The United States operates the world's largest nuclear power fleet: ninety-three commercial reactors at fifty-four nuclear plants across twenty-eight states. But the vast majority of those were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s. Just three reactors have been constructed since the turn of the century. With electricity demand growing on the back of the massive energy needs of the AI boom, many around the country—from Silicon Valley tech firms to Washington, D.C.—herald an historic opportunity to rebuild a domestic nuclear power enterprise.

This presentation will consider the rapidly changing landscape for nuclear power and equip listeners to assess for themselves what role these technologies should play in a balanced energy system. How do new nuclear technologies change the equation? What led to the industry's stagnation and why is there growing enthusiasm today? Who else around the world is now pursuing nuclear energy—with or without the United States alongside?

About the Speaker

David Fedor is the Stephenson Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he supports fellowship research within the George P. Shultz Energy Policy Working Group; Hoover's national security-oriented Global Policy and Strategy Initiative; and the joint Hoover-Asia Society Working Group on Semiconductors and the Security of the United States and Taiwan. Formerly at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's Asia Pacific Energy Research Center in Tokyo, Fedor has worked in economic and security policy analysis across the Indo-Pacific.