Energy is extremely big business and growing. But dominating in the fossil fuel industry is so very "last century." As such, it is encouraging to see the state of Texas, which prides itself on being the "energy capital of the world," setting itself up to become the "epicenter" for deployment of advanced nuclear. The state has taken some impressive steps to achieve this goal, but the question is why? What is behind this push? And where does this leave other states vying to compete for this business? This article provides pointers to the state of state competition to lead in nuclear innovation in the U.S.  

Lessons learned the hard way

Serious interest in nuclear energy for Texas seems to have been sparked in 2022, in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri that resulted in extended power outages that caused many cold-related fatalities.  Soon after, an industry group got together to form the Texas Nuclear Alliance dedicated to the advancement of nuclear technology in Texas and a mission to make Texas the "Nuclear Capital of the World." TNA's underlying premise was that, to meet the need for low-carbon and reliable energy, neither Texas nor the world could afford to turn its back on "clean, safe, reliable and secure" nuclear energy.

By late 2023, Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, directed the Texas Public Utility Commission to establish a working group to study advanced nuclear.  A year later, in November 2024, the Governor and the PUCT announced the release of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group’s final report on Texas’ plan to build a world-leading advanced nuclear power industry.  The report's multiple goals sought to enhance electric reliability and energy security, promote economic development, and unleash new opportunities for the growing Texas workforce. In commenting on the PUC's report, Governor Abbott said:

“Texas is the energy capital of the world, and we are ready to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power. By utilizing advanced nuclear energy, Texas will enhance the reliability of the state grid and provide affordable, dispatchable power to Texans across the state. As we build an advanced nuclear industry in our great state, we will ensure Texas remains a leader in energy and strengthen the Texas grid to meet the demands of our growing state.”

If you click on the report image on the right, it takes you directly to the report package, which is a thing of beauty. The Executive Summary finds five key benefits to making Texas the epicenter of advanced nuclear in the U.S.:  1) Enhance energy security; 2) Improve grid reliability; 3) Expand economic development opportunities; 4) Capture first-in-nation advantages that bring jobs, revenue and industrial growth; and 5) Capture international trade opportunities as the world works to triple the amount of nuclear available by 2050.

How will Texas take this lead?  By doing what Texas does best: cutting "red tape" and establishing major "incentives" to "attract investments," accelerate advanced nuclear deployments and overcome regulatory hurdles.  It's a very good plan . . . and far exceeds efforts by any other state to attract advanced nuclear development to itself.

Best of all, Texas isn't merely posturing. The Texas Nuclear Alliance has partnered with the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS, which boasts eleven universities, eight agencies and an enormous 2100 acre parcel of land called the Rellis Campus devoted to supporting technology innovation) and announced that they have selected four advanced nuclear ventures to build their own advanced reactor at Texas A&M. These companies, called TNA Founding Members, include: Kairos Power, Natura Resources, Terrestrial Energy and Aalo Atomics. These companies responded to an RFP in the summer of 2024 to bring their designs to the Rellis campus and were accepted. While there are unknowns about what this selection means for these companies, solving the siting issue can provide a significant advantage in the highly competitive race to be the first to deploy.

[Click here to see how beautifully Texas A&M promotes the Rellis campus.]

Status of State Competition for Advanced Nuclear

So where do other states sit in the effort to compete for this future economic activity?  There are currently 28 U.S. states that generate nuclear power to meet some portion of their electricity.  Of these 28, Texas is at the bottom, comparable only to California, with only 7% of capacity provided by nuclear. (In contrast, it gets 51% of its power from gas, 13% from coal and 22% from wind.)

Starting in the late 1970s, as many as 16 states enacted moratoriums on building more nuclear power in the state. Of those states that enacted bans, only nine states (California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont) still have state-wide moratoriums or cannot build more without legislative approval. Four states—Wisconsin (2016), Kentucky (2017), Montana (2021) and West Virginia (2022) recently repealed their bans entirely and enacted legislations to open the door for new reactor construction, largely to meet economic, energy and climate goals. New York, Connecticut and Illinois have unique legislative approaches, where nuclear construction is allowed but under certain conditions.

