Reality of the road ahead

As 2025 winds down, it seems nuclear energy in the U.S. is now well on its way toward a renaissance, or resurgence, or whatever optimistic term you may use in your daily conversations.

New reactor designs, projects, and partnerships are being announced on a near-weekly basis; valuations of publicly traded nuclear companies are hovering near all-time highs; and AI's thirst for reliable, clean electricity remains largely unquenched. The overall investment climate for nuclear energy has thawed dramatically. These days, it seems everyone from big Wall Street banks to individual investors is trying to get a piece of the nuclear action.

It's the perfect time to talk about failure.

Yes, I know "nuclear failure" is not a topic on which we in the nuclear community like to dwell. For those of a certain age, it brings back bad memories of events beyond our control that shifted the trajectory of companies, careers, and lives for decades.

But talking about it is a necessary exercise. The sheer number of advanced fission and fusion companies in the industry today strongly suggests some level of consolidation in the years ahead. Even if few of us are willing to utter it in public, we all know the reality: there will be a thinning of the herd.

As a professional community, however, we cannot allow individual failures that accompany a consolidation phase to overshadow the larger picture of success. Indeed, these losses are likely to be an inseparable part of a bigger win for nuclear. Across business history, failed companies have often been the source of both innovation and workforce that nurtured the ultimate winners. We wouldn't have today's Internet without Netscape, the iPhone without General Magic, Spotify without Napster. We must find a way to get comfortable talking about failure, both as a community and as individuals.

Admiral James Stockdale, the senior U.S. Navy officer held as a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton, put it this way: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end-which you can never afford to lose-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

In these pages, you will find the Nuclear News "40 Under 40" list for 2025. As I have mentioned many times before in this space, the U.S. nuclear workforce is amid a demographic tectonic shift. The silver tsunami of retirements is washing through the nuclear industry, while a new generation of young leaders is rising. Their work will ultimately determine whether the frothy nuclear expectations of today will be realized in the decades to come.

They deserve some room to "cook" without the paralysis that comes from too much fear of failure. And the rest of us need to be ready to defend the mundane failures that will inevitably bedevil this still-fledgling industry.