World Nuclear Association Outlook Report (USA and China)
The United States, along with 38 other nations, pledged in November 2024 to triple nuclear energy by 2050. President Trump’s May 2025 Executive Order 14302, “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base,” expanded that goal to quadrupling American nuclear energy generation to 400GW by 2050. According to Department of Energy estimates, this would require adding 35 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2035 alone. Then the country would need to add almost 25 GW of new nuclear power per year in each of the following fifteen years.
The United States currently has 94 operating reactors with a net capacity of 97 GW, constituting about 18% of total electricity generation. The U.S. also is working to facilitate 5GW of power uprates across the existing nuclear fleet and resurrecting mothballed reactors in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Iowa that would add another 2.25 GW of nuclear energy this decade.
The Executive Order identified a goal of having 10 new large reactors under construction by 2030. At present, no new licensed power reactors are under construction in the U.S. However, construction licenses have been issued for TerraPower’s Natrium reactor in Wyoming and Kairos’ Hermes reactors I and II in Tennessee. Natrium is a 345 MW solium-cooled fast reactor. The Hermes II reactor is a 50 MW fluoride salt-cooled High Temperature Reactor. The Hermes I low-power demonstration reactor will precede it in development.
By contrast, China did not commit to the tripling of nuclear power by 2050 until March 2026. Its goal is to have 335 GW of nuclear power operational by 2050. It currently has 60 operating reactors, with a gross capacity of about 60 GW, constituting about 4% of total electricity generated. An additional 35 licensed reactors are currently under construction and are projected to add an additional 38 GW. China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), published in March 2026, targets 110 GW of nuclear capacity by 2030. If this target is achieved, China would surpass the U.S., becoming the world’s largest generator of nuclear power.
This month, the Chairman of the China Nuclear Energy Association said that China’s installed nuclear power capacity is expected to reach 200GWe by 2040. Another study by the China Nuclear Power Development Center, a research institute under the National Energy Administration, stated that China’s nuclear capacity could reach 335 GW by 2050.
Cate Donovan, Della Ratta Fellow, Partnership for Global Security
