{"id":18710,"date":"2025-07-21T20:20:52","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T20:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18710"},"modified":"2025-07-21T20:20:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T20:20:52","slug":"republicans-and-democrats-finally-agree-on-nuclear-its-the-industry-thats-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18710","title":{"rendered":"Republicans and Democrats Finally Agree on Nuclear. It\u2019s the Industry That\u2019s the Problem."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;it\u2019s not the policy that\u2019s holding nuclear back: It\u2019s the industry. All the incentives and permitting reforms the government can muster won\u2019t change the basic economics that have led to just three new nuclear plants getting built in the U.S. this century: It takes too long, is too expensive and is only getting pricier.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8221; The nuclear industry has as much going for it right now as it\u2019s ever had. U.S. electricity demand is growing for the first time in 20 years as data centers and artificial intelligence companies proliferate.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The average cost of large-scale solar has fallen 84 percent since 2009, to $58 per megawatt-hour, while nuclear power has risen 47 percent, to $180&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;the problem isn\u2019t limited to the U.S. The U.K., France and Finland have all seen major cost and timeline overruns with their&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/iea.blob.core.windows.net\/assets\/b6a6fc8c-c62e-411d-a15c-bf211ccc06f3\/ThePathtoaNewEraforNuclearEnergy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">most recent plants<\/a>. China, which is building more nuclear than anyone, has gotten its timelines down the farthest but is still around 7 years,&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/07\/09\/gop-dems-nuclear-energy-industry-problems-debra-kahn-column-00344370\">https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/07\/09\/gop-dems-nuclear-energy-industry-problems-debra-kahn-column-00344370<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;it\u2019s not the policy that\u2019s holding nuclear back: It\u2019s the industry. All the incentives and permitting reforms the government can muster won\u2019t change the basic economics that have led to just three new nuclear plants getting built in the U.S. this century: It takes too long, is too expensive and is only getting pricier.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; The nuclear industry has as much going for it right now as it\u2019s ever had. U.S. electricity demand is growing for the first time in 20 years as data centers and artificial intelligence companies proliferate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The average cost of large-scale solar has fallen 84 percent since 2009, to $58 per megawatt-hour, while nuclear power has risen 47 percent, to $180&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;the problem isn\u2019t limited to the U.S. The U.K., France and Finland have all seen major cost and timeline overruns with their most recent plants. China, which is building more nuclear than anyone, has gotten its timelines down the farthest but is still around 7 years,&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/07\/09\/gop-dems-nuclear-energy-industry-problems-debra-kahn-column-00344370<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[214,913,180,444,512,694],"class_list":["post-18710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-costs","tag-electricity","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-energy","tag-nuclear-power","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18711,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18710\/revisions\/18711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}