Inside the Effort to Reboot America’s Nuclear Energy Program
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Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Monday, June 16th. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal. America's nuclear energy program has been supercharged by a recent and unprecedented influx of private funding, enthusiasm from the Trump administration, and an AI race with China. We'll dive into how that reboot is progressing.

Then, a companion that comforts, jokes, and reminds residents at a New York senior living community about their next bingo game. She's just a phone call away, but she's not human. But first, it's no secret that President Trump is a big fan of nuclear power. It's a...

hot industry. It's a brilliant industry. You have to do it right. It's become very safe and environmental, yes, 100 percent. His goal, as the White House put it, is to usher in a nuclear energy renaissance, and he's signed a number of key executive orders aimed at accelerating advanced nuclear technologies.

The president's interest is fueled in part by America's advanced AI race with China, and that requires city-sized amounts of power, and low-carbon energy sources, like nuclear, are the preferred choice. WSJ Tech and national security reporter Heather Somerville writes about a company called Standard Nuclear, which is trying to power up America's next nuclear era. Heather, tell us about Standard Nuclear. What is it doing, and what potentially is game-changing about it? Standard Nuclear

Standard nuclear is developing fuel for small, modern nuclear reactors.

it's developing a fuel that's called triso fuel. And it's a particular type of fuel where the enriched uranium is coated in these ceramic materials that keep all the nuclear matter inside. So basically the point is it's extremely safe. And so Standard Nuclear is a company that is the only standalone triso fuel maker in the United States and the largest in terms of its capacity.

outside of China. So it is trying to become a powerful force in developing China's

the fuel to power modern nuclear reactors for the United States. And we know that this is a big focus for the Trump administration, but you write that the nuclear reboot is risky. Why is that? Well, nuclear has always been problematic throughout history for a number of reasons. Of course, decades back, there were numerous safety disasters. Those have been

pretty much been addressed in the new engineering and designs of these modern reactors. We don't expect there to be the same sort of meltdowns or anything near what the world experienced when you think of the most awful nuclear disasters of the past.

But each time there has been a safety mishap in nuclear, the entire industry has basically shut down. Nobody wanted to invest in it. Nobody wanted to further the technology for fear of public backlash. And in addition, nuclear power is super expensive.

Old-fashioned fossil fuels are cheap by comparison. So nuclear power projects have often been plagued with cost overruns, huge delays in getting up and running. And those things combined have meant that prior efforts to reboot the American nuclear power industry, and there have been several in the past, have fallen flat.

And so while entrepreneurs and investors and nuclear power enthusiasts are adamant that this time it's different, we do have to wait and see. And I want to dig into that a little bit more because you mentioned in your piece that China has emerged as...

the United States' biggest competitor in this sphere. And you also quote the U.S. Interior Secretary in April who said, we can't allow ourselves to lose the AI arms race with China, but first we have to win the power race. So how is the U.S. faring in this race with China?

Currently, the U.S. can still produce more nuclear power than China. That's the good news. In all other respects, we're basically behind. China has accelerated the building of reactors, the development of fuel systems.

It's about to catch up with Russia in the near term on enriching uranium. So the U.S. is quite threatened by this, and it all comes down to artificial intelligence as well as military superiority. The Defense Department wants nuclear power, modular, mobile, resistant reactors to power bases and to use to power troops and logistics in the case of a conflict, because China has that.

And then, of course, the development of AI requires just huge amounts of power. So if China can accelerate and be successful in the development of its nuclear power industry, it, as a result, will be very successful in the development of AI. And you mentioned funding a bit earlier. That's a big challenge, especially for startups in the U.S. in this space. Walk us through who's stepping into that void. One unique challenge.

of this particular nuclear power renaissance that we're in is the involvement of private capital, private equity, and especially venture capitalists.

Since 2021, venture capitalists have invested about $2.5 billion in U.S. nuclear power projects. If you have any experience with venture capitalists, they have traditionally avoided regulatory-intense projects, capital-intense projects that need a lot of money up front before they can make money, and very complicated hardware and technology

businesses that rely a lot on government involvement. This has not been a space for venture capital. We are seeing a huge exception here. And the other thing is a lot of these smaller reactors and these new projects that are coming online in nuclear don't need the same amount of money that the big old reactors had of prior decades. So it is more feasible for venture capitalists

to support them in their initial years as they're getting their research and development underway. That's new, and that's a pretty powerful thing. That was Heather Somerville, who covers tech and national security for The Journal. Coming up, seniors looking to feel less lonely find comfort in a caller that always listens and never judges. We'll introduce you to Mila after the break. ♪

Free your team from time-consuming tasks with Amazon Business. Our smart buying tools help leaders streamline purchasing and empower teams to focus on strategy and growth. Discover how to boost efficiency and support your team's future at AmazonBusiness.com. Phone calls with an empathetic listener can help older adults feel less alone and improve mental health. But a friendly voice isn't always an option for people who don't have access to family and friends.

Enter Mila. WSJ family and tech columnist Julie Jargon met with residents of a senior living community in Riverdale, in the Bronx section of New York City, who have been chatting with Mila recently. But not all is as it seems. Julie, tell us about Mila. Mila is an AI companion, and this company that created her cloned the voice of a voice actress and then used that to have a conversational chatbot.

Yeah.

to see if talking to an AI companion could help alleviate loneliness in a senior living community and also decrease depression and anxiety. And did those conversations with Mila do what they intended to do? So the company that created Mila partnered with this senior living community to do a pilot test. And it was a small study with just 23 residents to begin with. But

But the results were very promising. The people who participated and who had had moderate to severe depression prior to speaking with Mila showed a very big improvement in their level of depression and anxiety following speaking with Mila for a period of 30 days. And one of the residents who had these conversations with Mila, his name is Marvin Marcus, and he's 83 years old. I know you're a big reader. Have you picked up any good books lately?

No, actually I've been falling behind on not only books but magazines. I have a nice little pile of magazines I have to catch up on. But it's one of the things I always say I'm going to do and just spend a lot of time

Getting all my stuff together. Oh, I completely understand that, Marvin. So Julie, tell us more about how that conversation went and how did Marvin feel about talking with an AI?

He said that he found it really helpful because he likes to talk about sports. He's a huge Yankees fan. And he said that when he talks to fellow residents in the senior living community, their eyes glaze over after a while. So he enjoys talking to Mila because she's trained on all sorts of things and she knows baseball and she knows current events. So she can have a conversation with him. And she's also very empathetic. And so she will listen to him where other people might not be so patient.

And how does Mila walk the fine line between validating residents' feelings and offering medical advice or even advice on other things like financial or legal matters? Yeah, so she is trained not to provide any financial or legal or medical advice. She is not a therapist, but she is trained in some methods of cognitive behavioral therapy, so she will validate things.

the feelings of the people she's speaking with and try to steer them towards something positive, a solution to a problem, encourage them to interact socially with other people. But yeah, she's not there to provide any sort of medical advice or treatment. So this was a pilot program. What is next for Mila and other technology like her? Well, at this particular senior living community, they're going to expand their test and include a larger number of residents. The folks at Mila are also going to try to introduce her to other senior living communities to try out.

And they're also in the process of offering it as a direct-to-consumer service where people can pay some sort of subscription anywhere in the country to receive calls or call Mila. That was Julie Jargon, WSJ's family and tech columnist. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Victoria Craig for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

Free your team from time-consuming tasks with Amazon Business. Our smart buying tools help leaders streamline purchasing and empower teams to focus on strategy and growth. Discover how to boost efficiency and support your team's future at AmazonBusiness.com.