It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Red state residents lead growing 'rebellion' against data centers that Trump loves: report
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on, as he and Apple CEO Tim Cook (not pictured) present Apple's announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington (Photo: REUTERS)
President Donald Trump's administration has been heralding the construction of data centers to power artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure across the country. But many red state residents are becoming increasingly angry about data centers' intrusion on their rural communities.
That's according to a Tuesday article by the Washington Post's Evan Halper entitled "The data center rebellion is here, and it's reshaping the political landscape," which reported that residents in deep-red states like Indiana, Oklahoma and elsewhere are showing up in droves to public hearings solely to speak out against proposed data center construction. The Post zeroed in on an ongoing conflict over a planned data center in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, where Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has championed the project.
"We know Trump wants data centers and Kevin Stitt wants data centers, but these things don’t affect these people," Trump supporter Brian Ingram said. "You know, this affects us."
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright admitted that the data centers are unpopular as they have been tied to higher utility costs in adjacent communities, due to their immense power requirements. And the Post noted that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has also railed against data centers due to both their electricity consumption and their draining of precious freshwater sources.
"In rural America right now, where data centers are being built, everyone’s already angry because their electricity prices have risen a lot," Wright said during a December address at the North American Gas Forum. "‘I don’t want them in my state’ is a common viewpoint."
The public pressure campaign on local officials appears to be working. The Post reported that between April and June of 2025, more data center construction projects were cancelled or delayed than in the previous two years combined. Nonpartisan research firm 10a Labs' Data Center Watch found that an estimated $98 billion in data center construction was put on hold in just one quarter last year. Mitch Jones, who is the managing director of policy and litigation at Food and Water Watch, told the Post that the data center construction boom "affects so many issues."
"It takes up farmland in rural communities. It takes up dwindling water sources in communities that need cleaner drinking water. And it is driving up electricity prices for everyone," he said. "It is drawing together people from disparate backgrounds who might not agree on other political issues. They are saying this is taking place without any forethought to communities and we must stop it." Click here to read the Post's report in its entirety (subscription required).
Aerial view of a data center being constructed.Gerville / Getty Images
Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
“The demand for power and for AI is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
These words were uttered during an October earnings call, not by a wide-eyed tech executive, but by Jeff Miller, the CEO of Halliburton, one of the world’s biggest oilfield services corporations.
Like droves of other companies tied to the fracked gas industry, Halliburton is pivoting toward servicing the data center boom with new loads of methane-emitting, gas-fired power generation to feed the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble being stoked by Silicon Valley billionaires and allied corporate elites.
Halliburton is merely one of many fossil fuel companies that are striking deals to power the insatiable electricity needs of data centers. More specifically, the natural gas industry — frackers, gasfield services, pipeline companies, power suppliers — are positioning themselves as bold saviors ready to step in and meet AI’s bottomless energy demands.
In doing this, fracked gas companies are fully backed by the Trump administration, with its ideological dedication to fossil fuels and its cozy relationship with billionaire oil and gas donors. For its part, Big Tech is going along, largely sidelining its purported commitments to renewable energy.
As the global climate emergency intensifies, none of this bodes well. Despite being sold as a “clean” fossil fuel, fracked gas emits loads of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and local communities — often rural, low-income, and predominantly Black — bear the brunt of the combined nexus of data center behemoths and fossil fuel power generation being constructed in their backyards. “The natural gas industry is directly aligning with the data center industry.”
“The natural gas industry is directly aligning with the data center industry,” Tyson Slocum, the director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, told Truthout. “From a climate perspective, and from a local environmental perspective, data centers represent a significant impediment to action on climate change.”
“Icing on the Cake”
Natural gas currently provides over 40 percent of the electricity for data centers, making gas-fired power stations their largest power source, according to the International Energy Agency.
The massive demand for electricity from data centers is driving a surge in the construction of power generation infrastructure fueled by natural gas.
One McKinsey analyst recently noted that over 100 gigawatts (GW) of new gas-fired projects are being planned. “To put that number in perspective,” he said, “over the last five years, the U.S. added only about 35 GW of gas,” meaning this is “almost triple what it was.”
