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How The U.S. Fell Behind China On Nuclear Power
By Haley Zaremba - Sep 04, 2026, 5:00 PM CDT
- The US runs 96 reactors across 28 states, but the average unit is 44 years old, past the 40-year license most were built for.
- China added 34 gigawatts of nuclear capacity in the past decade. The US added one plant: Georgia's over-budget, years-late Plant Vogtle.
- A National Interest report argues the real holdup isn't just red tape. It's financial models too narrow to capture what nuclear actually delivers.
The United States is the largest producer of nuclear power in the world, solely responsible for about one-third of global output. As of today, the U.S. has 96 operating commercial nuclear reactors in 57 power plants across 28 states. However, while that fleet remains highly productive, the domestic nuclear sector is rapidly aging out. All but two of the nation’s nuclear reactors are Gen II models, meaning they were constructed before the year 2000. The average reactor age in the United States is 44, when the vast majority of those reactors were initially only licensed to run for 40 years.
In the past decade, the United States added just one nuclear power plant – Georgia’s controversial Plant Vogtle. In the same time period, China added a staggering 34 gigawatts of nuclear capacity. At this rate, China is on track to overtake both France and the United States to become the world’s largest nuclear power producer within the next five years.
“By a wide margin, China will have the world’s most dynamic and significant nuclear industry through 2035,” Damien Ma, energy lead analyst for Gavekal Technologies, wrote in a recent report, as quoted by the South China Morning Post in June. “Construction efficiencies mean China can build a new plant in about six years, compared with more than a decade for the latest Vogtle reactors in the US,” Ma went on to say.
But why is the United States lagging so far behind China, especially when the Trump administration is so eager to “ produce lasting American dominance in the global nuclear energy market”? Part of the reason is that the United States is out of practice, with a workforce that no longer knows how to build a nuclear power plant. Another reason is the miles and miles of red tape and regulatory hurdles that it takes to get a new reactor plan off the ground under the oversight of the (understandably cautious) Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But the biggest reason, as always, is money.
Nuclear power plants require an enormous amount of up-front capital to develop. And nuclear megaprojects, as any megaproject, tend to go over deadline and over budget. When Plant Vogtle finally came online in 2024, it was years late and billions of dollars over budget. While Plant Vogtle provided indispensable learning experiences that would likely help to streamline future projects, its high-profile reputation as a bloated disaster has proven to be a potent deterrent for would-be investors in similar projects.
“With each reactor a multi-billion-dollar endeavor, coupled with long development and construction phases and a complex regulatory process, investors are reluctant to invest in nuclear projects during the development phase, which can become ‘bet the company’ decisions for the developer/owner,” The National Interest wrote in a recent report. But, the article argues, this is because we’re thinking about the economics of nuclear energy all wrong.
This is because financial modeling is narrowly focused on project-level returns within the time frame of a given license, even though most power plants can operate efficiently for double that timespan. And, more importantly, these financial models fail to capture the broader long-term benefits associated with nuclear, including energy security and public welfare. Moving beyond traditional financial models to incorporate more sophisticated economic impact models could more accurately account for the long lifespans of nuclear reactors and the broader societal benefits they bring about, ultimately helping to reassure would-be investors and incentivizing the mobilization of government funds.
More sophisticated modeling would also help to make sure that each new plant can be better optimized to deliver these greater benefits. “Nuclear projects are important for public welfare and critical infrastructure with political implications, but they are costly and finite in number. This means that each potential plant should be fully scrutinized to maximize social utility,” writes the National Interest. This is particularly critical at a time that the AI energy demand boom is pushing the private and public sector to develop new energy resources as fast as possible, with diminished regard for public wellbeing, environmental impact, and oversight and safety measures.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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