Illinois, one of the largest nuclear generating states, which produces 53% of its electricity (and 90% of its clean energy) from nuclear power, recently passed HB 2473, lifting the state’s moratorium on building new nuclear reactors—but only for small modular reactors (SMRs) rated for 300 megawatts or less. This measure was signed by Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat.

New York has no statewide restriction but still has a narrow ban on new reactor development in the service territory of the Long Island Lighting Company, which covers Nassau, Suffolk and some of Queens counties. Although New York's disgraced former governor, Andrew Cuomo, forced the premature closure of Indian Point which eliminated 80% of the then available clean energy for downstate New York, New York's current Governor, Kathy Hochul appears to be bringing nuclear back. She announced the state's largest and most ambitious initiative to tackle the climate crisis with a new master plan. This includes a commitment of $1 billion by the state and specifically includes NYSERDA's Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technologies, which outlines a process for the inclusion of advanced nuclear in the state's Master Plan consideration process. Additionally, New York State will co-lead a multi-state initiative to support nuclear refurbishment and new nuclear development. This seems to place New York State firmly in the race to attract next-generation nuclear developers.

Connecticut has a state-wide ban but passed an exception in 2022 that allows more nuclear construction at the site of the state's one operating nuclear power plant, the Millstone Power Station. This specifically allows Dominion Energy to build advanced nuclear at the Millstone site. Dominion has shown interest in SMRs and recently announced a deal with X-energy to build their advanced design, in partnership with Amazon.

Alone among the most populated, industrial and progressive U.S. states, California remains mired in antiquidated antinuclear politics. Although there is a large fraction of advanced nuclear innovation happening at startups located in California, California's moratorium on new nuclear plants will force these ventures to seek alternative states in which to build their technologies. California's leadership has shown no interest in competing to win the race to attract all of the talent, federal funding, jobs and economic development that will accompany the growth of this innovative sector and, by all appearances, the state has now fallen behind Texas, Wyoming, Illinois, New York and even Connecticut.

But, there are signs of attitudinal shifts happening even in deep blue California. Both California's progressive Governor, Gavin Newsom, who for years workd to force the retirement of Diablo Canyon, and the state's legislature reversed their decisions at the last minute and delayed the closure of the nuclear facility for five more years. They recognized, if reluctantly, that the plant had reliably provided almost 20% of the state's zero-emission power and 8% of its electricity for decades. Shutting it down would expose the state to dire and life-threatening power outages without the plant's high capacity-factor reliability and highly differentiated, non-intermittent generation. It would also set back progress on the state's climate goals.

Sadly, despite several attempts over the years by elected legislators to bring the state into competitive parity with the country and do away with its 49-year old nuclear moratorium, make exceptions for SMRs, and/or conduct feasibility studies about SMRs, these bills have not made it out of committee. Thus, the state appears poised to miss out on the energy revolution made possible by next-generation nuclear, even with many advanced nuclear ventures being located in California.

An Associated Press survey of state energy policies in 2022 found that about two thirds of the states consider nuclear power as an option to help take the place of fossil fuels. Of the U.S. states which have repealed their moratoriums, most have done so while actively exploring the possibility of adding more nuclear power to their energy mix, recognizing that solar, wind and burning wood or waste is not enough to keep the lights on.

In 2023, with the BIden Administraion pitching coal communities to transition to nuclear power, seven states considered measures related to small modular nuclear, including Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Virginia, Oregon and New Jersey.  The Nuclear Energy Institute estimated that there were actually about 200 "nuclear-friendly" energy bills considered by legislatures in 2023, a huge increase from prior years, when just a handful mentioned nuclear.  Many of those bills are laying foundations that will be seen later, just as prior years' efforts towards nuclear power are now being seen  in a number of key states, that are leading the way towards building new nuclear.