Utilities announced a slew of new gas-fired power projects in 2025 — a factor that helps explain private equity’s rush to acquire utilities. Utility powering of data centers is expected to skyrocket by 22 percent this year.
Industry leaders are swooning. “It’s been 40 or 50 years, or so, since we’ve seen demand grow the way it’s growing and is expected to grow,” said one executive of energy giant NRG.
“AI is obviously a big part,” he added.
The core driver of the fracked gas industry over the past decade has been the booming production of liquified natural gas (LNG) for export, which has vastlyaccelerated since the Obama administration. Today, the U.S. leads the world in natural gas production and exports.
While LNG exports are unrivaled as “the demand driver and the profit center for the domestic natural gas industry,” says Slocum, data centers “provide a significant additional profit cushion.”
“Data centers are far and away the largest variable that is increasing electricity demand,” he said. “They’re sort of the icing on the cake.”
“Help Nourish That Appetite”
With 3 million miles of gas pipelines tightly networked across the country, Slocum says the fracked gas industry has positioned itself as the prime supplier for powering data centers.
This is seen through a flurry of data center deals struck by corporations across the fracked gas supply chain — independent drillers, oil and gas majors, pipeline companies, and oilfield services companies.
EQT, a top U.S. natural producer based in Western Pennsylvania, the heart of the vast Marcellus Shale formation, struck a deal to supply two huge data center hubs in Appalachia — the Shippingport and Homer City projects — with a combined 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of gas supplies.
“Just to put this in perspective, that’s enough natural gas to power two of New York City,” gloated EQT CEO Toby Rice, who also added that Homer City and Shippingport are “just the first steps of multiple steps in multiple projects.”
EQT is hardly alone. Fracking giants like EOG and Antero Resources are striking deals to position themselves to supply data centers. Comstock Resources, owned by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, is partnering with utility giant NextEra to “keep the lights on at a plethora of data centers” in Texas, says Natural Gas Intelligence.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil and gas company, is getting in the game. “AI data centers require massive amounts of energy to function,” the company gushed in a February press release.
But have no fear, they promised. “Chevron is tapping into natural gas to help nourish that appetite,” the oil giant declared, announcing a new deal to build gas-fired power plants for data centers.
“Unleashing American Energy”
While the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence are pulling the fracking industry toward data centers, the Trump administration’s policies are also playing a critical role.
“National policy under Trump is prioritizing fossil fuels for data center development” and “particularly natural gas,” Slocum told Truthout.
“It’s explicit in Trump’s July executive order on artificial intelligence, where he defines the criteria that data centers need to meet to qualify for expedited approval, and it lists every energy source except wind and solar,” Slocum added.
That July 2025 executive order, titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure,” clearly emphasizes the role of fossil fuels in powering data centers. It defines “Covered Components” — the “materials, products, and infrastructure that are required to build Data Center Projects” — using language that foregrounds “energy infrastructure” like “natural gas pipelines or laterals” and “natural gas turbines” and “coal power equipment” with no mention of words like “wind” or “solar.”
As Slocum has written, “a data center proposed to be powered by wind and solar will not qualify for expedited treatment, whereas a fossil fuel powered facility would,” adding that fossil fuel-powered data centers could also qualify for direct federal subsidies.
This codification of national policy around fossil fuels as the core supplier of data centers aligns with Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “Drill Baby Drill” and his adamantly pro-fossil fuel January 2025 executive order on “Unleashing American Energy.”
Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump administration has gone to war against renewable energy, freezing permits around solar and wind projects and denigrating windmills.
Trump and the Fossil Fuel CEOs
Trump’s ideological commitment to feeding data centers with fossil fuel-powered electricity is wedded to his cozy relationship with the fracking billionaires who helped bankroll his 2024 reelection.
Trump saw oil and gas barons as a key constituency during his 2024 reelection campaign, and industry billionaires like Harold Hamm and Kelcy Warren showered Trump with millions in donations.
As Truthout has previously noted, Trump filled out his cabinet with fossil fuel executives and boosters, including Chris Wright, the fracking-liquid-guzzling former CEO of Liberty Energy, who Trump made energy secretary.
