been found on Native lands, with the estimates between 25% and 65% of Uranium being located on Native land. Due to this, many mines were placed on Native land and were abandoned without proper closing of these mines. Some of these mines have led to large amounts of pollution on Native land which has contaminated the water and ground. This has led to a large uptick in cancer cases. On the Navajo reservation in particular, there have been three separate cleanup efforts by the EPA, all unsuccessful.

Nuclear waste has been an issue that Native Americans have had to deal with for decades ranging from improper disposal of waste during active mining to the government trying and succeeding to place waste disposal sites on various native lands. In 1986, the US government tried to put a permanent nuclear waste repository on the White Earth Reservation, but the Anishinaabe people who lived there commissioned the Minnesota legislature to prevent it, which worked. However, because there was no permanent place found, the government placed a temporary facility on Yucca Mountain to contain the waste. Yucca Mountain is also on Native Land and is considered a sacred site that the government did not have consent on which to place nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain houses this temporary facility to this day and is being debated over if it should become a permanent facility.

Over-commitment and cancellations

By the mid-1970s, it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent. Opposition and problems were galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

Over-commitment to nuclear power brought about the financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System, a public agency which undertook to build five large nuclear power plants in the 1970s. By 1983, cost overruns and delays, along with a slowing of electricity demand growth, led to cancellation of two WPPSS plants and a construction halt on two others. Moreover, WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion of municipal bonds, which is one of the largest municipal bond defaults in U.S. history. The court case that followed took nearly a decade to resolve.

Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were canceled, and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Former US Vice President Al Gore, in 2009, commented on the historical record and reliability of nuclear power in the United States:

Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.

A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of Forbes magazine, commented on the overall management of the nuclear power program in the United States:

The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale … only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible.

Three Mile Island and after

The NRC reported that the Three Mile Island accident of March 1979 "was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community." The World Nuclear Association reports that "...more than a dozen major, independent studies have assessed the radiation releases and possible effects on the people and the environment around TMI since the 1979 accident at TMI-2. The most recent was a 13-year study on 32,000 people. None has found any adverse health effects such as cancers which might be linked to the accident." Other nuclear power incidents within the US (defined as safety-related events in civil nuclear power facilities between INES Levels 1 and 3 include those at the Davis–Besse Nuclear Power Station, which was the source of two of the top five highest conditional core damage frequency nuclear incidents in the United States since 1979, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Despite the concerns which arose among the public after the Three Mile Island incident, the accident highlights the success of the reactor's safety systems. The radioactivity released as a result of the accident was almost entirely confined within the reinforced concrete containment structure. These containment structures, found at all US nuclear power plants, were designed to successfully trap radioactive material in the event of a melt down or accident. At Three Mile Island, the containment structures operated as designed, successful in containing radioactive energy. The low levels of radioactivity released post incident is considered harmless, resulting in zero injuries and deaths of residents living in proximity to the plant.

Despite many technical studies which asserted that the probability of a severe nuclear accident was low, numerous surveys showed that the public remained "very deeply distrustful and uneasy about nuclear power". Some commentators have suggested that the public's consistently negative ratings of nuclear power are reflective of the industry's unique connection with nuclear weapons:

[One] reason why nuclear power is seen differently to other technologies lies in its parentage and birth. Nuclear energy was conceived in secrecy, born of war, and first revealed to the world in horror. No matter how many proponents try to separate the peaceful atom from the weapon's atom, the connection is firmly embedded in the mind of the public.

Several US nuclear power plants closed well before their design lifetimes, due to successful campaigns by anti-nuclear activist groups. These include Rancho Seco in 1989 in California and Trojan in 1992 in Oregon. Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant in northern California closed in 1976, 13 years after geologists discovered it was built on the Little Salmon Fault. Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was completed but never operated commercially as an authorized Emergency Evacuation Plan could not be agreed on due to the political climate after the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster. The last permanent closure of a US nuclear power plant was in 1997.

US nuclear reactors were originally licensed to operate for 40-year periods. In the 1980s, the NRC determined that there were no technical issues that would preclude longer service. Over half of US nuclear reactors are over 30 years old and almost all are over twenty years old. As of 2011, more than 60 reactors have received 20-year extensions to their licensed lifetimes. The average capacity factor for all US reactors has improved from below 60% in the 1970s and 1980s, to 92% in 2007.

