Asia is the fastest growing region for nuclear energy production, and the most consequential for major-power competition.
If the United States wants to shape nuclear standards, supply chains, and strategic alignments to its liking and gain markets, it must engage Asia now before China and Russia lock in dominance. Doing so isn’t just smart energy policy; it’s a strategic necessity.
Asia is driving nearly all global nuclear expansion. Some 80-85% of all reactors under construction worldwide are in the region, and most of the reactors built in the past decade were Asian projects. Demand is rising in long-established markets: China, India, Russia, South Korea, and Japan. But countries in South and Southeast Asia are also considering going nuclear, and some have taken steps in that direction, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
Four motivations are powering this nuclear renaissance. First, soaring electricity needs due to the increased electrification of transport, heating, and industry, the rise of data centers, artificial intelligence, crypto mining, and population growth and urbanization. Over half of global electricity demand comes from Asia today, and an additional 85% is expected through 2030, so Asian countries see nuclear power as a solution to such needs.
Second, Asian countries, notably newcomers, want to take advantage of small modular reactors, microreactors, and advanced reactors. These new technologies offer considerable benefits: lower capital cost and investment risk than traditional nuclear power plants, greater grid flexibility, adaptability, and resilience, and enhanced safety and security features.
Third, Asian countries believe that nuclear power can help them transition towards a greener economy in the context of rapid climate change. That’s because nuclear power provides reliable, zero-carbon baseload and can work in tandem with other forms of (renewable) energy.
Fourth, Asian countries want energy options that enhance their autonomy. Given rising geopolitical tensions, many seek to reduce vulnerabilities, such as potential disruptions in energy supplies caused by a U.S.-China crisis or conflict, and they see nuclear power useful in this regard.
The result is that nuclear power is becoming a domain of competition between the United States and China, but also with Russia, another major U.S. rival and longtime heavyweight in the nuclear industry. There is competition for nuclear exports, setting nuclear technology standards and governance principles, and exerting broader civil nuclear influence in Asia and beyond.
The administration of Donald Trump is well-aware of these dynamics, and its renewed commitment to nuclear power helps position the United States for success.
Unveiled last May, Trump’s policy emphasizes rapid expansion of domestic nuclear capacity, fast-track licensing, development of advanced reactors, microreactors, and small modular reactors, and rebuilding the U.S. nuclear industrial base. It also stresses the role of nuclear power for energy independence and in national security applications, from defense infrastructure to space systems.
These measures provide a foundation for U.S. engagement of Asia, as a robust U.S. nuclear industry is a prerequisite for influence. By strengthening its domestic nuclear sector, the United States can offer competitive exports, provide reliable fuel, and shape nuclear norms in emerging markets.
The Trump administration has already signed agreements to foster nuclear cooperation with several regional countries. In October, for example, it signed two with Singapore to work on feasibility, research and development, and capacity-building related to new nuclear technologies.
There are challenges, however. The Trump administration focuses on domestic deployment, licensing, and innovation but less on competitive export financing, regional fuel-supply partnerships, and engagement of regional allies and potential clients. It thus risks ceding influence to China and Russia, which push state-backed projects that come with financing, turnkey construction, and supply-chain assurances. Moreover, the administration has yet to integrate safeguards, workforce development, and industrial partnerships into a coherent regional strategy.
So, to capitalize fully on the Asian nuclear boom, the Trump administration should adapt its approach. As a first step, it should ensure that U.S. firms have access to government-backed loans, export-credit guarantees, and insurance to compete with the low-cost, state-financed Chinese and Russian offers.
The administration should also build a nuclear fuel consortium with its closest allies¾Japan, South Korea, and Australia. That consortium should include joint enrichment facilities, long-term fuel contracts, and coordinated uranium supply chains, presenting Asian countries with alternatives to Chinese or Russian proposals. Offering “take-back” options of spent nuclear fuel (or high-level waste) would be judicious given current Russian dominance in this area.
Another step should be providing integrated small-modular-reactor and microreactor packages. U.S. exports should go beyond reactor hardware and include training, maintenance, safety oversight, and long-term operational support, ensuring reliability and building local trust.