Since then, the fossil fuel industry has benefited handsomely from Trump’s policies of environmental deregulation and tax subsidies — and a bonanza of new business tied to data centers.
Warren is the co-founder and executive chairman of pipeline giant Energy Transfer and a longtime Trump ally. Energy Transfer is awash in new business supplying data centers from Texas to Arizona and is partnering with AI giants like Oracle.
Hamm is the founder and former CEO of fracking giant Continental Resources, and is a major Trump donor who is also backing Trump’s White House ballroom. He may be Trump’s biggest fossil fuel industry ally.
“Together,” writes The New York Times, Trump and Hamm “have remade federal policy to benefit oil and gas companies, including Mr. Hamm’s Continental, and put off the transition to greener alternatives like solar power and batteries.”
The Hamm Institute for American Energy, a research and policy hub funded by Hamm, who also serves on its board, has supported natural gas for powering AI and hosted an April event on “powering AI” that featured key Trump cabinet members leading the administration’s energy policies.
Liberty Energy — again, formerly led by Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright — is also striking deals to power data centers in Pennsylvania.
“The only thing that’ll prevent us from leading in AI is the failure to build this electric generating capacity that needs to happen,” Wright recently raved to the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that he was “using emergency powers to stop [the] closure of coal plants” and “expediting the permitting of building of new plants.”
Big Tech’s Conformity
For its part, Big Tech has quickly backtracked on its net zero commitments as it embraces gas-fired power generation for data centers.
For example, Entergy, a power generation behemoth that relies mostly on fossil fuels, is currently constructing three massive gas-fired plants to power a $10 billion Meta data center in Louisiana.
Less than a decade ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg waxed about addressing the climate crisis. Fast forward to today, and headlines like “Meta goes all in on gas to power a mega data center” are being published, while Zuckerberg and Meta are being lambasted by lawmakers, energy analysts, and community groups.
This fits a larger pattern, which Truthout has reported on, of Silicon Valley CEOs backtracking on purported climate aims and criticism of Trump to remain the president’s good graces and profit off his policies.
“Trump demands conformity, and Big Tech is providing that conformity by turning its back on its traditional commitments to increase and rely upon renewable energy,” said Slocum.
Of course, all this will exacerbate the climate crisis. The production, transport, and burning of natural gas releases huge amounts of methane, which is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere.
Under Trump, data centers are also giving new life to dying and dirty coal plants.
Under Trump, data centers are also giving new life to dying and dirty coal plants, and many data centers are backed up by super-polluting diesel generators that some fear could come to be used more frequently.
As journalist Adam Mahoney has reported, in states like South Carolina and Texas, Black households disproportionately bear the brunt of the data center boom and AI’s growing fossil fuel emissions trail, especially with on-site power generation.
To be sure, Big Tech firms are also partnering on some projects with renewable energy sources to service data centers. While U.S. data centers are overwhelmingly powered by fossil fuel sources, the International Energy Agency notes that the proportion of solar, wind, and other renewables involved will increase going into the 2030s and beyond.
But this raises another question: Do we really want the renewable energy transition to be dominated by — and wasted on meeting — the profit-centered priorities of Big Tech and Wall Street firms and their fixation with the unproven, supposed wonders of AI
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license. Derek Seidman is a writer, researcher and historian living in Buffalo, New York. He is a regular contributor for Truthout and a contributing writer for LittleSis.
Saturday, January 03, 2026
Revolution Wind Moves to Block U.S. Federal Lease Suspension in Court
Revolution Wind LLC, a joint venture between Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables and Denmark’s Ørsted, has moved to formally challenge a lease suspension order issued by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on December 22, 2025. The company filed a supplemental complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and plans to seek a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the order.
The developer argues that the suspension violates applicable law and poses immediate and substantial harm to a project that is already 87% complete and was expected to begin generating electricity as early as January 2026.
Revolution Wind is among the most advanced offshore wind projects in the United States. All offshore foundations are installed, 58 of 65 turbines are already in place, export cable installation is complete, and both offshore substations have been installed. The project has secured all required federal and state permits, most of them finalized in 2023 after a review process spanning more than nine years.
