OPINION:
Nuclear energy was born as a peaceful consequence of the atomic bomb: the pinnacle of humanity’s destructive potential. In fact, the Atomic Age witnessed the birth of many incredible civil uses of the scientific discoveries and technological innovations resulting from the nuclear arms race. We take for granted that hospitals around the world depend on life-saving radioactive isotopes to treat cancer patients. Consumers worldwide enjoy safe food, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment thanks to radiation sterilization. Industries as diverse as oil and gas, mining, construction and manufacturing all use radioactive sources for critical processes.
To this day, our nuclear weapons program continues to produce peaceful uses that benefit all mankind. Recently, the first peaceful fusion reaction resulting in net energy gain was achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) weapons lab, in an experiment meant for nuclear stockpile stewardship.
There is once again a renewed linkage from the Manhattan Project to the civil nuclear industry. New nuclear is booming on the very land that was used to build the nuclear weapons meant to deter and, if necessary, destroy the Soviet Union. When the Cold War ended, the United States no longer needed to operate its massive nuclear security enterprise producing hundreds of nuclear weapons a year that spanned sites across the country. Many of these sites from Hanford, Wash., to Savannah River, S.C., were dangerously contaminated with hazardous and radioactive waste after decades of sometimes haphazard wartime production of nuclear weapons.
The federal government has a moral obligation to remedy the affected local communities by cleaning up these legacy sites. Since 1989, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) and the incredible federal contractor industry have cleaned up 92 of the original 107 sites, returning the remediated land for new public use, natural conservation, economic development or national security missions.
For much of my tenure in Congress, I have been the co-chair of the Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, which promotes awareness of our nuclear legacy and builds a stronger coalition to fight for the needs of our affected communities. For years, this bipartisan group of legislators from across the country have worked together to ensure the success of our nuclear cleanup missions. This is near and dear to my heart, as I represent the Manhattan Project secret city of Oak Ridge, Tenn. Oak Ridge is still home to a large DOE reservation that includes Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NNSA’s Y-12 National Security Site, and a substantial nuclear cleanup mission.
That cleanup mission in Oak Ridge is an excellent demonstration of how DOE-EM is at the forefront of unleashing American nuclear energy. Thousands of acres of remediated land that used to host massive nuclear weapons production facilities is now home to dozens of new and legacy nuclear industry companies. In just Oak Ridge today, Kairos and GE-Hitachi are building new reactors that will put electrons on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s grid, Orano and BWXT are building uranium enrichment plants, X-energy and Standard Nuclear are building fuel fabrication and production facilities, Oklo is building a nuclear recycling facility, Radiant is building a microreactor factory, and Centrus has a centrifuge factory. Oak Ridge is leading the way with this and more, but this phenomenon is being replicated across our legacy cleanup sites as the domestic nuclear industry is revitalized after decades of stagnation.
After many false dawns, we are finally experiencing the long-predicted revival of the American nuclear energy industry. For decades, the United States experienced flat energy usage, and so it made little sense to invest the huge, up-front capital costs necessary to build large nuclear power plants and the supporting services. Yet now we are witnessing a surge in demand for electricity, driven by the AI data center boom, post-pandemic reindustrialization and the increasing electrification of everyday life. While there is no shortage of justifications for building new nuclear power (it improves energy independence; it is carbon-free; it has the most efficient land to power output ratio of any energy source), it is the urgent demand for electricity that has fundamentally changed the economic calculus.
Titans of modern industry Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are investing massive sums into new reactor projects and power purchase agreements with the existing fleet. We are also seeing decommissioned nuclear plants get brought back online as companies and utilities desperately work to generate more power. As chairman of House Energy and Water Appropriations, I will continue working to ensure DOE has the resources to further the nuclear demonstration projects that are helping derisk the first-of-a-kind costs of new small modular reactors (SMR) and expand domestic enrichment capabilities.
Working together, government, industry, and academia are making this new nuclear future a reality. Abundant, affordable, clean, and reliable nuclear energy will be foundational to this new era of American energy dominance powering our shared prosperity, national security, and way of life for generations to come.
• Rep. Chuck Fleischmann is the Chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee of Appropriations and also serves on the Energy Subcommittee of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. As chairman of Energy and Water, Fleischmann leads the charge to provide funding for the federal agencies and programs responsible for the United States’ national laboratories, water and energy infrastructure, nuclear security, and energy independence.
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