Forbes Article Examines Challenges and Hopes for Nuclear Power After Trump’s Executive Orders 

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, June 2, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Nuclear power could be about to enter a new golden age, Llewellyn King writes on Forbes.com.

Regarded as one of the nation’s top energy reporters, King has been writing about nuclear power since 1969. He applauds Trump’s directives’ call for 10 traditional large reactors, similar to the Westinghouse 1000 reactors (Vogtle Unit 3 and Unit 4) which are now operating on the Southern Company’s Georgia Power system.

In his far-reaching Forbes article, King says while the need for power is there and the electric utility industry is keen on fulfilling it, there are obstacles. The largest of these, he says, is whether the federal government will step forward and provide “backstop” financing which all the experts agree is needed, especially to launch a flotilla of small modular  reactors (SMRs). “These are first-of-a-kind and need some market cushioning," he says.

King identifies another impediment: an acute labor shortage in the utility and the construction industries.

“President Trump has said he wants to see nuclear deployments grow fourfold by 2050, but that will be severely limited by the labor shortage, skilled and otherwise,” he says.

A further limit to nuclear growth, which King identifies in his Forbes article, is the supply chain. “Bulk electrical equipment is still largely supplied by China and that is a fraught relationship now,” he says.

He points out that alternative supply is being sought abroad and in the United States, but it will take time to build capacity to manufacture more equipment, like transformers.

While Trump wants the time it takes to license a reactor cut to 18 months, King thinks this is ambitious as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be dealing with new designs, materials, fuel and cooling in SMRs, which are outside of its established expertise.

King has been advocating for nuclear power as a safe, clean way to produce electricity over many decades. He is a former assistant editor at The Washington Post, president of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild and founded the award-winning Energy Daily in 1973, which he published for 33 years.

During the energy crisis that broke in the fall of 1973, The Energy Daily became nationally and internationally prominent as the leading source of news and commentary.

“Nuclear stands on an exciting threshold where it is the best hope for the kind of massive leap in generation that is needed, if we are to avoid blackouts and reduced industrial growth,” King says, adding, "But the financial and other challenges need to be addressed by the government."

Llewellyn King
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