At the time of the suspension, the project was on the cusp of initial power generation and remains on track, absent further delays, to deliver electricity in 2026.
Under 20-year power purchase agreements with utilities in Connecticut and Rhode Island, Revolution Wind is expected to supply electricity to more than 350,000 homes. Regional grid operator ISO New England has warned that halting the project could increase electricity costs and undermine reliability at a time of rising demand, particularly from data centers and AI-driven load growth.
According to the company, the project underwent extensive interagency review, including consultations with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse. These discussions resulted in a formal mitigation agreement with the Department of the Air Force addressing national security and operational concerns.
In addition to defense-related reviews, the project received approvals from the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service, and other federal bodies. Revolution Wind says it has invested and committed billions of dollars in reliance on these approvals.
The December lease suspension follows an earlier stop-work order issued in August 2025, which the company has also contested. Revolution Wind says continued administrative intervention at this stage introduces legal uncertainty into projects that have already cleared the federal permitting process.
The legal challenge highlights growing tensions in the U.S. offshore wind sector, where developers face rising costs, supply chain pressures, and increasing regulatory risk. While offshore wind remains central to Northeast decarbonization and grid reliability plans, recent federal actions have raised concerns among investors about policy consistency once projects move into construction.
The dispute also has labor and industrial implications. Revolution Wind has supported thousands of jobs across construction, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and operations, including more than 1,000 union positions that have already logged roughly 2 million work hours. The project is part of Ørsted’s broader U.S. investment footprint, which spans grid upgrades, port infrastructure, and domestic manufacturing across more than 40 states.
Ørsted confirmed that Sunrise Wind LLC, a separate wholly owned subsidiary that also received a lease suspension order on December 22, is evaluating its options, including potential legal action and continued engagement with federal agencies.
For Ørsted and its partners, the outcome of the Revolution Wind case could set an important precedent for how far federal authorities can intervene in late-stage offshore wind projects that have already secured full permitting and financing.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
SMRs Explained: Real-World Economics, Fuel Bottlenecks, and the Race to Scale
The shift to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) is driven by rising global electricity demand, especially from AI data centers, and the limitations of intermittent renewable energy sources, positioning nuclear as the essential source of 24/7 "firm" baseload power.
SMRs bypass the financial risks of traditional megaprojects like Vogtle by offering shorter construction timelines (3–5 years) and a lower initial cost, trading "economies of scale" for "economies of unit production" through factory-built components.
Key challenges for the SMR industry include the need for mass production to achieve economic viability, managing the waste issue, and navigating the geopolitical risks associated with a highly concentrated global uranium fuel supply chain.
Nuclear power is currently having its "Silicon Valley" moment. After decades of being treated as a dinosaur technology—too slow, too expensive, and too politically toxic—the industry has pivoted toward something it calls the Small Modular Reactor (SMR). The goal is to stop building energy cathedrals and start building energy appliances.
The market fundamentals are finally in place for a new era. Global electricity demand is rising at twice the rate of total energy demand, pushed over the edge by the relentless growth of AI data centers and the slow-motion electrification of the global vehicle fleet. Generation from the world’s fleet of nearly 420 reactors is already on track to reach an all-time high in 2025. This is about a global realization that "intermittent" renewables cannot carry the load of a 24/7 civilization alone.
Baseload power is no longer a luxury; it’s the price of admission for the modern economy.
Why Small Is the Only Way Big Nuclear Survives
If you’ve spent any time reading about energy, you know the term "Small Modular Reactor" is used as a catch-all... it actually refers to three distinct shifts in how we think about the atom.
First, "Small" means anything up to 300 MWe. That is roughly a third of the output of a traditional Gigawatt-scale plant... enough to power about 250,000 homes or a massive industrial complex.
Second, "Modular" is the real economic engine. Instead of custom-designing every pipe and valve on a muddy construction site, components are factory-built and shipped via truck or rail.
Finally, "Reactor" is where the physics get messy. Current designs aren't just "shrunk down" versions of the 1970s light-water tech.
