The Trump administration is seeking to jumpstart nuclear energy in the United States by having at least three small reactors running and producing power by July of next year. 

The ambitious timeline was proposed by Energy Secretary Chris Wright during a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee on Wednesday. 

Recommended Stories

• Gas prices: Increase at the pumps throughout the country
• Japanese energy company signs deals with US natural gas producers
• Gas prices: Drop in fuel costs to begin June

During an exchange with Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Wright said his department would, the same day, be announcing a solicitation to get three small modular reactors (SMRs) online by July 4, 2026. 

Wright said these reactors would be located inside the Department of Energy’s containment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory. 

“These are reactors that have been talked about for 15 years,” Wright later said. 

“Some of them are – can be built quickly and ready to go. And we want to use that authority, because our fear is [with] the old way it worked, five years from now we will still be talking about that ‘soon, we’re going to have SMRs’. So we’re going to use that authority,” he said. 

The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s inquiry regarding additional details.

The announcement appears to stem from President Donald Trump’s executive orders signed in May, which were aimed at boosting the nuclear energy industry. 

In one of the orders, Trump called on the Energy Department to create a pilot program for constructing and operating reactors outside National Laboratories. The president ordered the energy secretary to approve at least three reactors within this pilot program with the goal of achieving critical status, meaning producing power, by Independence Day next year. 

The Trump administration faces a steep hill to climb in meeting this ambitious deadline, as there has been limited progress made in deploying SMRs in recent years. 

Compared to larger and more traditional nuclear facilities, SMRs are known for having a smaller physical footprint. This can allow the reactors to be built closer to local grids and in less time. 

Typically, these smaller reactors can generate upward of around 300 megawatts of power. 

There are no SMRs operational in the U.S., and only three are operational worldwide. 

In order to build an SMR, nuclear developers must have their designs and plans approved by federal regulators with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

As of the end of May, the NRC has only issued two approvals for SMR designs, both for developer NuScale Power. Both designs are for SMRs that would generate less than 100 megawatts of power. 

The lack of progress, though, has not stopped investment in nuclear power. 

Companies like Google, Amazon, and Meta have revealed in recent months plans to purchase nuclear energy produced by SMRs, primarily to support their artificial intelligence and data center needs. 

These purchase agreements, however, are anticipating the power to come online by the early 2030s. 

In a seeming effort to accelerate his administration’s build-out of nuclear energy, Trump exerted his power over the independent NRC this week and fired Christopher Hanson, a Democratic member first appointed by Trump during his first administration. 

The firing came one month after Trump also signed an executive order calling for the NRC to be reformed. 

On Wednesday, Wright appeared to support the president’s decision, telling Chairman Mike Lee (R-UT) that he agreed “the system within the NRC” wasn’t calibrated to maximize nuclear buildout. 

TRUMP FIRES DEMOCRATIC MEMBER OF NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

“I think a lot of the presidential actions, executive orders that are messaging and changing some regulations — and stuff in the one beautiful bill — are aimed at, how do we unleash American energy?” Wright said. 

“How do we get less regulation, more ability to permit stuff and to move ahead with stuff and spend less money on industrial subsidies that have been unhelpful…to our grid, and it’s just dollars, dollars we don’t have,” he added.