Energy Secretary Chris Wright declared Thursday, during an interview with CNBC at Idaho National Laboratory, that America had entered the "golden era" of nuclear energy. Wright's bold proclamation coincides with the Energy Department's launch this week of a $17.5 billion loan program, through its Office of Energy Dominance Financing, to "rebuild" America's nuclear supply chain.
The loan program will finance five projects "sponsored by utilities and energy companies nationwide" that will begin construction on 10 large-scale commercial nuclear reactors across the United States by 2030. It's a lofty goal, and there's certainly a demand nationwide for new energy generation capacity, but a federal loan program cuts against Wright's argument that "private capital, private innovators" are steering the nuclear renaissance.
