Secretary of Energy Chris Wright joins ‘The Sunday Briefing’ to discuss the impact of the government shutdown on nuclear power modernization, plans for testing, AI-driven energy demand and efforts to expand America’s energy generation capacity.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced Monday that the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) will focus largely on financing nuclear power plants.
“By far the largest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants to get the first plants built,” Wright said at an American Nuclear Society conference.
During President Trump’s first administration, the LPO, which provides financing for U.S. energy and manufacturing projects, was used only to finance reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia.
ENERGY CHIEF WARNS ‘BIG DECLARATIONS’ ON THE HORIZON AS SHUTDOWN THREATENS NUCLEAR MODERNIZATION
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 6, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
No commercial nuclear reactors are being built in the US. However, several previously closed power plants are planning to reopen, and there are plans to build new large and small reactors.
Electricity demand from artificial intelligence and data centers will generate billions of dollars in equity from “highly creditworthy providers,” Wright said.
NUCLEAR WASTE IS CONVERTED INTO PROMISING CANCER TREATMENT AT FORMER MANHATTAN PROJECT SITE
The Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Georgia. (Pallava Bagla/Corbis via Getty Images/Getty Images)
That financing will be matched “3-to-1, perhaps even up to 4-to-1, with low-cost debt from the Loan Programs Office,” he added.
Earlier this year, Trump signed four executive orders aimed at accelerating the deployment of nuclear technologies in the US
CLEAN TECH, AI BOOM SHADES US ENERGY SUPPLY
President Donald Trump listens to a question during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, October 22, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
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During his second term, Trump has made the dominance of energy and artificial intelligence central to his economic and national security agenda.