We are seeing a move toward Generation IV concepts: molten salt reactors that can't melt down because the fuel is already liquid, and gas-cooled reactors that can provide the 700°C+ process heat required for making steel or hydrogen.
Why Megaprojects Died in Georgia
Traditional nuclear projects like the Vogtle plant in Georgia or Hinkley Point C in the UK have become legendary for their cost overruns. They aren't just power plants; they are multi-decade civil engineering nightmares that consume capital faster than they produce watts.
Vogtle ended up costing over $30 billion... nearly double the original estimate.
No private investor wants to sit on a $30 billion debt for fifteen years before the first dollar of revenue trickles in. SMRs attempt to bypass this "Valley of Death" by shortening construction timelines to roughly 3–5 years and lowering the initial check to something a mid-sized utility or a tech giant can actually afford.
It’s an attempt to trade "economies of scale" for "economies of unit production."
The East Is Building While the West Files Paperwork
The "Nuclear Renaissance" is already happening; it just hasn’t reached the Atlantic yet. Of the 52 reactors started since 2017, nearly half are Chinese, and the other half are Russian.
(Source: IEA)
And the bottleneck isn’t technology…it’s fuel. Russia currently controls 40% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity. Energy security is a hollow promise if you have to buy the uranium from your primary adversary.
AI Is the Insatiable Beast That Only Fission Can Feed
The tech giants aren't buying nuclear because they've suddenly developed a passion for carbon-free baseload. They’re doing it because their AI roadmaps are hitting a physical wall... a single ChatGPT query consumes roughly ten times the electricity of a Google search.
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have realized that wind and solar are essentially "part-time" energy sources.
When the sun goes down and the wind stops, the data centers don't. This creates a massive, expensive problem called "intermittency" that batteries aren't ready to solve at a multi-gigawatt scale. The SMR is the only thing on the menu that offers 24/7 "firm" power with a small enough footprint to sit next to a server farm.
Amazon: Bought a stake in X-energy and signed an MoU with Dominion for SMR siting.
Oracle:Announced a massive data campus powered by three modular reactors.
These companies have the credit ratings and the long-term horizons to do what traditional utilities can't: they can guarantee "offtake."
By signing 20-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), they provide the bankability that SMR manufacturers need to start their assembly lines.
Picking Winners in a Graveyard of Energy Startups
The SMR market is a graveyard of good ideas that ran out of money. To win, a company needs three things: a simple design, a licensed site, and a customer with deeper pockets than God.
The market is split between the "Old Guard" shrinking proven tech and "Disruptors" chasing Generation IV designs.
The $2,500/kW Target: Chasing the Chinese Cost Curve
This is where the marketing brochures usually stop being honest. If you build one SMR, it is the most expensive electricity on Earth. The "Modular" promise only works if you build them like airplanes—in a factory, at scale.
The IEA projects SMR investment will hit $25 billion annually by 2030. That sounds like a lot until you realize that building the first factory for these modules could eat half that budget before the first reactor is even shipped. The "learning curve" for SMRs is a steep and expensive climb. Studies suggest that "learning-by-doing" can reduce capital costs by 5% to 10% for every doubling of production. However, a report by Germany’s BASE suggests that an average of 3,000 SMRs would have to be produced before they reach true economies of mass production.
This is the central friction of the industry. No CEO wants to tell their board they are the "guinea pig" for an unproven $1 billion reactor.
Private funding alone won't work. The long timelines for permitting mean the "breakeven point" for a large reactor is 20-30 years after project start. SMRs cut that timeline in half, but it's still a tough sell for commercial lenders.
This is where Green Bonds and Public-Private Partnerships come in.
Over $5 billion in green bonds have been issued for nuclear so far, and the U.S. DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program is throwing billions at prototypes. But the real bridge across the "Financial Valley of Death" is the credit rating of Big Tech. When Google or Amazon signs a 20-year PPA, the debt becomes bankable.
Fukushima-Proofing the Atom With Passive Physics
SMR proponents love to talk about "passive safety"—designs where physics (gravity and convection) cool the reactor even if the power goes out. It’s essentially "Fukushima-proofing" by design. Because these units are smaller, they have a lower radioactive inventory per reactor, allowing them to be placed on the sites of retired coal plants. The need:
Gravity-Driven Cooling: If power is lost, cool water is naturally pulled into the core.
