Nuclear engineers want the industry to get 'unstuck' after years of bad PR. The AI boom could be the key.

Nuclear engineers told BI that Big Tech's investments could propel nuclear out of a slump. Others are skeptical about buzzy "small modular reactors."

• Big Tech is turning to nuclear power as a potential AI energy solution, including small nuclear reactors.
• The debate over their viability makes the reactors controversial within the nuclear community.
• Some told BI the renewed attention related to AI could lead to new reactors and talent, while others remain skeptical.

Nuclear energy has historically suffered from a PR problem.

With Big Tech eyeing the industry as a possible solution to the vast amounts of energy required by AI, nuclear engineers and experts told Business Insider that they welcome the new attention as a positive shift.

However, there's debate about the viability of the new kid on the block, small modular reactors, or SMRs, which are receiving a large part of the hype and funding from venture capitalists. They lack an industry standard definition, but SMRs are generally categorized as smaller reactors that produce less power, 300 megawatts to a traditional reactor's 1,000.

For some in the industry, the bigger picture is that, for the first time in a while, there's renewed interest in the US in building new reactors.

"Nuclear engineers have strong opinions about things, and some people are salty about whether SMRs are truly viable, or whether or not we should just be building more light water reactors. I want us to build whatever," Christopher Perfetti, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Mexico, told BI. "I'm happy to build a light water reactor. I'm happy to build more SMRs."

"I think that just building something will kind of get nuclear unstuck and hopefully get more momentum," added Perfetti, who previously worked as a research and development scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

So far, no SMRs have been built in the US, and only a small handful are operational or under construction worldwide.

"The vendors are saying, these reactors are cheaper, these reactors are safer, but we don't know, because they've never been built [in the US]," Allison MacFarlane, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told BI.

The kind of financial commitment needed to actualize a nuclear reactor — even a comparatively smaller one — is massive, MacFarlane said, with delays and changes often leading to ballooning budgets.

The first nuclear reactors to begin operating since 2016, Unit 3 and Unit 4 at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Georgia, began producing power in 2023 and 2024, respectively. They ended up costing $36.8 billion — more than twice the projected cost, according to a report released by six consumer groups in Georgia.

"So full scale, and so each of those steps takes a lot of money," MacFarlane said. "It's going to be expensive to build a demonstration model, and then you've got to get your supply chains going. And for most of the SMRs, these supply chains don't exist."

Ultimately, MacFarlane remains a staunch supporter of traditional plants, which she said are more feasible and more cost-efficient.

"With large light water large reactors, they benefited from a continent of scale. So it's a lot cheaper to build one large reactor than 10 small ones," she said. "That's why we have only large reactors. And so what these folks are trying to do is model themselves on tech startups, but they're not. They're trying to sell a nuclear reactor."

A 'new lease on life' for a flagging industry

Whether or not SMRs are the future of nuclear energy doesn't matter, said Ricky Witt, who works in radiological safety at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. What's important is that the new wave of money and attention flowing into the industry is very real.

As of 2023, a total of 54 nuclear reactors were operating across the US, providing about 20% of the country's power from 1990 to 2021. Reactors were largely cheaper to build when they first began cropping up in the 1960s, but expenses have slowly increased due to a number of factors — plants have to be built on-site, there's no standard design in use across the industry, and regulations concerning security and staff add to operating costs.

Facing competition from natural gas plants, which are generally cheaper to build upfront, nuclear power experienced a slowdown from its heyday in 1990, which saw 112 plants operating in the US. Coupled with a series of disasters that stained the industry's image — among them, the incidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island — plants were steadily retiring.

"I think going forward, nuclear is going to expand in our country," Witt said. "SMRs will be part of that. Whether it actually happens or not, we don't know, but what I see is building some other nuclear power plants and maybe opening some plants that we've shut down already, like we're doing at Palisades."

"They were going towards completely shutting them down, and so now they have directions and Microsoft giving some money," he added. "They've got a new lease on life."

Renewed interest from the AI sector has given plants once slated for decommission a second chance. Last year, Microsoft invested in restarting Three Mile Island in New York — in return, it'll receive nuclear energy from the plant for 20 years — and the Department of Energy backing efforts to reopen the Palisades plant in Michigan.

"This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative," Microsoft's VP of energy said at the time.

Amazon, for its part, has thrown its lot in with startup X-Energy, investing $500 million toward developing SMRs, while Meta began its hunt for nuclear partners in December of 2024.

"We need smart solutions that can help us meet growing energy demands while also addressing climate change," said Amazon's vice president of global data centers, Kevin Miller. "X-energy's technology will be integral in helping achieve this, and is an important step in Amazon's work to achieve our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero by 2040."

The Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, a nuclear plant that closed in 2020 after more than 45 years of operation, could also come back online, with NextEra Energy expressing interest.

PitchBook, a data insights firm that closely tracks VC investments, wrote in a May 21 report that energy investments were a "bright spot" in VC investments in the clean energy space in the first quarter, drawing $2.4 billion in funding.

"Geothermal and nuclear technologies continue to gain investor confidence," the firm wrote, highlighting Pacific Fusion's $900 million Series A funding, X Energy's $682.4 million Series C1, and Helion's $425 million Series F round.

And interest in different reactor designs is beginning to extend beyond private investors. The Tennessee Valley Authority, owner of the Sequoyah nuclear plant and the nation's largest public power company, recently submitted a request for a permit to build a small nuclear reactor of its own.

"We don't want to say trying to make something better is ever bad," Witt said. "So the more that we try to improve, the more we try to come up with new technologies — I think that's just better for everybody. It's better for the consumers and it's better for the people."

A good time to be in nuclear

Reignited interest in the nuclear industry could also help to attract an infusion of new blood, Perfetti said, which the field desperately needs.

In his view, it's the perfect time to climb aboard the nuclear bandwagon.

"It's actually quite an exciting time in nuclear too, because there are a lot of venture capitalist-supported startups that are really trying to change things and trying to build some more innovative reactor designs, sometimes for things other than electricity production," Perfetti said. "So, I think that there's a lot of excitement there."

For young professionals looking for a steady career with opportunity in varying sectors, Perfetti believes nuclear is particularly fertile ground.

"There are lots of career opportunities in nuclear, in part because nuclear is faced with a wave of retirements right now, so a lot of the industry is retiring," he said. "They're looking at younger people to replace them, so there's lots of quick promotion opportunities."