After the Three Mile Island accident, NRC-issued reactor construction permits, which had averaged more than 12 per year from 1967 through 1978, came to an abrupt halt; no permits were issued between 1979 and 2012 (in 2012, four planned new reactors received construction permits). Many permitted reactors were never built, or the projects were abandoned. Those that were completed after Three Mile island experienced a much longer time lag from construction permit to starting of operations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself described its regulatory oversight of the long-delayed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant as "a paradigm of fragmented and uncoordinated government decision making," and "a system strangling itself and the economy in red tape." The number of operating power reactors in the US peaked at 112 in 1991, far fewer than the 177 that received construction permits. By 1998 the number of working reactors declined to 104, where it remained as of 2013. The loss of electrical generation from the eight fewer reactors since 1991 has been offset by power uprates of generating capacity at existing reactors.

Despite the problems following Three Mile Island, output of nuclear-generated electricity in the US grew steadily, more than tripling over the next three decades: from 255 billion kilowatt-hours in 1979 (the year of the Three Mile Island accident), to 806 billion kilowatt-hours in 2007. Part of the increase was due to the greater number of operating reactors, which increased by 51%: from 69 reactors in 1979, to 104 in 2007. Another cause was a large increase in the capacity factor over that period. In 1978, nuclear power plants generated electricity at only 64% of their rated output capacity. Performance suffered even further during and after Three Mile Island, as a series of new safety regulations from 1979 through the mid-1980s forced operators to repeatedly shut down reactors for required retrofits. It was not until 1990 that the average capacity factor of US nuclear plants returned to the level of 1978. The capacity factor continued to rise, until 2001. Since 2001, US nuclear power plants have consistently delivered electric power at about 90% of their rated capacity. In 2016, the number of power plants was at 100 with 4 under construction.

Effects of Fukushima

Following the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it would launch a comprehensive safety review of the 104 nuclear power reactors across the United States, at the request of President Obama. A total of 45 groups and individuals had formally asked the NRC to suspend all licensing and other activities at 21 proposed nuclear reactor projects in 15 states until the NRC had completed a thorough post-Fukushima reactor crisis examination. The petitioners also asked the NRC to supplement its own investigation by establishing an independent commission comparable to that set up in the wake of the serious, though less severe, 1979 Three Mile Island accident. The Obama administration continued "to support the expansion of nuclear power in the United States, despite the crisis in Japan".

An industry observer noted that post-Fukushima costs were likely to go up for both current and new nuclear power plants, due to increased requirements for on-site spent fuel management and elevated design basis threats. License extensions for existing reactors will face additional scrutiny, with outcomes depending on plants meeting new requirements, and some extensions already granted for more than 60 of the 100 operating U.S. reactors could be revisited. On-site storage, consolidated long-term storage, and geological disposal of spent fuel is "likely to be reevaluated in a new light because of the Fukushima storage pool experience". Mark Cooper suggested that the cost of nuclear power, which already had risen sharply in 2010 and 2011, could "climb another 50 percent due to tighter safety oversight and regulatory delays in the wake of the reactor calamity in Japan".

In 2011, London-based bank HSBC said: "With Three Mile Island and Fukushima as a backdrop, the US public may find it difficult to support major nuclear new build and we expect that no new plant extensions will be granted either. Thus we expect the clean energy standard under discussion in US legislative chambers will see a far greater emphasis on gas and renewables plus efficiency".

Competitiveness problems

In May 2015, a senior vice president of General Atomics stated that the U.S. nuclear industry was struggling because of comparatively low U.S. fossil fuel production costs, partly due to the rapid development of shale gas, and high financing costs for nuclear plants.

In July 2016, Toshiba withdrew the U.S. design certification renewal for its Advanced Boiling Water Reactor because "it has become increasingly clear that energy price declines in the US prevent Toshiba from expecting additional opportunities for ABWR construction projects".

In 2016, Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo directed the New York Public Service Commission to consider ratepayer-financed subsidies similar to those for renewable sources to keep nuclear power stations profitable in the competition against natural gas.

In March 2018, FirstEnergy announced plans to deactivate the Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry nuclear power plants, which are in the Ohio and Pennsylvania deregulated electricity market, for economic reasons during the next three years.

