Can the US Build a Nuclear Powered Future?

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NSeventy years ago today, nuclear fission at the nation’s first large-scale commercial nuclear power plant became self-sustaining and ready to power homes and businesses. This energy milestone came exactly 15 years after the first man-triggered nuclear chain reaction, a key feat of the Manhattan Project that paved the way for the atomic bomb.

The Shippingport Nuclear Power Plant, located in Pennsylvania, reached full generating capacity a few weeks later on December 23, 1957, approximately three years after the Soviet Union launched the world’s first grid-connected nuclear power plant. The U.S. plant is part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vision to use nuclear technology not for war, but for the benefit of humanity in peacetime. “With the knowledge which we are sure to gain from this new factory which we are commencing today, I am convinced that the atom will not be devoted exclusively to the destruction of man, but will be his mighty servant and his tireless benefactor,” Eisenhower said at the factory’s dedication ceremony.

While providing electricity to residents of the Pittsburgh area, Shippingport also allowed scientists to experiment with different types of cores, the central parts of nuclear reactors that contain the fuel needed to vaporize water. This steam then turns a turbine to produce electricity. For example, the reactor core was replaced in 1977 with a light water breeder reactor, which contains both uranium and thorium, a cheaper and more easily accessible element than the former.

Read more: »The road less traveled to fusion energy»

Shippingport was closed in 1982, a few years after an incident that contributed to the decline of the United States’ burgeoning nuclear power boom. On March 28, 1979, part of the core melted in a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The accident aroused concern among the American public, who feared a new catastrophe. The nuclear industry was also facing significant financial difficulties at the time: starting in the mid-1970s, a series of new reactor projects that were expected to be completed quickly were abandoned due to construction delays and budgetary problems.

The demise of Shippingport has raised another nuclear dilemma that still needs to be resolved: Where is all that spent radioactive fuel going? Once the radioactive elements in the core have decayed to a certain level, they no longer have enough energy to generate steam and turn the turbines. They must be replaced, but exhausted waste continues to emit radioactivity for millennia.

Ultimately, the Shippingport Reactor was shipped all over the world, down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and through the Panama Canal, eventually ending up in Washington state. The reactor was buried on the Hanford Military Reservation, and Shippingport’s fate was hailed as a success story for future decommissioning projects.

In recent decades, only a handful of new nuclear reactors have been built in the United States, and the country’s operational reactors are on average about 40 years old — and yet they still manage to provide about 20 percent of the country’s total electricity.

Today, data centers are putting nuclear energy back in the spotlight. To meet the growing energy demands posed by AI, tech giants are turning to energy sources that do not rely on fossil fuels, such as nuclear. For example, the Department of Energy recently announced a $1 billion loan to build a nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island, which is expected to power Microsoft data centers in the area.

Even if such projects are successful, the question of nuclear waste remains. In the 1980s, the Department of Energy considered Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a potential site to store spent fuel deep underground, but the project faced obstacles such as fierce opposition from the state of Nevada and funding cuts from Congress. Currently, approximately 90,000 tons of nuclear waste are located at more than 100 sites across 39 states.

Data centers could only add to this growing collection of dangerous byproducts, forcing energy sector officials and executives to find a more sustainable long-term solution.

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Main image: metamorworks / Shutterstock

• Molly Glick

  Published on December 2, 2025

  Molly Glick is the newsletter editor of Nautilus.