Restoring America’s leadership in nuclear power is once again a national security imperative, critical to competing with China and Russia and powering the age of artificial intelligence.
The riven atom, uncontrolled, can be only a growing menace to us all, and there can be no final safety short of full control throughout the world. Nor can we hope to realize the vast potential wealth of atomic energy until it is disarmed and rendered harmless. Upon us, as the people who first harnessed and made use of this force, there rests a grave and continuing responsibility for leadership in turning it toward life, not death. (Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, 1940-1945)
Stimson’s 1947 assertion stands in contrast with the United States today as it struggles with what role, if any, nuclear power should have in the US economy. Fear of a nuclear accident, questions about spent fuel, high construction costs relative to cheaper options, and a belief by some that the United States should pursue 100 percent renewable energy—all have been leveraged as arguments in opposition to pursuing nuclear power. However, each argument fails to account for this “grave and continuing responsibility for leadership” that the United States took upon itself over 75 years ago. A responsibility grounded in first principles, not political objectives.
First Principles of US Civilian Nuclear Power Policy
Throughout World War II and into the early years of the Cold War, US leaders immersed themselves in foreign policy and national security strategies for securing a relative global peace and avoiding another global war. Central to these strategies was establishing international control of atomic energy and the technologies that unleash that energy for civilian and military use. They understood this energy resource had different properties with different national security implications and should be treated as a technology of special dispensation. As such, the sobriety with which those early strategists approached this is evident in Stimson’s assertion as to the need for the United States to assume a position of leadership. Consequently, the United States established a special relationship with atomic energy and nuclear power technologies—a special relationship anchored in national security and articulated in National Security Council Report NSC 5507/2, which states:
In the interests of national security, U.S. programs for development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy should be directed toward:
- Maintaining U.S. leadership in the field, particularly in the development and application of atomic power.
- Using such U.S. leadership to promote cohesion within the free world and to forestall successful Soviet exploitation of the peaceful uses of atomic energy to attract the allegiance of the uncommitted peoples of the world.
- Increasing progress in developing and applying the peaceful uses of atomic energy in free nations abroad.
- Assuring continued U.S. access to foreign uranium and thorium supplies.
- Preventing the diversion to non-peaceful uses of any fissionable materials provided to other countries.
These were crafted as enduring first principles of US civilian nuclear power policy. They were also bipartisan, as reflected in 1956 when both parties campaigned to be the political champion for maintaining US leadership in nuclear power.
This Isn’t the Twentieth Century
Consider that in April of 2018, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, hailed China as “the fastest-expanding nuclear power generator in the world, underscoring the huge potential of the country’s nuclear sector at a time when traditional giants like the US are retreating.” He went on to say,
China has an incomparable advantage in developing nuclear power—the sheer size of State-owned nuclear enterprises, which have long-term stability and rich financing sources to support research and development spending. They are also not as vulnerable to market risks as their private counterparts. The huge injection of capital at the initial stage could be balanced by quantity production in later phases, providing economic efficiency.
Since Lin’s statement, China has connected 19 nuclear reactors to its grid with a combined capacity of 20,752 megawatts (MW). China also has an additional 28 reactors under construction with a combined capacity of 29,638 MW. China has reached an economic scale of reactor production, whereas the United States hasn’t. The numbers alone are daunting and reflect the extent to which the United States lags its strategic competitor. But the concern is far more strategic than can be conveyed by the number of reactors. The concern is that China is offering to the world what it characterizes as a better model for civilian nuclear development. That model being its state-owned nuclear enterprise. Thereby, China is promoting itself as a better partner for civilian nuclear collaboration. In terms of geopolitical realism, China’s exploitation of its state-owned model for competitive advantage is normal behavior. It’s what great power competitors do—pursue competitive advantage over their rivals and leverage that advantage to draw other nations within their geopolitical sphere of influence.
This exploitation of civilian nuclear power is exactly what early US strategists warned against and worked diligently to avoid. The difference now is that it’s China and Russia rather than the Soviet Union. In this context, history and great power competition didn’t end with the conclusion of the Cold War, nor did America’s responsibility for leadership in civilian nuclear power. Rather, history only paused to catch its breath, during which time China emerged as a strategic competitor to the United States, with Russia leaning in as an acute threat. This represents a reordering of the grand chessboard, which the late Zbigniew Brzezinski anticipated as “potentially the most dangerous scenario…a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.”