Wyoming, seen as an "early mover," is one that began laying the groundwork to attract and build next-generation nuclear prior to 2020, when Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, signed a bill forbidding coal plants to close but allowing small modular reactor capacity to replace the coal generation capacity. Subsequent legislation in 2022 and 2023 provided regulatory streamlining for advanced reactor deployment and authorized the state to match private funds up to  $150 million. These actions helped the state win over TerraPower, the advanced nuclear venture owned by Bill Gates, which is now building infrastructure for what may be the first advanced nuclear power plant near the site of a retiring coal-fired power plant, in Kemmerer, Wyoming. It helped Wyoming a lot that Bill Gates was friends with Warren Buffet whose Wyoming-based company, PacifiCorp owns many struggling coal plants and so found a site they were willing to let TerraPower use.

Michigan and Virginia have also worked to protect and increase their nuclear power and sit at the forefront of resurgent state interest in nuclear energy. Michigan's Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, worked to prevent the closure of the Palisades nuclear power plant. But, when a mechanical problem forced the plant's sudden closure, the state legislature agreed to put $150 million toward the potential restart of Palisades, in what would be the US' first-ever restart of a shuttered generating station. Under the Biden Adminstration's Civil Nuclear Credit program, the plant subsequently received a $1.5 billion conditional loan commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy, to help fund the repairs and restart and potentially enable Holtec to build several SMRs on the site as well.

Virginia’s recent pro-nuclear moves include state funding for an energy “career cluster” and a state-supported energy lab that help enable deployment of advanced nuclear reactors near former coal mines. These efforts are designed to attract workers, jobs and investments by companies in the growing advanced nuclear sector, which is poised to begin building SMRs at the country's already shuttered and retiring coal plants. Similar efforts have been underway in an growing list of states, now including Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virgina where officials are working to provide economic and regulatory conditions that will attract development of next-generation nuclear. It is clear that the competition to win this still nascent but highly promising business will be fierce.

In Wisconsin, several lawmakers introduced a resolution calling on the Legislature to publicly support nuclear power and fusion energy. They intend that the state, in passing the resolution, makes what could be deemed a formal declaration that Wisconsin is open for nuclear industry business.

[Note, this article has been and will continue to be updated with more recent information.]

 

Sources

Office of the Texas Governor | Greg Abbott, Texas Leads As Energy Capital Of The World In 2024, December 27, 2024.

Texas Nuclear Alliance, Texas Nuclear Alliance Members Selected to Build Nuclear Reactors at Texas A&M University System's RELLIS Campus, press release of 2/4/25 by the Texas Nuclear Alliance and Time to Build. (See video of the announcement.)

Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group, Deplying a World-Renowned Nuclear Industry in Texas: Considerations and Recommendations for Action, November 18, 2024.

DOE, Office of Nuclear Energy, What is a Nuclear Moratorium?  Sept. 20, 2024

Governor Kathy Hochul, Governor Hochul Commits More Than $1 Billion to Tackle the Climate Crisis – the Single Largest Climate Investment in New York’s History, January 14, 2025.

CALMatters, Artificial intelligence is bringing nuclear power back from the dead — maybe even in California, by Alex Shultz, January 30, 2025.

NYSERDA, Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technologies, January 2025

LexisNexis, States Take Another Look at Nuclear Power to Combat Climate Change, Dec. 17, 2023.

Associated Press, Majority of US states pursue nuclear power for emission cuts, by Jennifer McDermott, Jan. 18, 2022.

Utility Dive, As states increasingly look to advanced nuclear, Wyoming, Virginia and Michigan lead the way, by Brian Martucci, April 17, 2024.

Stateline, Federal money could supercharge state efforts to preserve nuclear power, by Alex Brown, February 12, 2024.

Hannah Ritchie, Data Explorer: US State-by-State Electricity Sources, updated in 2025.

Wisconsin Public Radio, 2 GOP state lawmakers pushing to advance nuclear energy in Wisconsin, by Joe Schultz, Feb. 13, 2025