Nuclear Power Is Dead. Long Live Nuclear Power.

The best time to start was yesterday.The next best time is today.

The Simpsons shaped the cultural imagination of a generation, including mine.

Homer Simpson was a lovable buffoon who worked at Springfield’s nuclear plant for the malevolent, misanthropic Mr. Burns. For nearly 40 years and almost 800 episodes, nuclear energy was portrayed as dangerous, toxic and inherently foolish. The opening credits alone show Homer recklessly handling a glowing rod of uranium and tossing it out his car window.

Many viewers still think nuclear waste glows bright green in barrels, ready to poison rivers and spawn a Toxic Avenger sequel.

Yet today, a new generation understands something deeper: nuclear energy is not a threat to humanity. It is one of our greatest tools for development, prosperity and freedom.

Peak Nuclear Optimism?

The United States is again at a crossroads. Talk of a nuclear renaissance is everywhere after four decades of retreat. Data centers are hungry for power. Artificial intelligence requires orders of magnitude more electricity. Small modular reactors dominate news cycles. Silicon Valley technocrats and Wall Street bankers have moved beyond weather dependent power generation and now praise nuclear energy as the future.

Hope rises that political and industrial leadership will seize this moment and build enough capacity to lower electricity prices and ignite a surge in domestic industry.

But we have been here before.

President Richard Nixon once announced a massive nuclear expansion and the United States planned a fleet of reactors so large it would power an age of abundance. Then the program collapsed. More than 160 planned reactors were canceled. More than 170,000 megawatts of future capacity evaporated.

There are many reasons why. Some technical. Some financial. Some political. Some cultural. I would offer one explanation in a single sentence: 

“The government does not work. Elect me and I will prove it.”

The result was stagnation. And the danger today is believing that this renaissance is inevitable. It is not. If we do not act with urgency and national purpose, this window will close again.

America must choose to lead.

Restoring America’s Nuclear Mission

In 1954, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss predicted a future where energy was “too cheap to meter.” He did not mean energy would be free. He meant it would be abundant and affordable enough to enable a higher standard of living for all.

Optimism was in the air. For the first time in history a middle class emerged that was a majority of the population.

For a brief period, the United States stood on that path. We split the atom, built the world’s first nuclear navy, deployed civilian reactors at scale, established world-leading engineering schools and exported nuclear expertise across the globe.

Then we stopped. Construction stalled. Research lost momentum. Regulation tightened without modernizing. Private utilities were expected to fund century-scale infrastructure while fighting bureaucracy and interest-rate volatility. Projects became one-offs instead of standardized fleets.

We traded engineering confidence for fear and national ambition went adrift.

Today, demand is surging. Our grid is strained. Industry is hollowed out. Electricity costs are rising. China and Russia are leading. We cannot pretend incremental policy adjustments will be enough.

This moment calls for a return to purposeful national development. The same spirit that built the TVA, electrified rural America and launched the space program. 

The plan is simple: build a nuclear energy system so capable, so reliable and so affordable that it becomes the foundation for a new industrial age.

A Tradition of Productive Power

America became powerful not through deregulated wishful thinking but through intentional investment in national capacity.

Alexander Hamilton created public credit.Abraham Lincoln built railroads and industry alongside emancipation.Franklin Roosevelt electrified the nation and advanced atomic science.John F. Kennedy put rockets on launchpads and dreams into orbit.

A high-energy society is a free society. A low-energy society is a fragile one.

Prosperity comes from science, production and the creative power of labor, not austerity or financial speculation.

Other nations remember this.

France, Russia, China: Lessons in National Intention

France’s Messmer PlanFaced with oil shocks in 1974, France embraced nuclear energy. It centralized decisions, standardized designs and built reactors in series. Within a generation it secured some of the cleanest, cheapest power in Europe. It chose sovereignty and confidence.

Russia’s Full-Stack ModelAs the United States debated, Russia built. Rosatom designs, finances, constructs, fuels and operates nuclear reactors worldwide. It treats energy as statecraft. The results speak for themselves.

China’s Rapid Scale-UpChina now leads the world in nuclear construction speed. It builds standardized fleets, operates high-temperature reactors for industrial heat and advances fast reactors. It mirrors what America once did best: build at scale with conviction.

They are not waiting. Neither should we.

A Program for American Renewal

We need more than slogans and subsidies. We need an industrial mission:

• 1. Establish a National Nuclear AuthorityOne buyer, one standard set, one coordinated construction program.

• 2. Finance Reactors Like InfrastructureLong-term public credit. Low cost of capital. Stable conditions for private industry.

• 3. Build in SeriesSelect proven designs. Build them many times. Learn, standardize, repeat.

• 4. Repower Industrial AmericaReplace coal boilers with modular reactors. Power steel, fertilizer, chemical and manufacturing hubs with clean heat and electricity.

• 5. Close the Fuel CycleTurn used fuel into fuel. Treat nuclear material as a strategic asset.

• 6. Deploy High-Temperature ReactorsIndustrial heat, desalination, ammonia and hydrogen. Electricity is just the beginning.

• 7. Fund Fusion as a National PriorityNot instead of fission, but alongside it. Aim high again.

• This is how we get abundant power, economic strength and a thriving high skilled union wage middle class.

Too Cheap to Meter: A National Design, Not a Slogan

Too cheap to meter means energy abundant enough to empower:

• New industrial corridors

• Electric steel and fertilizer

• Housing construction scaled nationwide

• Water desalination and irrigation

• AI and semiconductor capacity at home

• Reliable, resilient grids in every state

Energy scarcity is a political choice. Abundance is also a choice. America should choose abundance.

The Spirit to Build Again

Nuclear power is not simply a technology challenge. It is a cultural, political, and philosophical one. It demands that we believe again in the American idea: that human creativity and scientific progress can lift civilization.

Strauss believed it.

FDR believed it.

JFK believed it.

The U.S. Navy lives it every day.

The countries that build the future will lead the future. Engineering must triumph over bureaucracy, confidence over fear and production over paralysis.

If America chooses to build again, energy will once again be a foundation of prosperity, not a constraint on it. When future generations look back at this decade, let them see the moment the United States chose to rise again.

Not just a nuclear revival. An American renaissance.