In 2019, the Energy Information Administration revised the levelized cost of electricity from new advanced nuclear power plants to be $0.0775/kWh before government subsidies, using a 4.3% cost of capital (WACC) over a 30-year cost recovery period. Financial firm Lazard also updated its levelized cost of electricity report costing new nuclear at between $0.118/kWh and $0.192/kWh using a commercial 7.7% cost of capital (WACC) (pre-tax 12% cost for the higher-risk 40% equity finance and 8% cost for the 60% loan finance) over a 40-year lifetime, making it the most expensive privately financed non-peaking generation technology other than residential solar PV.

In August 2020, Exelon decided to close the Byron and Dresden plants in 2021 for economic reasons, despite the plants having licenses to operate for another 20 and 10 years respectively. On September 13, 2021, the Illinois Senate approved a bill containing nearly $700 million in subsidies for the state's nuclear plants, including Byron, causing Exelon to reverse the shutdown order.

Westinghouse Chapter 11 bankruptcy

On March 29, 2017, parent company Toshiba placed Westinghouse Electric Company in Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of $9 billion of losses from its nuclear reactor construction projects. The projects responsible for this loss are mostly the construction of four AP1000 reactors at Vogtle in Georgia and V. C. Summer in South Carolina. The U.S. government had given $8.3 billion of loan guarantees for the financing of the Vogtle nuclear plant being built in the U.S., which entered commercial operation in 2023. In July 2017, the V.C. Summer plant owners, the two largest utilities in South Carolina, terminated the project. Peter A. Bradford, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member, commented, "They placed a big bet on this hallucination of a nuclear renaissance".

The other U.S. new nuclear supplier, General Electric, had already scaled back its nuclear operations as it was concerned about the economic viability of new nuclear.

In the 2000s, interest in nuclear power renewed in the US, spurred by anticipated government curbs on carbon emissions, and a belief that fossil fuels would become more costly. Ultimately however, following Westinghouse's bankruptcy, only two new nuclear reactors were under construction. In addition Watts Bar unit 2, whose construction was started in 1973 but suspended in the 1980s, was completed and commissioned in 2016.

Possible renaissance

In 2008, it was reported that The Shaw Group and Westinghouse would construct a factory at the Port of Lake Charles at Lake Charles, Louisiana to build components for the Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor. On October 23, 2008, it was reported that Northrop Grumman and Areva were planning to construct a factory in Newport News, Virginia to build nuclear reactors.

As of March 2009, the NRC had received applications to construct 26 new reactors with applications for another 7 expected. Six of these reactors were ordered. Some applications were made to reserve places in a queue for government incentives available for the first three plants based on each innovative reactor design.

In May 2009, John Rowe, chairman of Exelon, which operates 17 nuclear reactors, stated that he would cancel or delay construction of two new reactors in Texas without federal loan guarantees. Amory Lovins added that "market forces had killed it years earlier". Lovins has been an active opponent of nuclear energy and fought against it in the 1970s, which contributed to increased costs

In July 2009, the proposed Victoria County Nuclear Power Plant was delayed, as the project proved difficult to finance. As of April 2009, AmerenUE has suspended plans to build its proposed plant in Missouri because the state Legislature would not allow it to charge consumers for some of the project's costs before the plant's completion. The New York Times has reported that without that "financial and regulatory certainty" the company has said it could not proceed. Previously, MidAmerican Energy Company decided to "end its pursuit of a nuclear power plant in Payette County, Idaho." MidAmerican cited cost as the primary factor in its decision.

The federal government encouraged development through the Nuclear Power 2010 Program, which coordinates efforts for building new plants, and the Energy Policy Act. In February 2010, President Barack Obama announced loan guarantees for two new reactors at Georgia Power's Vogtle Electric Generating Plant. The reactors are "just the first of what we hope will be many new nuclear projects," said Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

In February 2010, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 to block operation of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant after 2012, citing radioactive tritium leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials, a cooling tower collapse in 2007, and other problems. By state law, the renewal of the operating license must be approved by both houses of the legislature for the nuclear power plant to continue operation.

In 2010, some companies withdrew their applications. In September 2010, Matthew Wald from The New York Times reported that "the nuclear renaissance is looking small and slow at the moment".

In the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy contributed 11.7 percent of total U.S. energy production (2.245 quadrillion BTUs of energy), surpassing energy production from nuclear power (2.125 quadrillion BTUs). 2011 was the first year since 1997 that renewables exceeded nuclear in US total energy production.

