The re-election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States has led to much soul searching among the nuclear industry. While Trump has made clear his support for fossil fuels, his position on nuclear is rather more ambivalent.
An immediate indication of the policy direction comes from the president-elect’s decision to field Chris Wright as his choice for energy secretary. Wright, an oil and gas executive, is known as both a defender of fossil fuels and a climate change sceptic. Heading up the Department of Energy, Wright is expected to support increased production of oil and gas on the heels of Trump’s repeated calls to “drill, baby, drill”, but also move to boost electricity production with nuclear capacity likely a favoured option.
Nonetheless, key areas of concern for the nuclear industry are expected to centre on anticipated opposition to policy focused on addressing climate change. Of particular ire is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which supports renewables as well as nuclear. A key piece of out-going president Biden’s legislative agenda, the IRA included approximately $369bn in climate provisions as part of a package aimed at cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 40% before the end of the decade. Multiple incentives within the IRA are designed to support nuclear, for example the zero-emission nuclear power production credit provides up to $15/MWh for the electricity produced by plants in service in 2024 and will last through into 2032. The IRA also includes several tax incentives for advanced reactors. The production tax credit comes in addition to the Civil Nuclear Credit Program, a $6bn strategic investment scheme designed to support the existing US reactor fleet and keep nuclear power competitive. However, while the incoming executive branch has made clear its intention to repeal climate action legislation it is likely to face stiff opposition, especially given widespread bipartisan support for nuclear.
Despite concerns over specific incentives and the ultimate fate of the IRA and its nuclear provisions, a mood boost for nuclear comes from Trump’s first term. His earlier term in office saw him and most Republicans support nuclear generation with legislation and executive orders designed to hike both deployment of new reactors and research into advanced nuclear technologies. More recently, his views on nuclear appear to have wavered though, swinging from positive to negative having publicly commented that nuclear power is both ‘very good, very safe’ but also saying that nuclear plants ‘get too big, and too complex and too expensive’.
Trump’s personal opinions aside, the wider Republican party he leads has made explicit its backing for nuclear power as part of its policy platform. In a statement to the Republican National Congress the party revealed it will “unleash energy production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately slash Inflation and power American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable energy”.
Whatever the policy outcomes for the future of nuclear in the US over the next four years, perhaps a more fundamental implication for nuclear power at large is Trump’s foreign policy agenda. There’s no shortage of evidence to suggest that, good or bad, the Trump presdiency will result in significant movement in the Ukraine conflict. With that comes a possible normalisation of relations with the Russian Federation. Given the potential for Russian rehabilitation is on the cards then, there are profound implications for both specific areas of the nuclear sector itself – fuel supply for instance – but also more fundamental aspects of the global energy landscape – with renewed access to low-cost Russian gas, for example. All that will clearly have repurcussions across the global nuclear space. Evidently the next Trump adminstration’s position on nuclear still in flux, perhaps a big part of the future of nuclear is too.
