Microsoft and Constellation Energy plan to spend $1.6 billion to restart the reactor at Three Mile Island. Oracle announced it will build a data center powered by 3 small modular reactors (SMR), as have other companies. While the increasing interest in nuclear fuel is welcomed by most, the renaissance is threatened by the “massive subsidies” the government gives to alternative green energies, “which dwarf those given to hydrocarbons and nuclear power,” according to Robert Bryce, writing in Substack.

The subsidies discourage prospective nuclear investors, because  solar and wind are gorging on federal tax credits  –“in 2022, solar energy producers got about 300 times more in federal tax incentives . . . Wind energy producers got 70 times more.”

An even bigger road block, however, are regulations and permitting processes that create delays and massive over-runs in cost. Bryce predicts, “a massive shakeout looms. . Of the dozens of companies that have announced interest in nuclear, Bryce said probably only three will succeed and the first nuclear generators won’t be seen until sometime in 2030 – not soon enough.