Donald Trump often disparages former US president Joe Biden’s climate and energy policies, but last week demonstrated that Trump and Biden agree on something unexpected: nuclear power.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act boosted nuclear power, which Biden framed as a climate solution because splitting atoms doesn’t release planet-warming gases like burning coal does. Trump, for his part, likes nuclear for economic reasons. Last week, he signed four executive orders “aimed at accelerating the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States,” Brad Plumer reported in The New York Times, which, one order said, would “generate American-led prosperity.”
For journalists and others tracking the issue, Trump’s nuclear plans are a major story studded with political, local, and economic angles.
Politically, nuclear power enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, where Republicans are trying to pass a sprawling budget bill that rescinds nearly all of the IRA’s clean energy subsidies but provides tax breaks for nuclear.
Locally, Trump’s stated goal of quadrupling how much electricity America gets from nuclear power would require building hundreds of nuclear plants. That implies that each of the country’s 50 states would need to host at least one plant, and some states even more. Reporters can ask residents, government officials, and business leaders what they think about that scenario, amid lingering safety concerns about nuclear power.
But journalists equally need to focus on economics. A new book explains why it is above all economics, not safety, that undercuts nuclear as a climate solution. The Hype About Hydrogen, by former US Department of Energy official Joe Romm, describes nuclear and hydrogen energy as “false solutions” to the climate crisis.
The only two nuclear plants built in the US this century — the Vogtle reactors in Georgia — suffered construction delays that ballooned the cost to a staggering $35 billion, Romm notes. That translates to $15 million per megawatt of produced electricity — “vastly higher” than the electricity that solar and wind produce, Romm told Covering Climate Now. And the small, modular reactors Bill Gates and others have championed turn out to be even more expensive, Romm added. These price differentials mean that a dollar invested in renewables delivers much more carbon-free electricity — and greenhouse gas emissions cuts — than a dollar invested in nuclear.
Crucially, renewables also deliver those cuts much sooner. The main reason nuclear is so expensive (despite receiving much larger subsidies than renewables have throughout the decades since the nuclear industry’s creation in the 1950s) is that it takes at least a decade to get a nuclear plant up and running. That long lead time imposes massive capital borrowing costs that make any “nuclear renaissance … far from certain,” the Financial Times reported.
Nuclear power’s long lead times are ultimately what disqualify it as a climate solution. Scientists emphasize that to avoid catastrophic impacts, humanity must slash greenhouse gas emissions starting now, not a decade from now. To prioritize nuclear — or hydrogen, for that matter — when renewables displace fossil fuels much cheaper and faster, Romm writes, “is unlikely to be a practical, affordable, or scalable strategy.”
From Us
Social media training. CCNow is launching a free training program to help journalists report and produce social-first climate change journalism. The workshop series, which will explore how to engage and grow an audience on social platforms, will span three sessions this summer. Learn more and apply.
Locally Sourced newsletter. The latest edition of our biweekly newsletter for local journalists explores coastal flooding and sea-level rise, at a time when 2.5 million Americans are estimated to be at risk of a severe coastal flood by 2050. Check out the Locally Sourced archive and sign up to get it every other Tuesday.
Climate at the Border newsletter. Our latest for journalists working in the US-Mexico border region looks at the recent downturn in migrant border crossings, despite climate pressures that have fueled so much cross-border migration persisting, especially in Central America’s Dry Corridor. Check out the Climate at the Border archive and sign up to get it, in English or Spanish, every other Wednesday.