Moreover, the administration should go beyond engaging regional countries bilaterally. It should coordinate and leverage its ties with Japan, South Korea, and India and engage Southeast Asian countries using both bilateral and multilateral tracks to form greater cohesion among its partners. U.S. nuclear diplomacy should also be paired with clear nonproliferation requirements, and export approvals should be streamlined with international safeguards.
Finally, the administration should form partnerships with Asian countries to train nuclear engineers and operators, and ensure that nuclear deals highlight ancillary benefits, such as grid resilience, energy security, and support for high-energy applications, be it semiconductor fabrication, artificial intelligence clusters, and space operations.
Taken together, these steps will help the Trump administration transform nuclear power from a domestic priority into a strategic lever, shaping Asia in a way that advances U.S. interests for decades to come.
Dr. David Santoro is President and CEO of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
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China wants to colonize Australia, make it a Sino resource colony.
Largest global uranium reserves by a mile.
it’s a no brain-required answer to the long term energy question.
If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to contact it and return to comment text.
A lever? “Shaping” Asia to advance US interests?
Good luck with that, if the 4.8 billion Asians object to being “shaped” by the US. Maybe someone’s got delusions of grandeur?
China, perhaps?
We know that the only long-term feasible energy source for all primary energy is nuclear; not just the one third for power generation that low information people are focused on.
We also know that because of sophisticated and well financed nuclear opposition, especially here in America, that legacy long construction time mega-scale nuclear is too vulnerable to tested and proven delay tactics.
We urgently need an assembly line factory to annually produce at least 100 each, <100 MW cookie cutter identical SMR’s that are transported to the job site on semi-trailers for plug and play.
NuScale Power has a 77 MW NRC design approved small scale modular system and has a handful of reactors currently being forged in South Korea. We need to start manufacturing them in America.
The Administration needs to incentivize a team of major corporations to build an SMR factory here in the US and have it well underway prior to the next presidential election in case the sunshine and breezes Party wins.
Timing is of the essence, if America doesn’t do it now China will once again dominate another manufacturing sector. We must end the self-inflicted damage to our economy.
Who “we” paleface?
Nuclear is THE most expensive way to produce dispatchable electricity, which is why those past and present projects have been built with taxpayer cash and require guaranteed above market wholesale rates.
The most expensive? No. The most expensive way to produce and deliver electricity is wind and solar and they cannot produce dispatchable electricity at all. They force dispatchable producers to operate at variable and intermittent, thus very expensive, loads. Wind and solar require taxpayer cash, guaranteed prices (in some cases where they can’t produce anything at all) and above market rates guaranteed by the Government. Warren Buffet has often pointed out that they make no sense without such Government taxpayer support.
Define expensive?
What are the cost factors?
“projects have been built with taxpayer cash and require guaranteed above market wholesale rates.”
Where did this happen? I worked at a nuclear plant under construction in the U.S. and all of the funding eventually came from the customers. And the power sales (once it got finished) got the same return as all of the other bidders into the market. No above market rates.
That nuclear is expansive is due to the nuclear establishment itself and would remain so till the nuclear establishment is reformed wholesale. But this prospect is extremely unlikely.
So nuclear will NOT be competitive in West and even in India. Solar is much cheaper though land-hungry,.
These Asian projects are subsidised by taxpayers. If you tax more, you get less. Taxation to subsidise what clearly is too high risk for private capital because if offer too little reward, reduces economic activity and makes the population poorer.
Now the USA should use its tax payers money, making them poorer to benefit… who/what exactly?
Economic illiteracy is rife.
If only… the whole Net Zero nonsense were abandoned and focus return to what made the world unimaginably richer in the first place – cheap, abundant fossil fuels.
Nuclear has a place as does hydro-electric.
SV and WTG are niche applications, not totally useless except at grid scale.
Carbon fuels are good. Note, fossil fuel is a name created nearly 200 years ago to help inflate the price of oil. Oil, gas, and coal are not fossils.
The reason nuclear is expansive has to do with a host of unreasonable regulations hoisted by the NRC. It will remain so till NRC is reformed. Throwing taxpayer money doesn’t make it economical.
