Trump dreams of nuclear as he axes grid projects

By FRANCISCO “A.J.” CAMACHO , 10/06/2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2025/10/06/trump-dreams-of-nuclear-as-he-axes-grid-projects-00594623

The Trump administration is wiping out projects meant to ensure the reliability of the electric grid — while pinning many of its promises of energy affordability on a nuclear moonshot.

The moonshot includes a goal to make three advanced reactors go critical by July 4, 2026. A prime player is the nuclear startup Oklo, which the White House is promoting as central to its aims of powering artificial intelligence and energy-sucking data centers, as I wrote in a recent deep dive.

Meanwhile, the administration is rolling back funding for power transmission projects that energy planners call essential to grid reliability as electricity demand rises. The Department of Energy’s latest plans to cancel $8 billion in clean energy funding include more than two dozen grid improvement projects, including a $464 million grant for Minnesota to build a transmission line that would deliver 28 gigawatts of power to the Midwest, write Josh Siegel, Kelsey Tamborrino, Jessie Blaeser and James Bikales.

In short, the Trump administration is cutting support for projects based on existing technology that would get more low-cost renewables on the grid, while doubling down on expensive — even speculative — nuclear power. Nuclear is a rare exception to the Trump administration’s fealty to fossil fuels.

As Zack Colman and Catherine Allen write today, states that rely heavily on wind and solar power typically have lower power costs than the national average. Nuclear remains expensive, with small modular reactors such as the one Oklo is pursuing still unproven commercially in the U.S. Oklo’s reactor doesn’t even exist yet — federal regulators rejected its first application.

Oklo maintains that its “fast reactor” technology can be cheaper, faster and safer to deploy than existing nuclear reactors. (The technology’s fundamentals have been tested with mixed results in labs across the globe and are commercially used in Russia.) CEO Jacob DeWitte said he has not been in touch with Energy Secretary Chris Wright — who once sat on Oklo’s board — since Wright joined the Cabinet.

Nuclear ‘meme stock’?

Former Obama-era Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane has called Oklo’s regulatory record “extremely frustrating,” adding that regulators “asked [Oklo] questions over and over. They never got answers.”

Even so, Oklo executives have secured federal pilot project awards, stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and broken ground on a would-be reactor on DOE land in Idaho. (They may even get access to plutonium fuel reprocessed from the nation’s weapons stockpile, as Zack wrote last week.) That’s a level of White House backing that other companies with plentiful regulatory approvals and proven commercial deliverables aren’t getting. Democrats have pointed to Oklo’s ties to Wright as one potential explanation.

Some financial analysts and industry observers compare Oklo’s $138 share price to meme stock, saying it has gone viral regardless of its fundamental value.

The grid’s nuts and bolts

All of this is happening as grid operators warn of a widening gap between available power and surging electricity demand from AI.

Trump agencies have eliminated tens of billions of dollars in clean energy and climate funding in total, write Zack and Catherine, echoing investor and industry anxieties from the 2024 election cycle. In July, DOE canceled a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee for a transmission line that would bring 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy in the Midwest to dense population centers in the East.

The clawbacks could add up to higher utility bills, said Rob Gramlich, president of the consulting firm Grid Strategies.

“Whether one loves or hates wind and solar, they are what most utilities are relying on to provide large amounts of low-cost power and some amount of firm capacity for the next few years,” Gramlich said.