U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced Monday that the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office will now prioritize financing nuclear power projects.
“By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants to get those first plants built,” Wright said at a conference of the American Nuclear Society.
During Trump’s first term, the LPO — which finances U.S. energy and manufacturing projects — backed only the Vogtle nuclear reactors in Georgia. No commercial reactors are currently under construction, but several closed plants plan to restart, and new large and small reactors are in development.
Wright said soaring electricity demand from AI and data centers will draw billions in equity investment from “very creditworthy providers.” He added that financing will be matched “3-to-1, maybe even up to 4-to-1, with low-cost debt dollars from the Loan Programs Office.”
Earlier this year, Trump signed four executive orders to speed up the deployment of nuclear technology in the United States.
“What we’re trying to accomplish here is unshackling this industry from stifling regulations that have held it back for too long,” a senior Trump administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told FOX Business in July. “This industry is ready to grow. It wants to run. It wants to innovate, and there is a lot of capital available.”
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