To the United States, nuclear power may be one option among many power generation technologies. To China and Russia, civilian nuclear is an instrument of national power, and both are wielding it as such. That said, with China currently leading the world in construction and deployment of nuclear reactors, Russia leading in nuclear exports, and the United States struggling to regain traction in its nuclear enterprise, it’s a relevant, albeit painful, question to ask: Have authoritarian powers permanently displaced the United States as the global leader in civilian nuclear power?
The Non-Monetized Value Proposition of Civilian US Nuclear Power
In his authoritative account of the scientific research and technical development that went into the making of atomic bombs, Henry DeWolf Smyth offered a salient, clarifying statement on how the United States should not frame its civilian nuclear power policy: “I have recalled this history to emphasize the fact that decisions about the peacetime development of nuclear energy have not, cannot and probably should not be made on the basis of strict economic realism.” Smyth’s assertion reflected a keen understanding by early strategists that the national security value proposition of civilian nuclear power couldn’t be measured in economic terms alone. They understood they were “not dealing simply with a military or scientific problem but with a problem in statecraft and the ways of the human spirit.” With this global perspective, they didn’t treat nuclear power like other energy commodities and technologies by allowing markets to dictate its fate and position in the US economy. Instead, they leveraged US capitalism and innovative capacity to ensure nuclear power was integrated into the electric power sector and the US industrial base. Nuclear was integrated as an additional energy resource to spur science and technological innovation and expand the US industrial base, thereby increasing the US’s competitive advantage over the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). At that time, the first-order value proposition of civilian nuclear wasn’t limited to its capacity to generate electricity for the power grid. Electricity was a second-order benefit for peaceful uses. The first-order value proposition was national security and was measured in the currency of US global leadership and competitive advantage over the USSR.
However, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers is putting unprecedented demand on the US power grid. This, coupled with the national security implications associated with AI and US competition with China in AI technology, means that nuclear power is no longer simply providing a second-order electricity benefit—it is directly linked to national security, as the United States will not be able to support this increased power demand apart from the steady baseload that nuclear provides. Again, in terms of great power competition, China is deploying all energy resources and technologies to power its grid—the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not dithering over which resources are cheapest or which resources will have fewer carbon emissions. The United States must win the AI competition with China, and US capacity to compete shouldn’t be constrained by the marginalization of nuclear power—it is now a national security necessity for power generation, and not just another option.
Restoring America’s Special Relationship
President Trump recently invoked the Defense Production Act and issued four executive orders on US nuclear energy, which appear to be a reorientation to nuclear power as a national security priority. The orders address institutional deficiencies and barriers within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and call on the Department of Energy to take a stronger role in new reactor designs. The orders also call for leveraging military needs to spur the deployment of new reactors—a move recommended by others over the past few years—as well as for improvements in the nuclear industrial base, including all infrastructure, enrichment, recycling, and waste disposal. It remains to be seen how much progress can be made during a single administration by way of executive orders—orders that can be rescinded by the next executive. What’s needed is legislation that embodies the directives of these executive orders and mandates a return to the original first principles of US nuclear power policy.
Even so, it will take years for the United States to regain its twentieth-century position of global leadership in civilian nuclear power. But it will prove difficult if sporadic policy efforts to do so are tethered to climate action or a low-carbon US energy transition, both of which are politically polarizing and subject to election cycles. Moreover, fear of a nuclear accident, questions about spent fuel, high construction costs relative to cheaper options, and a belief by some that the United States should pursue 100 percent renewable energy will continue to be leveraged in opposition to nuclear. My contention is that these sporadic climate-centric policy efforts to reinvigorate nuclear, as well as arguments against nuclear, reflect a disconnect from, if not outright dismissal of, the original bipartisan first principles of US civilian nuclear power policy, where national security was the first-order objective. These were intended as enduring principles that would transcend election cycles and account for the non-monetized national security value proposition of US nuclear leadership and competitive advantage, as well as the national security implications of losing or abandoning that leadership and competitive advantage.
“Upon us, as the people who first harnessed and made use of this force, there rests a grave and continuing responsibility for leadership in turning it toward life, not death.”
Today, the question for the United States isn’t whether or not these remain as enduring principles. The question is, does the United States remain committed to these as enduring principles—enduring principles that underpinned America’s special relationship with nuclear power?
About the Author: David Gattie
David Gattie is an Associate Professor of Engineering at the University of Georgia’s (UGA) College of Engineering and a Senior Fellow at UGA’s Center for International Trade and Security. He leads UGA’s Energy Security Studies Program and has provided testimony on energy, climate, and nuclear power policy before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Image: N. Petrosyan/Shutterstock
