Energy secretary says DOE loan office will largely finance nuclear power plants, reflecting Trump priorities
Chris Wright tells American Nuclear Society that nuclear power will be biggest use of DOE loan program funds
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright joins 'The Sunday Briefing' to discuss the impact of the government shutdown on nuclear modernization, plans for testing, AI-driven energy demand and efforts to expand U.S. power generation capacity.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced Monday that the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) will largely focus on financing nuclear power plants.
"By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants to get those first plants built," Wright said at a conference of the American Nuclear Society.
During President Trump's first administration, the LPO, which provides financing for U.S. energy and manufacturing projects, was used only to finance reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Oct. 6, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
There are no commercial nuclear reactors being built in the U.S. However, several previously closed power plants plan to open again, and there are plans to build new large and small reactors.
Electricity demand from artificial intelligence and data centers will bring in billions of dollars of equity capital from "very creditworthy providers," Wright said.
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The Vogtle nuclear power plant in Burke County, near Waynesboro, Ga. (Pallava Bagla/Corbis via Getty Images / Getty Images)
That financing will be matched "3-to-1, maybe even up to 4-to-1, with low-cost debt dollars from the Loan Programs Office," he added.
Earlier this year, Trump signed four executive orders aimed at accelerating the deployment of nuclear technologies in the U.S.
CLEAN TECH, AI BOOM STRAINING US ENERGY SUPPLY
President Donald Trump listens to a question during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., Oct. 22, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
"What we're trying to accomplish here is unshackling this industry from stifling regulations that have held it back for too long," a senior Trump administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told FOX Business in July. "This industry is ready to grow. It wants to run. It wants to innovate, and there is a lot of capital available."
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During his second term, Trump has placed energy and artificial intelligence dominance at the core of his economic and national security agenda.
Reuters and FOX Business' Amanda Macias contributed to this report.