In a recent Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Katie Britt spoke with U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright about China’s expanding nuclear capabilities, specifically its growing number of nuclear reactors.
Britt reminded Wright that the Asian country has 28 such facilities currently under construction, which amounts to approximately half the nuclear reactors being built in the world today.
“We know they’re working to undermine us. To me, this is very similar to what we saw in the manufacturing space,” Britt said.
“They’re using political and economic leverage to ultimately manipulate and get ahead. I think it’s critical that we look at this, particularly within the AI space, knowing that AI is not just an AI race; it is also an energy race. And we must win both.”
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The Senator asked Wright what the current presidential administration is doing to counter China’s rapidly growing nuclear power, and if ample funding is available to win the contest.
“China is moving full speed ahead with nuclear,” Wright responded. “In fact, most reactors they’re building are essentially a knockoff, a stealing of an American reactor technology. But they build a much cheaper and much faster, and they don’t have the giant bureaucratic regulatory overhang we have in the United States.”
According to the Secretary, funding must be made available in the loan program office.
“Used judiciously, it’s a way to leverage private capital to make things happen fast. If your equity investors behind that debt are the six hyperscalers in the United States, they’re great credit. The American taxpayers are going to be paid back.”
Britt referenced a plan to construct the world’s first fast-spectrum salt reactor in the United States and called it key to ‘unleashing American energy dominance.’
“Developing this new type of nuclear reactor is transformational to the next generation of nuclear energy, and that type of leadership that we need to see across our nation,” she said.
“The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment is the first demonstration of a reactor technology that can revolutionize the commercial shipping industry and serving as a catalyst for restoring American maritime dominance through floating nuclear power plants and U.S.-flagged large commercial ships. So, this project supports scalable, deployable, and transformational American nuclear energy.”
Wright affirmed to Britt that increasing American energy dominance on a global stage is a “key issue” for the current administration, especially given the weaknesses of America’s power grid.
“It is a vulnerability of our country. Our grid is very distributed, a lot of it’s very antiquated. It’s very easy to attack our grid, and we are being attacked all the time…I agree with the problem. We are working on it. Including today.”
Video of the full exchange between Senator Britt and Secretary Wright is available here:
Austen Shipley is the News Director for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @ShipleyAusten.
