OPINION | DAVID HESS
The land of ideas By embracing the spirit of nuclear innovation, the US may provide the
inspired leadership that the industry needs. Bringing about a fundamental shift in market dynamics certainly takes a bold vision, but does the US have the right stuff?
David Hess, Senior VP DeepGeo
SK ANYONE IN THE street today what the global nuclear industry looks like and, if you get beyond green glowing barrels and a nuclear accident or two, they will likely draw you a dome and a cooling tower. Ask them what the typical nuclear
worker looks like and odds are good they will point to a scientist in a lab coat, an operator in a hazmat suit, or perhaps an engineer with a hard hat. In other words, for most of the world the nuclear industry
looks like heavy engineering with a bit of science mixed in. Lots of concrete, lots of steel and lots of water moving about in large industrial facilities. Crucially of course, some mysterious ‘fire’ at the core. Those with interest in the fuel cycle might picture uranium in different forms being shipped around the world for processing, and then of course there’s the waste that is handled with utmost care. It is a grey vision of a stolid industry which a large part of the world is actually pretty okay with. Not everyone is averse
©Alexy Kovynev
to heavy risk-bearing industry, with a general understanding prevalent, especially among mature people, that this is part of the human landscape and the price of modernity. There are plenty of people out there that would in fact be
happy to have more of these large iconic structures calmly pumping out copious amounts of power. More gigawatt-scale light water reactors? Yes please! The last energy crisis wasn’t that long ago and many consumers are right now witnessing electricity price spikes as the winter cold bites. The current nuclear expansion plans in Asia and Europe are for the most part based around these proven technologies. But not the USA. In the USA it is not enough to simply
build more proven light-water reactor designs. No. These new reactors need to be of a kind that has not been seen before. Small modular reactors, micro reactors, exotic coolants and fuel configurations. The country’s nuclear expansion is, to external appearances at least, tied to a paradigm shift in technology. This has become increasingly true over the last decade or so as the start-up culture has blossomed in the country and a hundred reactor technology flowers have bloomed. Successive US governments have nominally supported
all these reactor start-ups as part of a market-led approach. Indeed, one can’t help but wonder if US political leaders are more committed to this market-led approach than seeing large amounts of new nuclear capacity put on the grid. The Trump administration’s nuclear aspiration, part of
its ‘energy dominance’ agenda, is astronomical. Installed capacity is somehow supposed to increase to 400 GW by the year 2050 – a 300 GW increase over today! Despite these lofty goals no new nuclear power plants have yet begun construction since the last one, Vogtle unit 4 entered commercial operation on 19 April 2024. There are, however, a number of advanced reactor projects where early site activity has now commenced, although these are not intended as fully commercial facilities. In the USA today, a more correct picture of what the
It’s a wonderfully novel design, but we’re not sure if it will work 14 | February 2026 |
www.neimagazine.com
nuclear industry looks should include CAD drawings on a screen. The average worker? An innovator in casual jeans, a designer tee-shirt and sneakers. These are the aspiring
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