Smaller Cores: Less radioactive inventory means the "exclusion zone" can be significantly smaller.
Underground Siting: Placing reactors below grade adds a natural barrier against external threats.
But the waste issue remains messy. A 2022 Stanford studyclaimed that SMRs might actually produce more waste per unit of energy because smaller cores "leak" more neutrons, making the surrounding shielding more radioactive over time. The industry’s rebuttal? They claim they can "burn" this waste as fuel in the next generation of breeder reactors. Both sides are technically correct, but the breeder reactors aren't here yet, and the waste is.
If we build thousands of SMRs and ship them to remote mining sites or developing nations, we are "distributing" nuclear material across the globe. That is a security nightmare. The fix is "Battery-Style" SMRs: built, fueled, and welded shut in a factory. They are shipped to a site, run for 20 years, and shipped back. The end-user never touches the fuel.
Teaching the NRC to Move at the Speed of Light
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was designed to regulate massive, one-off light-water reactors. Applying 1970s regulations to 2025 technology is like trying to get a Tesla licensed using rules written for steam engines.
In July 2024, the ADVANCE Act was signed into law, explicitly directing the NRC to streamline the process for microreactors and SMRs. By December 2025, the NRC had already met 30 of its 36 planned deliverables under the act. It’s an attempt to stop the "licensing-by-exhaustion" strategy that has killed so many designs in the past.
International harmonization is the next frontier. If a design is approved in Canada (like the BWRX-300), why does it need to spend another five years and $100 million being "re-approved" in the U.S. or the UK? Strategic leadership is being built in concrete while the West waits for a policy consensus.
The $1.5 Trillion Industrial Heat Prize
Most people think of nuclear as a way to keep the lights on. But electricity is only about 20% of global primary energy demand. The real monster in the room is Industrial Process Heat. If you want to make steel, cement, or glass, you need temperatures that wind and solar simply cannot provide through a wire without massive efficiency losses. Today, 89% of that high-temperature demand is met by burning fossil fuels.
The SMR—specifically the High-Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR)—is the only zero-carbon technology that can sit "inside-the-fence" with a chemical plant and provide 750°C steam. According to a 2025 study by LucidCatalyst, the potential market for industrial SMRs could hit 700 GW by 2050.
We’re talking about a $1.5 trillion investment opportunity.
The top five markets for this aren't utilities... they are synthetic aviation fuels, coal plant repowering, maritime fuels, data centers, and chemicals.
In October 2025, the European Commission launched its first pilot auction for industrial heat decarbonization. Companies like France’s Blue Capsule are designing reactors specifically for this market.
If SMRs can’t crack the industrial heat market, Net Zero is a mathematical impossibility.
Why Desalination Might Be the Secret Middle East Play
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), energy security is inseparable from water security. Arab states currently account for more than 50% of global desalination capacity. Desalination is an energy hog. Traditionally, it’s been powered by oil and gas, but the GCC nations have pledged net-zero goals for 2050–2060.
SMRs offer a "dual-purpose" solution: they provide baseload power for the grid and the massive amounts of heat or electricity needed for Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Multi-Effect Distillation (MED).
In Jordan, an IAEA team recently evaluated studies for using SMRs to pull drinking water from the Red Sea to Amman. In Saudi Arabia, the world's largest desalinated water producer, the government is looking at nuclear as the cornerstone of its move away from an oil-based economy.
The economics are starting to pencil out. Using the Desalination Economic Evaluation Program (DEEP) model, 2025 data shows that high-temperature helium-cooled reactors can produce water at an economically viable range of $0.69 to $1.04 per cubic meter.
Microreactors Are the Frontier Batteries for the Arctic and the Mine
While the 300 MWe reactors get the headlines, a subset of the industry is going even smaller. Microreactors (under 10 MWe) are being designed as "nuclear batteries" for the most austere environments on Earth.
The U.S. Department of the Air Force is the lead customer here. In May 2025, they issued a Notice of Intent to Award a contract to Oklo, Inc. for a microreactor pilot at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.
