Nuclear Energy Tops Trump's Agenda

Written by Daniel Graeber for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Long-term investments in the nuclear power sector are part of the way to gain a strategic and independent advantage in energy, the head of a U.S. agency spearing domestic advances said.

Jarrod Agen, the executive director of the White House Council for Energy Dominance, sat for a panel discussion last week with Joseph Majkut, the director of energy security at the Council for Strategic and International Studies.

U.S. President Donald Trump used executive action to create a council for energy dominance in one of his first acts of office, arguing the domestic energy sector was beholden to foreign actors. Agen said last week that nuclear power was preferred over what the administration considers unreliable and intermittent forms of energy such as wind and solar power.

"Nuclear is new in that we need to invest in it to get ahead -- and it's the long-term play that the president wants to put in place," Agen was quoted by the Reuters news service as saying.

Natural gas dominates the grid, taking a 42% share of the total mix. Nuclear power accounts for about 18% of that, a level that's expected to remain unchanged through next year.

Supported by a $1.5 billion loan from the Energy Department, nuclear power company Holtec International (Jupiter, Florida) said it's ready to move its Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan from decommissioning to operational status. This is the first nuclear plant ever to revert to operational status in the country.

Once it's fully back online, Palisades will boast a capacity of 800 megawatts (MW) of power, enough to meet the demands of around 800,000 average consumers.

Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project and Plant databases can click here for a profile of Palisades and here for a related project report.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Department of Energy granted a waiver for NextEra Energy Incorporated (Juno Beach, Florida) to restart operations at its 600-MW Duane Arnold plant in Iowa, the only nuclear power facility in the state. It was mothballed in 2020 because of economic reasons. For more information, see August 28, 2025, article - FERC Grants NextEra Waiver Clearing Way for Iowa Nuclear Plant Restart.

The announcement on nuclear energy follows a lawsuit filed by the developers of the Revolution Wind facility off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. Developer Orsted (Fredericia, Denmark) and its joint venture partner Skyborn Renewables (Hamburg, Germany) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to vacate the order, saying the decision was likely illegal. The facility was 80% completed, with all offshore foundations installed and 70% of the turbines in place.

Regional governors during the long Labor Day weekend issued a joint statement to the Trump administration saying that its stop-work order on the facility, coupled with trade policies, was yet another blow to investor confidence.

"Canceling projects that have already been fully permitted--including some near completion--sends the worrisome message to investors that the work can be stopped on a whim, which could lead them to decide to either not finance different projects or impose higher interest rates that would ultimately place a bigger burden on taxpayers," they said.

Subscribers can click here for a full list of projects attributed to Revolution Wind.

Subscribers can read a breaking news report on the Orsted decision here.

The Energy Information Administration, the data arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, finds that coal-fired power generation, based on billion kilowatt-hours, is on pace for a notable 6% decline by next year. Wind, including onshore facilities, expands by nearly 5%, despite the government's roadblocks.

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