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Nuclear's moment is here

6 0
30.03.2026

Nuclear's moment is here

It's an all-hands-on-deck moment for electricity. That means nuclear, long dismissed as too expensive and too slow, is back in the mix

Luo Yunfei/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s members-only Weekend Brief newsletter. Quartz members get access to exclusive newsletters and more. Sign up here.

Every source of new electricity generation is constrained right now. Solar panels require silicon, and supply has limits. Wind turbines have lead times measured in years. Gas turbines are backlogged. Grid connection queues were already running years long before AI data centers started driving power demand to levels that have caught utilities flat-footed.

The result is something like an all-hands-on-deck moment for electricity. That means nuclear, long dismissed as too expensive and too slow, is back in the mix.

Microsoft $MSFT signed a deal to restart Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, the site of America's worst commercial nuclear accident in 1979. Meta $META struck agreements with TerraPower, a Bill Gates-backed reactor developer, and Oklo, a small modular reactor startup backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman, plus a 20-year purchase deal for power from existing plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Google $GOOGL is backing the reopening of a shuttered Iowa plant through........

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