The United States is racing to restart old nuclear power plants and build new compact reactors to generate enough electricity for artificial intelligence data centers, which are expected to consume as much power as 75 million homes by 2030. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has framed this nuclear expansion as critical to America's competitiveness in AI, comparing the effort to the Manhattan Project. However, the strategy involves reopening facilities like Three Mile Island, the site of the nation's worst nuclear accident in 1979, raising safety concerns and sparking pushback from environmental groups and local communities.

Why Is Nuclear Power Suddenly Central to AI Infrastructure?

The connection between nuclear energy and artificial intelligence is straightforward but staggering in scale. AI data centers are extraordinarily power-hungry. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, electricity consumption by data centers is expected to triple in less than four years, with newer AI-focused facilities projected to consume as much as 790 terawatt-hours by 2030 . That's enough electricity to power more than 75 million homes. When asked whether this demand could be met without nuclear power, Secretary Wright gave a direct answer: "Not in the long run" .

The urgency stems from competition with China and Russia. Wright emphasized that the U.S. cannot afford to lose the race to dominate AI infrastructure. "We don't want the nuclear future owned by the Russians and the Chinese," he stated during a visit to Idaho National Laboratory, where the world's first nuclear reactor generated usable electricity 75 years ago .

Wright

What Is the Trump Administration's Nuclear Strategy?

The administration is pursuing a multi-layered approach to close the power gap. New small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors are being built at facilities like Idaho National Laboratory, but these won't be operational until 2035 at the earliest. To bridge the five-year gap, the government is taking more immediate steps :

• Extending licenses: Issuing new operating licenses for nuclear plants that are 13 years old, allowing them to continue generating power beyond their original expiration dates.
• Restarting decommissioned plants: Bringing three shuttered reactors back online, including Three Mile Island, which experienced a partial core meltdown in 1979.
• Building new gas-fired capacity: In March, the administration announced a partnership with Japanese SoftBank to build a $33 billion natural gas power plant in Southern Ohio, expected to produce enough electricity for 5 million homes.

Secretary Wright expressed confidence in the safety of restarted reactors, stating: "It's incredible how safe nuclear reactors are. I'd put my tent inside of the reactor and live there for a month. No problem at all" . However, this assertion has drawn criticism from environmental and anti-nuclear advocacy groups concerned about the risks of operating aging infrastructure.

Secretary Wright

How Are States Responding to Data Center Growth?

Pennsylvania offers a case study in how data center expansion is reshaping regional energy policy and sparking local resistance. An industry report released in March projected that Pennsylvania will see data center capacity growth of more than 4,000 percent over the next decade, outpacing any other location on the PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest electric grid serving 12 states and Washington, D.C. . The state's advantages are clear: it is the largest exporter of electricity in the PJM grid, the second-largest producer of natural gas, and has manufacturing capacity to support AI infrastructure .

However, this explosive growth is triggering backlash. More than 50 data centers are currently planned or under construction in Pennsylvania, according to the Data Center Proposal Tracker . Several legislative proposals aim to accelerate permitting, but critics argue these measures strip local communities of decision-making power. Data & Society, a nonprofit studying the social implications of data and AI, warned that bills like HB 502, SB 939, and SB 991 would centralize siting decisions at the state level, removing municipalities' ability to reject large-scale projects .

"Local authority remains one of the few meaningful tools communities have to push back against large-scale data center and AI development. State government should support, not override, local decision-making, especially with infrastructural decisions as consequential as this," Data & Society stated in a policy brief.

Data & Society, nonprofit research organization

In response, state Senator Katie Muth introduced a bill proposing a three-year moratorium on data center development to give local governments time to assess impacts on their communities. The proposal gained unexpected bipartisan support, with four co-sponsors including two Republicans, likely driven by constituent complaints about rising electricity bills .

What Are the Real Costs and Risks?

The scale of Pennsylvania's projected growth illustrates the infrastructure challenge nationwide. The state's data center capacity is expected to exceed 7,196 megawatts by 2036, up from 186 megawatts currently, supporting an estimated 19,400 jobs in manufacturing, energy, and related sectors . Yet analysts question whether this growth is justified. Quentin Good, an analyst at Frontier Group, noted that the industry has not provided evidence of sufficient demand to justify all planned data centers, raising the risk of over-investment in energy infrastructure that may not be needed .

Environmental concerns are equally pressing. Environmentalists argue that the surge in data center construction will worsen climate change by stimulating natural gas production and consumption. There is also growing bipartisan concern about impacts on local water supplies and residential electricity bills, which have already risen in anticipation of major data center demand .

The Three Mile Island restart exemplifies these tensions. While the facility represents a concrete solution to the power shortage, its history makes it a lightning rod for safety debates. The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island remains the most serious nuclear incident in U.S. history, and restarting the plant requires overcoming decades of public skepticism about nuclear safety .

What Makes New Reactor Designs Different?

Secretary Wright highlighted the safety features of next-generation reactors being built at Idaho National Laboratory. Unlike traditional large water-cooled reactors, new small modular reactors and microreactors are designed with passive safety systems. According to Wright, these reactors are "fully fueled" at the factory, sealed with highly enriched uranium and molten salt for cooling, and "never touched for 40 years" . Critically, "if everything goes wrong, they automatically turn themselves off," Wright explained .

Microreactors, which can fit on a trailer and be shipped to remote locations, are expected to serve military installations first. These compact designs represent a departure from the massive, centralized power plants that have dominated nuclear energy for decades. However, the timeline for deployment remains a constraint. Most new reactors won't be operational until 2035, leaving a five-year gap that must be filled by extending licenses for aging plants and building new natural gas capacity .

The nuclear renaissance that Secretary Wright is promoting reflects a fundamental shift in how policymakers view energy infrastructure. Rather than treating nuclear power as a legacy technology, the administration is positioning it as essential to maintaining American technological leadership in AI. Whether this strategy succeeds depends on overcoming public concerns about safety, managing the environmental trade-offs of natural gas expansion, and ensuring that local communities have a voice in decisions that will reshape their regions for decades to come.