The Trump Department of Energy is preparing to finance up to 10 nuclear power plants in an effort to usher in a nuclear energy “renaissance,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Free Beacon. [emphasis, links added]
The agency will use its rebranded Office of Energy Dominance Financing to provide low-interest loans for the reactors, Wright said.
The financing is designed to provide a “nudge” to an industry that has struggled for decades to get new projects up and running.
Wright’s comments came as he toured the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a government facility that focuses on cutting-edge nuclear energy research, on Monday.
“We want things built by and risk capital coming from the private marketplace, and most everything we’re doing is dominantly going to be funded by private capital,” Wright told the Free Beacon. “But the government smothered the nuclear industry for 40-plus years. We’ve got to get it back up on its feet again.”
“We are going to use our loan program office at the Department of Energy for credit-worthy hyperscalers that are putting equity capital in front of us,” he continued. “We’re going to back that up with low-interest loans. We’ll supply it to maybe the first 10 reactors that get built. That’ll incentivize people to move fast.”
The Energy Department’s intent to finance new nuclear projects is an extraordinary signal that the Trump administration is serious about deploying a new wave of nuclear reactors.
President Donald Trump has identified nuclear as a strategic sector for shoring up both energy and national security. In May, he set a lofty goal of quadrupling the nation’s nuclear capacity over the next decade.
Wright’s comments come a month after the Department of Energy closed on a $1 billion loan for a project to partially restart the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
I was at Idaho National Laboratory today, completing my goal of visiting all 17 @ENERGY National Laboratories.
American nuclear energy innovation began @INL, and today, President Trump is ensuring that our advancement of nuclear technologies is not just continuing, but surging! pic.twitter.com/TnFPQ7wyR3
— Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright) December 9, 2025
That loan, though, will help bring a decades-old plant back online. The future financing Wright teased on Monday will support new projects and new technology.
It could help finance the development of small modular reactors. Traditional reactors typically produce around one gigawatt of electricity—enough to power about a million homes—but are stationary, costly, and must be custom-built for their location.
Modular reactors are small enough to be transported, can be assembled in a factory, and will still be able to generate as much as 300 megawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 300,000 homes.
There are only two operational small modular reactors in the world—one in China and one in Russia.
“Maybe the only way to get these projects done is through the loan program,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho), who serves on the House Appropriations energy subcommittee and toured the INL alongside Wright, told the Free Beacon. “Because how are you going to find investors that are going to invest long term? These are long-term investments.”
Top photo shows Sec. Wright touring the Materials and Fuels Complex at the INL. X/Idaho National Lab
Read rest at Free Beacon