Why Alaska?
Because shipping diesel to remote Arctic bases is expensive, dangerous, and a massive logistical vulnerability.
The Eielson project is a 30-year PPA where the vendor owns and operates the reactor. It is "Mission Assurance" in a 50-below-zero environment. But it’s not just the military.
Remote mining operations in Canada and Australia are looking at microreactors like the eVinci (Westinghouse) or the KRONOS (Nano Nuclear). For a mine that currently spends $50 million a year on diesel fuel, a microreactor that runs for 10 years without refueling isn't just a "green" choice... it’s a massive competitive advantage.
Navigating the Yellowcake Landmine in Kazakhstan and Niger
Now, we have to talk about the fuel. Everything we’ve discussed depends on HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium), and right now, the supply chain is a geopolitical landmine. Kazakhstan currently supplies over 43% of the world's uranium. That is a terrifying level of concentration, especially given the civil unrest seen in the region.
Then there is Africa.
The 2023 military coup in Niger effectively knocked out a reliable supplier for Europe. In 2025, no production was reported from the SOMAÏR mine.
The West is finally waking up. In late 2025, Urenco USA produced its first run of enriched uranium above 5% in New Mexico. Centrus Energy launched commercial enrichment activities in Ohio, targeting HALEU production to meet a $2.3 billion backlog. But new mines take 7–10 years to come online. We are currently in a "seller's market," with uranium prices hitting a range of $86 to $90 per pound in new contracts. If the fuel supply isn't diversified, the SMR revolution will be choked in its cradle.
Overcoming the Duck Curve
The modern grid is struggling to handle the "Duck Curve"—the massive fluctuation in supply caused by solar and wind.
(Source: DOE)
Traditionally, nuclear was considered "inflexible" baseload... you turned it on and left it at 100% for two years.
SMRs are being designed with Load-Following capabilities.
TerraPower’s Natrium reactor, for example, includes a molten salt heat storage system. This allows the reactor to run at a constant temperature while the storage system "flexes" the electrical output to the grid. When the sun is shining, the reactor stores heat. When the sun goes down, it releases it to generate power.
It turns the nuclear reactor from a "firm floor" into a "flexible battery." This is the missing piece of the renewable energy transition. Without this flexibility, we are forced to keep gas-fired "peaker" plants on standby, which defeats the purpose of the carbon-free goal.
Resurrecting the Rust Belt With Coal-to-Nuclear Pivots
There are over 300 retired or retiring coal plant sites in the United States alone. These sites are energy goldmines. They already have the grid connections, the cooling water access, and, most importantly, a workforce that knows how to run a thermal power plant.
The SMR is the only technology that can "slot" into these sites without requiring a total overhaul of the local economy.
NuScale is currently working with Dairyland Power in Wisconsin to evaluate VOYGR plants for retiring coal sites. It preserves high-paying jobs in rural communities that would otherwise be hollowed out by the move away from coal. It turns a liability (a dead coal plant) into a 60-year asset.
The 2030 Deadline: A Final Verdict for the Assembly Line Era
We have moved past the era of "paper reactors." By the end of 2025, the industry has shifted its focus to the three pillars of success: Licensing, Supply Chain, and Offtake. The technology is no longer the main question... the factory is.
The IEA’s APS scenario calls for 120 GW of SMR capacity by 2050. Under today’s policy settings, we are only on track for 40 GW. The gap between those two numbers represents the difference between a grid that works and a grid that fails.
The next five years (2025–2030) will be the most important in the history of nuclear power. SMRs are not a "silver bullet," but they are the only "firm" floor that makes a clean grid physically possible. If SMR manufacturers can reach a production rate of just one unit per month, the "learning curve" will finally drive costs toward that $4,500/kW target.
If they remain stuck in "bespoke project" mode, they will join the graveyard of 20th-century energy experiments.
The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.
Between AI’s hunger for power and the world’s desperate need for clean industrial heat, the SMR isn’t just an "option."
For a carbon-free industrial civilization, it might be the only move left on the board. The atomic renaissance is here; the only question is whether the West can build it fast enough to matter.
