U.S. nuclear supply chain: Ready for liftoff

This month, September 8-11, the American Nuclear Society is teaming up with the Nuclear Energy Institute to host our first-ever Nuclear Energy Conference and Expo-NECX for short-in Atlanta. This new meeting combines ANS's Utility Working Conference and NEI's Nuclear Energy Assembly to form what NEI CEO Maria Korsnick and I hope will be the premier nuclear industry gathering in America.

We did this because after more than four decades of relative stagnation, the U.S. nuclear supply chain is finally entering a new era of dynamic growth. This resurgence is being driven by several powerful and increasingly durable forces: the explosive demand for electricity from artificial intelligence and data centers, an unprecedented wave of public and private acceptance of-and investment in-advanced nuclear technologies, and a strong market signal for reliable, on-demand power. Add the recent Trump administration executive orders on nuclear into the mix, and you have all the makings of an accelerant-rich business environment primed for rapid expansion.

Additionally, while climate change may have faded from the forefront of political discourse in the U.S., it remains a powerful motivator in long-term energy investment decision-making across the globe. As the recent blackout in Spain demonstrates, heavy reliance on renewables without a foundation of firm, dispatchable generation is not a recipe for success in the quest for net zero. As a result, nuclear energy is increasingly being recognized as a vital component of grid stability in the lower-carbon world of the future.

For nuclear suppliers, these combined forces create a set of "winner's problems." How will suppliers and financers align and optimize their capital investments with the overall nuclear development "speedometer"? How will nuclear companies of all stripes prepare for a massive expansion of the workforce, which will require thousands of lateral hires from other industries-all of whom will need to be able to "understand nuclear" in some basic form? How will we make the jump from prototypes to full order books, then to cranking out finished products on a monthly or weekly basis like other successful, mature industry sectors?

These questions don't get answered in dry technical papers or in cloistered, industry-­only fora where we talk to ourselves. Today's nuclear enterprise demands a rich ecosystem of makers, buyers, sellers, funders, and regulators, which is exactly what we hope you will find in the exhibit hall and meeting rooms of NECX.

Most U.S. industrial sectors have their "can't-miss" conferences of the year: the consumer electronics industry has CES, vehicle manufacturers and suppliers have the North American International Auto Show, the telecommunications and wireless industry has the Mobile World Congress. These are the places where new announcements are made, successes are celebrated, and failures analyzed and put into context. These are where industry veterans rub shoulders with new entrants and the industry-curious, and where relationships old and new are nurtured.

It's time that we in the U.S. nuclear industry had one of our own.