The Trump administration has announced a loan of up to $1.9 billion to NextEra Energy to help restart a nuclear power plant in Iowa. The project is one of three to restart [shuttered] nuclear power plants. [some emphasis, links added]
Beyond support for those two restarts, the Trump administration said in last week’s announcement that it has [funded] the development of new nuclear power plants and advanced reactor technology.
While opponents of nuclear energy had the clout to block or delay nuclear power development and plant construction, President Donald Trump’s expansion of nuclear energy hasn’t faced much pushback and has generally enjoyed bipartisan support, suggesting that decades-long opposition to nuclear energy may be fading into history.
Shift in opinions
[Multiple polls show public support for nuclear energy began to shift] during the Biden administration.
Nuclear energy’s share of total U.S. electricity generation grew from 2.4% in 1971 to 20.1% in 1992, and it’s hovered around that figure ever since.
Only three commercial reactors have come online in the last 30 years, the latest being two new units at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia, which came online in 2023 and 2024.
The 1979 partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, in Pennsylvania, and the 1986 Chornobyl disaster near Pripyat, Ukraine, eroded public confidence in nuclear energy’s safety.
In 2011, the Fukushima disaster released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean. Though it caused no deaths, like the Three Mile Island incident, the accident helped buoy opponents’ arguments that nuclear energy is unsafe.
However, [public opinion has grown more favorable toward nuclear in recent years as climate change concerns] made carbon-free electricity more attractive, and the intermittency of wind and solar continues to drive up electricity prices and reduce grid resilience.
A Gallup poll from April found that the percentage of Americans who think more emphasis should be placed on producing domestic energy from natural gas, wind, and solar declined, while the percentage who feel the same about nuclear energy increased.
The 2026 National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey released in May found that 77% of respondents favor nuclear energy, a record high. That was up from 49% in 1983. A 2025 Pew Research Center poll also found growing support for nuclear power.
Reviving older plants
The nuclear industry received a big boost from Trump, who has signed four executive orders supporting development of advanced nuclear reactors, reforming nuclear reactor testing, reinvigorating domestic fuel production and reforming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
This is all in addition to helping restart three reactors. The projects are likely to come online and add capacity to the grid before any more new reactors come online.
No new reactors are currently under construction, and the timelines can last decades.
Top: Nuclear power plant abuts a cornfield. Unsplash.
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