In August 2011, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board of directors voted to move forward with the construction of the unit one reactor at the Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station. In addition, the TVA petitioned to restart construction on the first two units at Bellefonte. As of March 2012, many contractors had been laid off and the ultimate cost and timing for Bellefonte 1 will depend on work at another reactor TVA is completing – Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee. In February 2012, TVA said the Watts Bar 2 project was running over budget and behind schedule.

The first two of the newly approved units were Units 3 and 4 at the existing Vogtle Electric Generating Plant. As of December 2011, construction by Southern Company on the two new nuclear units had begun. They were expected to be delivering commercial power by 2016 and 2017, respectively. One week after Southern received its license to begin major construction, a dozen groups sued to stop the expansion project, stating "public safety and environmental problems since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor accident have not been taken into account". The lawsuit was dismissed in July 2012.

In 2012, The NRC approved construction permits for four new nuclear reactor units at two existing plants, the first permits in 34 years. The first new permits, for two proposed reactors at the Vogtle plant, were approved in February 2012. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko cast the lone dissenting vote, citing safety concerns stemming from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster: "I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima never happened".

Also in 2012, Units 2 and 3 at the SCANA Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina were approved, and were scheduled to come online in 2017 and 2018, respectively. After several reforecasted completion dates the project was abandoned in July 2017.

Other reactors were under consideration – a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland, a third and fourth reactor at South Texas Nuclear Generating Station, together with two other reactors in Texas, four in Florida, and one in Missouri. However, these have all been postponed or canceled.

In August 2012, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the NRC's rules for the temporary storage and permanent disposal of nuclear waste stood in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, rendering the NRC legally unable to grant final licenses. This ruling was founded on the absence of a final waste repository plan.

In March 2013, the concrete for the basemat of Block 2 of the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station was poured. First concrete for Unit 3 was completed on November 4, 2013. Construction on unit 3 of Vogtle Electric Generating Plant started that month. Unit 4 was begun in November 2013. However, following Westinghouse's bankruptcy, the project was abandoned.

In 2015, the Energy Information Administration estimated that nuclear power's share of U.S. generation would fall from 19% to 15% by 2040 in its central estimate (High Oil and Gas Resource case). However, as total generation increases 24% by 2040 in the central estimate, the absolute amount of nuclear generation remains fairly flat.

In 2017, the US Energy Information Administration projected that US nuclear generating capacity would decline 23% from its 2016 level of 99.1 GW, to 76.5 GW in 2050, and the nuclear share of electrical generation would go from 20% in 2016 to 11% in 2050. Driving the decline will be retirements of existing units, to be partially offset by additional units currently under construction and expected capacity expansions of existing reactors.

The Blue Castle Project is set to begin construction near Green River, Utah in 2023. The plant will use 53,500 acre-feet (66 million cubic meters) of water annually from the Green River once both reactors are commissioned. The first reactor is scheduled to come online in 2028, with the second reactor coming online in 2030.

On June 4, 2018, World Nuclear News reported, "President Donald Trump has directed Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to take immediate action to stop the loss of 'fuel-secure power facilities' from the country's power grid, including nuclear power plants that are facing premature retirement."

On August 23, 2020, Forbes reported, that "[the 2020 Democratic Party platform] marks the first time since 1972 that the Democratic Party has said anything positive in its platform about nuclear energy".

In April 2022, the Federal government announced a $6 billion subsidy program targeting the seven plants scheduled for closure as well as others at-risk of closure, to attempt to encourage them to continue operating. It will be funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in November 2021.

On May 23, 2025, President Trump issued four executive orders to promote the rapid expansion of nuclear power in the United States. One aimed at reinvigorating the nuclear energy and industrial base and focused on the nuclear fuel cycle, workforce, and supply chain. A second reforming nuclear reactor testing at the Department of Energy, and directed the Secretary of Energy to streamline and accelerate the construction of test reactors. The third aimed at reforming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and called for the wholesale revision of NRC regulations on reactor construction and operation. And the fourth directed the U.S. Army to begin operating a nuclear reactor at a domestic military base by September 30, 2028. In October 2025, the U.S. Army announced plans under its Janus Program to deploy commercially operated nuclear microreactors at selected military installations, building on lessons from Project Pele.

