Trump Ignites US Nuclear Comeback With Texas Plant
NewsMax ^ | Saturday, 05 April 2025 02:34 PM EDT | Jim Thomas
Posted on 04/05/2025 3:30:31 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
The Trump administration's drive to revive American manufacturing and power a growing artificial intelligence industry is accelerating with a new nuclear energy project in Texas, The Washington Times reported.
A manufacturing facility in Texas is preparing to switch from natural gas to nuclear power as the Trump administration pushes to expand the use of small modular reactors, or SMRs, to meet rising electricity demand and bolster the U.S. manufacturing base.
This week, Dow Chemical and nuclear engineering firm X-energy submitted a federal construction permit application for a next-generation SMR at Dow's 4,700-acre plant in Seadrift, Texas. The site produces plastics and chemical products used in dozens of applications and will be the first U.S. facility of its kind powered by a grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor.
"This project will demonstrate how the technology deployed at Seadrift, Texas, can be quickly and efficiently replicated to meet incredible power demand growth across America," said J. Clay Sell, CEO of X-energy.
The SMR project is one of several initiatives supported by President Donald Trump to reindustrialize the country and provide clean, reliable energy for artificial intelligence data centers. Within days of taking office for his second term, the president declared a national emergency to speed the construction of new energy plants, including SMRs, which he has described as a priority for energy security and technological leadership.
"These can be built ultrasafe. They are ultraclean, and they're very low-cost. But they are absolutely safe," Trump told supporters in York, Pennsylvania, last August.
Unlike traditional nuclear plants, SMRs are smaller, cheaper to build, and can be constructed in modules. Their design allows for high reliability, reduced carbon emissions, and easier siting since they do not require proximity to large bodies of water.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: nuclearpower; trump
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-20, 21-35 next last
1 posted on 04/05/2025 3:30:31 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
To: SoConPubbie
reduced carbon emissions
No one cares about that. It was a ludicrous "problem" anyway.
2 posted on 04/05/2025 3:33:08 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
To: SoConPubbie
Very interesting...doesn’t require large body of water for cooling...
3 posted on 04/05/2025 3:33:51 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
To: SoConPubbie
In before the “what about the wasted/spent fuel” posters.
4 posted on 04/05/2025 3:33:51 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
To: SoConPubbie
More. More. More.
We need to build more. We need to develop smaller, modular municipal nuclear plants. Drill for oil. Mine coal. All of it.
5 posted on 04/05/2025 3:33:54 PM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
To: SoConPubbie
About time we escaped the Tyranny of “Karens” and “Cat ladies” and use our clean natural resources.
6 posted on 04/05/2025 3:38:22 PM PDT by rellic (No such thing as a moderate Moslem or Democrat )
To: SoConPubbie
I would guess that these are the SMR’s reported at FR to being built in Haskell, Texas?
7 posted on 04/05/2025 3:48:30 PM PDT by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sure.)
To: central_va
8 posted on 04/05/2025 3:49:55 PM PDT by bewildered (Great Speech)
To: SoConPubbie
I want a nuclear battery for my house.
9 posted on 04/05/2025 3:51:16 PM PDT by kvanbrunt2
To: kvanbrunt2
I want a Popeil Pocket Nuclear reactor!!
10 posted on 04/05/2025 3:52:34 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
To: Sacajaweau
If we had a thousand of these Small Modular Nuclear Reactors up and running, the cost to produce a kilowatt of electricity would be so low it would become economically feasible to use the electricity generated to make electrolysis to produce hydrogen, bottle it up, and use the hydrogen economy to drive our motor transportation of people and goods to every corner of the country in an explosion of opportunity unparalleled in the history of the word. The watchwords are cheap, safe and reliable.
11 posted on 04/05/2025 3:53:03 PM PDT by alloysteel ( Divergence is not at all the same thing as diversity.)
To: SoConPubbie
Haskell is north of Abilene, and Seadrift is between Corpus Christi and Houston on the coast.
12 posted on 04/05/2025 3:54:42 PM PDT by WildHighlander57 ((the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.) )
To: SoConPubbie
Wouldn’t it be grand if President Trump were to announce a sustainable, organic warp speed program to jump start the Plant Food Industry. Wherever mother nature has stored the Plant Food, we will stimulate huuuuge plant growth, not just in the United States, but in support of 3rd world countries trying to advance. AND, because the Carbon Cycle is organic and sustainable, it is a win-win all around.
Could critics be labeled Plant Deniers, anti organic?
13 posted on 04/05/2025 3:57:59 PM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus III (Do, or do not, there is no try)
To: SoConPubbie
Brilliant!
What could go wrong? ?
14 posted on 04/05/2025 4:04:09 PM PDT by READINABLUESTATE (‘Never trust a man whose uncle was eaten by cannibals’)
To: SoConPubbie
OP left out the most important parts...
- X-energy's Seadrift reactor will use helium gas to cool billions of uranium-filled pebbles, generating temperatures near 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit to create steam for power.
- "What attracted them to X-energy was that our plant configuration is four modules that produce about 320 megawatts," said Carol Lane, X-energy's vice president of government affairs. "It gives very, very high reliability, which is something that the data centers and AI centers really care about."
- Big Tech companies are increasingly backing SMRs. In October, Google announced a deal with Kairos Power to deploy multiple SMRs starting in 2030.
- Amazon soon followed, investing $500 million in three SMR projects, including a 320-megawatt X-energy venture in Washington state with Energy Northwest. Amazon's agreement could bring 5 gigawatts of power online by 2039.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has pledged full support.
"We will work diligently and creatively to enable the rapid deployment and export of next-generation nuclear technology," he said in February.
Despite past setbacks — including the 2023 cancellation of NuScale Power's Idaho project, which faced cost overruns and a lack of buyers — enthusiasm remains strong. China leads the world in SMRs, and under Trump’s leadership, the United States aims to follow suit, according to the Times.
To: SoConPubbie
Given Texas’ population explosion and the state’s blinky power grid in recent years, this is a great idea.
16 posted on 04/05/2025 4:17:18 PM PDT by lurk (u)
To: central_va
I’ll second that!
“Reduced carbon emissions”. What a joke!
17 posted on 04/05/2025 4:19:46 PM PDT by bantam
To: SoConPubbie
In concert with the growth of uranium-based reactors, we need thorium reactors to burn up the waste from the former, as well as the piles and piles of nuclear wastes we already have.
How about this: a small thorium reactor built with railroad trucks, so that the thing can travel around the country to burn up nuclear waste. Instead of transporting the waste to the nuclear incinerator, we bring the sucker to the waste.
Such a plan would get around one of the big issues blocking the Yucca repository.
18 posted on 04/05/2025 4:26:57 PM PDT by asinclair (It's too bad there will never be a RICO indictment of the DNC.)
To: SoConPubbie
THIS is real progress and truly transformative. It could only be made better if it was fueled by Thorium.
19 posted on 04/05/2025 4:28:55 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Donald John Trump. First man to be Elected to the Presidency THREE times since FDR.)
To: Sequoyah101
Natural gas is far too valuable as a feed stock for chemicals to burn it. Dow doing this does not surprise me. Their chemical engineers cringe to think of burning natural gas to heat water or anything else.
20 posted on 04/05/2025 4:32:01 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Donald John Trump. First man to be Elected to the Presidency THREE times since FDR.)
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-20, 21-35 next last
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson
