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Home – Energy Policy News – Every State Can Open Its Doors to Nuclear Energy

Every State Can Open Its Doors to Nuclear Energy

States want nuclear energy. That makes sense.

They all face the same problem. States need energy now and lots of it. According to one industry analysis, electricity demand could grow by more than 55% by 2050. To put this into context, according to the Energy Policy Research Foundation, electricity production grew by a mere 0.5% from 2003 to 2023.

Change is obviously on the way.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, it means that we need to build a lot of power plants. Indeed, the EIA says the United States will have to increase electricity generation capacity by between 50% and 90% to meet this demand.

Currently, there are around 11,000 utility scale plants powering America’s modern economy and based on current projections we may need to nearly double that.

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It gets even worse because under every EIA scenario, coal plants are retired almost out of existence—that is between 100 and 125 Gigawatts of capacity, gone. In other words, the United States will be fighting this fight with one of its mightiest arrows left in the quiver.

And why is this happening now?

One reason is that domestic manufacturing is on the rise and that requires more power. Then there is the broader movement toward electrification across the economy.

And of course, there is the boom in artificial intelligence and data centers, which is a primary driver. Data centers accounted for around 4% of summertime electricity demand in 2025 and that is projected to grow to 8.5% by 2027 and continue upward to 17% by 2030.

State leaders are beginning to recognize their dire situation and looking for answers.

A top contender is nuclear energy. After all, nuclear is extremely safe, very reliable, and its fuel, uranium, is readily available. Most importantly, in this situation, nuclear can produce a lot of energy for a long time. Even though only two new reactors have been built in the U.S. in recent decades, the technology still provides nearly 20% of the nation’s electricity.

The problem for states that want more nuclear energy, though, is that Washington seemingly holds all of the cards. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees........

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