“These new technologies offer considerable benefits: lower capital cost and investment risk than traditional nuclear power plants, greater grid flexibility, adaptability, and resilience, and enhanced safety and security features”
Whether any of the offered benefits are realized has yet to be proven. NUSCALE tried to build a group of their SMRs(of a proven water-cooled design) in Idaho but the project failed because the company could not offer electricity from the machines at a price the local utilities would accept. Whether a dozen or so SMRs is cheaper to build and operate than one large conventional reactor of equal power output is unclear. Proponents like to say so, but if smaller is better, then why not get rid of all large city busses and replace them with Ford Fiestas? How many reactor operator teams are necessary to run a bunch of SMRs? If a valve or pump or sensor fails in one (and things like that will surely happen) then it’s not just one failure but a bunch of failures that have to be fixed. Many proponents are advocating SMRs cooled by liquid salt, liquid sodium or perhaps even liquid lead as the Soviets tried, unsuccessfully. Such non-water or gas coolants have corrosion issues and with sodium, flammability issues which have caused all sorts of problems where the have been tried. Some proponents are even advocating homogeneous reactors where the fuel is mixed with the coolant and circulated throughout the plant making the plant(s) essentially unfixable because of unbelievably high radiation levels.
How many of the SMRs on offer will actually work as “offered.” Any at all? We shall see it seems.
There are instances when federated/centralized works better than distributed.
The converse is also true.
There will be places when the traditional nuclear power generating facility is more optimum than modular and the converse is also true.
There is no one side fits all.
Your real point is, we will not know until we see it. Paper design is not reality.
Nuscale reactors are proven by decades of successful operation because the core technology is essentially the same as other water-cooled light water pressurized systems but with passive cooling. In the event of a major operational upset the reactor gets cool instead of hotter.
The reactor is simply reduced in size to enable one NRC design approval fits all, factory assembled, cookie cutter identical, semi-trailer delivered reactors for plug and play. Economy of scale comes from standardized repetitive manufacturing and large sales volume instead of large reactor size.
The reactors are delivered to the jobsite, lowered into pre-built below grade vaults and within a year or so, instead of a decade or so, ready for operation. This puts nuclear on an equal construction time frame with wind and solar but with most of all dispatchability, and also 3x longer life cycle, and 3x higher capacity factor, plus unlike W&S affordable storage capability. The high exothermic nuclear reaction can heat molten salt sufficiently to enable heat storage for later additional steam raising.
Eventually, because of lower fuel cost, even CCGT will struggle to compete with SMR, it can’t miss. The only question is who will lead the inevitable energy future, China or the U.S. We’ll know in less than 5 years, don’t doubt it.
We urgently need an assembly line factory to annually produce at least 100 each, <100 MW cookie cutter identical SMR’s that are transported to the job site on semi-trailers for plug and play
.
NuScale Power has a 77 MW NRC design approved small scale modular system and has a handful of reactors currently being forged in South Korea. We need to start manufacturing them in America.
Thanks David Santoro. I’m a nuclear manufacturing engineer. I can categorically say that the US government knows perfectly well how to build SMRs on assembly line in production lots of 10 or more at a time. I did this for several years in a plant with multiple lines building 3 different PWR designs simultaneously and shipping same out the door on rail cars All these units have been operating in submarines and aircraft carriers.for decades with operators living within yards of the highly enriched cores. These operators and shipyard workers have been studied longitudinally showing significantly better health than the general population to all cause mortality and all forms of cancers. Ref Radiation and Reason, author oncologist Wade Allison. USA still has the design expertise to build SMRs and the companies and supply chain building these military small reactors does exist. There is no practical reason this vertically integrated chain can’t be replicated with newly educated engineers if the government wanted to do so at naval shipyards already equipped with the skilled manufacturing trades like welders and automation. The largest hurdle is agreeing on a standard design, build and test some now with the supply chain you envision and do this before China and Russia conquer Asia and Africa using extremely green nuclear power. DoE and DoD can do this under the current administration but unlikely if the next administration flip flops with antinuclear activism and gullible grifters betting on intermittent higher cost solar and wind.
The reason the US should be developing and building nuclear power is because it works, is not a danger to the grid, has a small footprint, is clean and safe and will become more affordable. CAGW is not an issue therefore it is not a consideration. I would caution against rushing in and making promises to other nations when we are still developing some of this stuff. Let’s not be the first to do the wrong thing. Slow down build the things we know how to build, move forward with the things we are learning how to build, show the world we know what we are doing and can do it better than anyone else and they will come to us. Rush to the market with crap and end up looking like the wind, solar, storage and EV stooges.