The Department of Energy's conditional loan package targets ten new reactors as data centers and crypto miners compete for reliable baseload power
The US government just committed up to $17.5 billion in conditional loans to build ten new nuclear reactors across five separate projects. The announcement, made on June 23 by the Department of Energy, is the most aggressive federal push for nuclear power in decades, and it has implications that stretch well beyond the traditional energy sector.
Ten reactors, five projects, one very big bet #
Each of the five projects will construct two Westinghouse-designed AP1000 reactors, with construction expected to begin by 2030. The AP1000 is not some experimental design on a whiteboard. It’s an established large-scale reactor platform, which is precisely why the DOE chose it as the backbone of this initiative.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright framed the loans as low-risk for taxpayers while positioning the program as central to what he called “unleashing the next American nuclear renaissance.” The conditional structure means the money flows only as projects hit milestones, a mechanism designed to prevent the kind of cost overruns that plagued earlier nuclear builds like the Vogtle expansion in Georgia.
A key part of the program targets long-lead-time components in the nuclear supply chain. In English: the specialized parts that take years to manufacture, things like reactor pressure vessels and steam generators, need orders placed now if reactors are going to be operational in the early 2030s. The US largely offshored this manufacturing capacity over the past two decades, and rebuilding it domestically is arguably as important as the reactors themselves.
The initiative builds on executive orders Trump issued in 2025 that streamlined permitting for nuclear projects. Those orders cut through regulatory timelines that had previously made building a new reactor in the US a multi-decade odyssey.
Why crypto miners should be paying attention #
Nuclear power produces carbon-free baseload electricity around the clock, typically at capacity factors above 90%, meaning the plants generate power more than 90% of the time they’re operational.
Crypto miners have been gravitating toward nuclear-adjacent locations for years. TeraWulf operates a Bitcoin mining facility powered by the Nautilus Cryptomine at the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. Marathon Digital and other large miners have explored similar arrangements. The logic is straightforward: mining profitability is fundamentally an energy arbitrage game, and nuclear offers some of the lowest and most predictable marginal costs of any power source.
The country currently operates around 93 commercial reactors. Adding ten more would increase that fleet by roughly 11%. Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving cut block rewards to 3.125 BTC, making energy costs an even larger percentage of miners’ operating expenses.
What this means for investors #
Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have all signed or explored nuclear power deals for their data center operations. There’s also a secondary play in the nuclear supply chain itself. Companies manufacturing reactor components, providing enrichment services, or supplying uranium fuel could see sustained demand growth as this program moves from conditional loans to active construction. Uranium spot prices have already been elevated relative to historical norms, and a credible commitment to build ten new reactors only tightens the supply-demand equation for nuclear fuel.
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