How America Learned to Love Nuclear Again

Author: Ryan Hassan (Pirate Wires) URL: https://piratewires.substack.com/p/how-america-learned-to-love-nuclear One-line: The untold story of how President Trump, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and DOGE turned America’s nuclear power industry back on. In thirteen months, a team of fewer than 40 government employees took the country from no new test reactors to four startup designs going critical in the Idaho desert.

[PARTIAL] This capture is the free email preview only. It ends right after the line “Exclusively, here, the story of how America learned to love nuclear again.” At that point the email reads “This is an article preview” and links out to piratewires.com. None of the reporting on how the administration, Chris Wright or DOGE did it is in this capture. The key claims below cover only the preview’s framing.

Key claims

• America’s first nuclear age started in Idaho almost 75 years ago. Four light bulbs were lit with a nuclear reaction “among the windswept sand of the Idaho desert.” In the following decades nuclear was hailed as clean, cheap energy, and new designs made reactors cheaper and safer.
• Then the country stopped. After the early decades of innovation, America “lost our innovator spirit in the dunes.”
• June 4, 2026 was the encore. In the same Idaho desert, the nuclear startup Antares took its Mark-0 reactor critical, meaning the fission chain reaction sustained itself without outside help. The piece calls this “a proof of life: a test, showing that a reactor works.”
• Three more companies followed by July 4. Four startup reactor designs went critical within about a month.
• Fewer than 40 government employees turned it around. Thirteen months before, this “seemed like an impossibility.” The subtitle credits Donald Trump, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and DOGE. How they did it is behind the paywall.

Notable quotes

“Nearly 75 years ago, among the windswept sand of the Idaho desert, America turned on four light bulbs with a nuclear reaction, beginning the (first) age of nuclear energy in America.”

“Then, we just stopped. We lost our innovator spirit in the dunes.”

“Once that nuclear fission reaction can sustain itself without external help, the reactor ‘goes critical.’”

“It’s a proof of life: a test, showing that a reactor works. Three more companies took reactor designs critical by July 4th.”

“Thirteen months ago, this seemed like an impossibility — but thanks to the efforts of less than 40 government employees, we turned the tide.”

How it connects

• Nuclear Energy — the main subject. The piece is a policy narrative about the political and regulatory shifts that brought back US nuclear development.
• Pirate Wires — the publication. It covers the political economy of technology and energy.
• Donald Trump / Chris Wright — named in the subtitle as the officials behind the turnaround, alongside DOGE.
• Energy Policy / Energy — the turnaround is an energy-policy story: a small team inside government changed what was possible in thirteen months.
• Regulation — the implied counterfactual is that decades of stalled reactor development were a policy choice that could be reversed.
• It’s Time To Build — Andreessen’s manifesto called for building thousands of reactors; this piece reports the first startup reactors actually going critical.
• Abundance — the preview’s story is that a stall which lasted decades ended once a few people in government decided to build.
• What Is So Hard About Behind-The-Meter Power for Datacenters Part 1 — a companion read on the demand side: datacenters are building their own generation and can’t wait for utilities.