Biden administration sets out plan to triple nuclear power capacity

The Biden administration on Tuesday released a roadmap for plans to triple U.S. nuclear capacity by the middle of the century.

The plan sets a goal of 200 gigawatts of new capacity by 2050, more than three times the 2020 capacity. This will require the development of multiple new power sources, including large and small modular plants, as well as upgrades to existing reactors and restarting retired ones. This includes adding 35 gigawatts of new capacity by 2035 and a goal of 15 gigawatts per year by 2040.

“Ramping sustained production to about 15 [gigawatts] annually by 2040 will be important to serve both our domestic 2050 deployment goals and project deployments around the globe, making more U.S. nuclear products and services available for export,” the administration’s road map states.

“This will add hundreds of thousands of good-paying construction and operation jobs across the United States that would be sustained for decades. Achieving this production rate will require an expanded workforce, robust supply chains for fuel and components, and long-term solutions for managing spent fuel.”

The strategy outlined is part of a concerted push by the Biden administration to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a goal the incoming Trump administration is likely to abandon. However, increased deployment of nuclear power has bipartisan congressional support and President-elect Trump has signaled support as well, calling for the construction of new nuclear reactors during his 2024 campaign.

The framework relies on existing federal authorities but would require new funding, leaving nuclear power’s bipartisan supporters in Congress to fill the gap by allocating that money.

It comes months after the announcement that Pennsylvania will restart one of the reactors at Three Mile Island, the site of a near meltdown in the 1970s, to power Microsoft data centers. Both hard-line conservative Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who represents the area, and his 2024 Democratic opponent, Janelle Stelson, backed the restart.