Welcome to Grid Chats
Michael Wu, Converge Strategies, chats with Liz Ramsay Dalton, Co-Founder and Partner at Mission Strategies and Senior Advisor for the Nuclear Energy and National Security Coalition, to discuss what’s actually standing between the U.S. and the Trump administration’s goal to 4X nuclear power by 2050, why the supply chain is a national security story, and what the next few months will decide.
What’s Happening? The goal is to quadruple U.S. nuclear power to 400 GW by 2050 — more capacity in 25 years than we built in the prior 70. The one thing standing between that goal and every nuclear reactor we say we want to build is the domestic nuclear supply chain.
Why It Matters. Thirty years of barely building atrophied the industrial base. Only a handful of places in the world can produce critical components, which means longer lead times, higher costs, and dependence on foreign suppliers for our most critical parts. That is where this stops being just an energy story and turns into a national security story.
What’s Next? Two items to watch this summer to navigate what’s real. First, whether demonstration reactors hit criticality by July 4th. Second, whether the FY27 appropriations process delivers real funding for the domestic supply chain.