Thanks for supporting Marketplace this Giving Tuesday. If you missed it - you can still contribute to powering public media! Donate Now!

Bill Gates’ nuclear project breaks ground, marking a new chapter for a struggling Wyoming coal town

Jun 20, 2024
Construction began on the first-of-its-kind nuclear power plant. So far, a coal town in southwest Wyoming is seeing a boost.
Multibillionaire Bill Gates speaks to a crowd at his nuclear company’s groundbreaking near Kemmerer, Wyoming.
Caitlin Tan/Wyoming Public Media

New Georgia reactor is a test case for nuclear power

Jul 31, 2023
Advocates call nuclear power essential to a carbon-free future. But the project took much longer, and cost much more, than planned.
Unit 3, left, of the Plant Vogtle nuclear power station. The reactor began generating energy Monday.
© 2023 Georgia Power Co.

It should be a golden moment for renewable energy. It's not.

Apr 22, 2022
Solar, wind and nuclear energy confront old and new obstacles to competing with fossil fuels.
The trade war between the U.S. and China is causing solar projects to get delayed or canceled. 
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

NuScale, compact nuclear plant developer, plans to go public

Jan 12, 2022
The company has created a modular design it says makes financial sense. Though carbon-free, nuclear remains controversial.
An artist’s rendering of a NuScale Power nuclear facility. Though the energy source is carbon-free, accidents like the disaster at Fukushima, Japan, have diminished its popularity.
Courtesy NuScale Power

Aero engine-maker Rolls-Royce prepares to take off after grounding by COVID

Oct 13, 2021
How a British manufacturer is hoping for a major boost from U.S. bombers, Australian submarines and mini nuclear reactors.
Workers stand next to a Rolls-Royce aircraft engine on a passenger plane at Tokyo's Haneda airport in January. The British company secured a $2.5 billion deal to supply 650 engines for the U.S. Air Force’s B52 bombers.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

Pennsylvania weighs nuclear subsidies after Three Mile Island

May 20, 2019
The nuclear power plant will be "retired" at the end of September, but the state wants to support the four remaining plants.
Steam rises out of the nuclear plant on Three Mile Island  in Middletown, Pennsylvania on March 26, 2019.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images

Could nuclear power play a major role in reversing climate change?

Nov 9, 2018
MIT Energy Initiative's study finds surprising reasons behind the high cost of building nuclear power plants.
The Exelon Byron Nuclear Generating Stations run at full capacity in 2007 in Byron, Illinois.
Jeff Haynes/AFP/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

U.S. officials tout cleaner fossil fuels, nuclear power at international talks

Nov 14, 2017
At the United Nations climate talks in Germany, White House officials are talking about plans to make fossil fuels cleaner or more efficient, and to expand nuclear power, as approaches to reducing emissions. While the rest of the world may be more into discussing renewable energy, the focus of the current U.S. delegation would reduce […]

Nuclear energy firm Westinghouse files for bankruptcy

Mar 29, 2017
Westinghouse Electric Company, the nuclear energy firm based in Pittsburgh, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Wednesday. Westinghouse is owned by the Japanese company Toshiba and has been running several years late and billions of dollars over budget in its construction on several nuclear reactors in the southern United States.  Click the above audio player to […]

Britain mulls Chinese investment in nuclear station

Sep 14, 2016
Objections are mounting to Chinese involvement in a large nuclear power station.
The sun sets behind Electricite de France SA's (EDF) Hinkley Point B nuclear power station besides the Bristol Channel near Bridgwater on November 12, 2013 in Somerset, England. 

 
Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images