Noteworthy Stories
Breaking 1.5 degrees C. There’s a 70% chance the global average temperature over the 2025–2029 period will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the ideal threshold set by world leaders in 2015 to avoid the worst of climate change, according to an authoritative new report from the World Meteorological Organization. The report also allows for a small possibility that the global temperature one year in that period will exceed 2 degrees C — a first, which scientists called “shocking,” because that possibility was previously judged “effectively impossible.” By Joe Lo for Climate Home News…
America, alone and unprepared. Donald Trump’s assault on climate change–related programs and expertise across the federal government leave America alone, in a world where nearly every other country is moving to adapt and expand clean energy capacity. “But President Trump is doing more than just turning a blind eye to the fact that the planet is growing hotter,” David Gelles writes. “He is weakening the country’s capacity to understand global warming and to prepare for its consequences … Taken together, [the Trump administration’s] moves are poised to leave the world’s biggest economy less informed, less prepared and, over time, more polluted.” By David Gelles for The New York Times…
EV tax bump. The Trump-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which narrowly passed in the House of Representatives last week, along party lines, includes a new annual registration tax on electronic and hybrid vehicles — despite the White House and Republicans pitching the bill as a tax cut. By Lee Hedgepeth and Marianne Lavelle for Inside Climate News…
Lowcountry impacts and adaptation. For South Carolina’s coastal region, climate change means more flooding, worsening beach erosion, and longer, more intense heat waves. In a half-hour special, Charleston’s ABC News 4 speaks with everyone from the city’s mayor to farmers and shrimpers to learn how climate change is reshaping Lowcountry life and what people are doing about it. From ABC News 4…
Treefall. Global forest loss broke records in 2024, with nearly twice the primary tropical forest lost in 2024 than in 2023. In Latin America, the loss is especially severe, where lax environmental governance and chronic drought, fueled in part by climate change, have fanned the flames. By Benjamin Swift for The Guardian…
Cholera in the time of climate change. Across East Africa, unseasonable rains and years of unprecedented flooding, both linked to climate change, are colliding with limited sanitation and healthcare infrastructures — especially in poorer, often crowded communities — to “[create] ideal conditions for cholera bacteria to thrive.” This has led to outbreaks of the disease, including one that’s especially severe in South Sudan. By Ruth Munyi for Kenya’s Daily Nation…
Case dismissed. A German court has dismissed the high-profile case, first brought nearly a decade ago, of a Peruvian farmer seeking to hold energy giant RWE accountable for damage from glacial melt in his home village. The court ruled that damage to Saul Luciano Lluiya’s was insufficient to qualify for damages against energy firm RWE — but added that companies can legally be held accountable for such damage in the future, which Lluiya’s lawyer said would “give a tailwind” to similar lawsuits. By Louise Osborne for Deutsche Welle…
Quote of the Week
“The longer we go without these programs, the more risk will accrue to [American] communities and the nation. And soon enough, we’ll all bear the consequences.”
– Daniel Kaniewski, FEMA’s acting deputy administrator during the first Trump administration,
regarding ongoing cuts to extreme weather preparedness programs
Dispatch #6 from the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation
For the next few months, we’ll periodically share standout insights from the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, a collaboration between CCNow and the Solutions Journalism Network. This is the sixth.
While climate change is a scientific phenomenon, its impacts are profoundly human. Omaya Sosa Pascual, the editor and co-founder of Puerto Rico’s Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, continues to experience this firsthand as Puerto Rico’s climate issues worsen. Living through climate impacts has helped Pascual understand how journalists might better convey this climate reality in a way that prioritizes people alongside science.
That means gaining a deep understanding of how a place is changing over time, understanding what locals consider to be a climate impact and exploring how climate intersects with other issues like the economy. That also creates an opening to cover what is helping to address these issues — either where you’re reporting from, or elsewhere.
“Human stories can tell the real struggle,” Pascual writes, “and point to real solutions.”
Jobs, Opportunities, Etc.
Mother Jones is hiring three editorial positions: assistant editor, assistant producer, and digital producer (San Francisco, Calif.). Sierra Magazine is hiring an editorial fellow (Oakland, Calif., or remote). Inside Climate News is hiring part-time fellows for their fall 2025 program (New York).
Green Queen Media is accepting applications for the Climate Feed Fellowship, which “aims to empower six emerging journalists” with writing opportunities, mentorship, professional connections, and more. The fellowship is part of Climate Feed, “a new initiative focused on helping reporters better understand and communicate the vital link between food and climate change.” Learn more and apply by June 20.
USC Annenberg is accepting applications for the Health and Climate Change Reporting Fellowship, which “supports ambitious investigative or explanatory projects about health [physical, mental, or both] in the context of wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, extreme heat, and other disastrous impacts of climate change.” Learn more and apply by September 3.
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