Westinghouse and its parent companies Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management announced in October 2025 that they had entered a "strategic partnership" with the U.S. government to accelerate deployment of new nuclear, following on from the May executive orders. According to that announcement, the U.S. plans to construct at least $80 billion worth of new Westinghouse reactors. It is not clear which companies will be involved in constructing these reactors, exactly where the money will come from or who will operate the reactors. In June 2026 the U.S. Department of Energy announced $17.5 billion in supply chain loans to support deployment of 10 Westinghouse AP1000 reactors domestically, with the goal of having all 10 under construction by 2030.

It's not clear if that $80 billion includes new plans to revive the abandoned Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station (VC Summer) new nuclear project in South Carolina. The South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper), which owns some of the VC Summer site, in October 2025 selected Brookfield Asset Management to complete construction of the two partially-completed AP1000s at the site. Brookfield and The Nuclear Company, a nuclear project development company, announced a joint venture in May 2026 focused on deploying Westinghouse reactors and specifically completing VC Summer.

Small modular reactors

Much of the attention in the latest possible nuclear renaissance has focused on small modular reactors (SMRs). Proponents argue that these smaller reactors will have lower overall capital costs and construction timelines than large reactors and can use modular construction techniques to avoid the cost and schedule overruns that frequently occur at large nuclear construction projects. Many SMR designs use passive safety concepts designed to mitigate accidents, and many are designed to be sited closer to population centers or co-located with industry and used for both electricity and heat or steam production. But SMRs may not benefit from the economies of scale of large reactors, therefore potentially producing electricity at a higher cost per kilowatt-hour, and there is so far no data to show that the lower costs and construction timelines will materialize. There are no commercial SMRs in operation in the U.S.

In November 2023, the first small modular reactor (SMR) deployment project in the U.S., the Carbon Free Power Project in Idaho using six light-water NuScale reactors, was cancelled because of cost increases. This raised concerns about the commercial prospects in the U.S. of the other SMR designs.

The U.S. has supported deployment of two "advanced" reactors — non light-water SMRs — through its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, awarding funding to TerraPower and X-energy in 2020. TerraPower began construction on its first Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor plant in Wyoming in April 2026. The plant will include one 345-megawatt reactor and a molten salt-based energy storage system that combined can produce up to 500 megawatts of electricity. X-Energy has plans to deploy four of its Xe-10 high-temperature gas-cooled reactors at Dow Chemical Company's Seadrift site in Texas and to follow this with up to 12 Xe-100 reactors at the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington.

In March 2026 the U.S. and Japan announced an up to $40 billion investment in deploying GE Vernova Hitachi's BWRX-300 light-water SMRs in Tennessee and Alabama. It is not clear which companies will be involved in constructing these reactors, exactly where the money will come from or who will operate the reactors. Federally-owned U.S. utility Tennessee Valley Authority submitted a construction permit application to the NRC in April 2025 to construct one BWRX-300 at its Clinch River site in Tennessee, which could be part of this $40 billion investment.

Holtec International submitted a construction permit application to the NRC in December 2025 for construction of two of its 300 megawatt light-water SMRs at the Palisades Energy Center in Michigan.

Interest in new nuclear power, and specifically SMRs, has been boosted by a combination of concerns about climate change, energy security and being able to provide sufficient electricity for AI data centers, and dozens of other companies are in pre-application discussions with the NRC for deployment of various reactor designs.

The US Army announced in 2026 that under its Janus Program, it would spend up to $2.2 billion to help fund the development of five microreactors from five separate companies, with plans to install an SMR at five bases across the country. The reactors will be built by Antares Nuclear for Fort Bragg; BWX Technologies at Fort Campbell; General Atomics at Fort Hood; Radiant Industries for Fort Benning; and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum.

Reopening

In January 2024, it was announced that Holtec International was receiving $1.5 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy to restart the Palisades nuclear plant. The goal is to have the 800 megawatt plant running by 2025. This move has precedent as the Biden administration has given a previous loan of $1.1 billion to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California running.

Microsoft announced in September 2024 a deal with Constellation Energy to reopen the long-dormant Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, securing 100% of its electricity output for the next 20 years. If approved, this would be the first-ever recommissioning of a nuclear plant in U.S. history. The plan faces rigorous regulatory hurdles, requiring extensive reviews from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) before the plant can return to operation. Once fully operational, the revived facility is expected to generate 835 megawatts of electricity. The estimated $1.6 billion cost for reopening and modernizing the plant hinges on tax incentives for nuclear energy included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.