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Wyoming, Utah and Idaho push for nuclear energy renaissance – Idaho National Laboratory
September 29, 2025/
A couple hundred nuclear energy industry officials, along with two western state governors, a Trump administration official and the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, gathered Monday at the Idaho National Laboratory’s sprawling 890-square-mile testing center to discuss nuclear power’s future in the West.
“This is what an abundance mentality is all about,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in his opening remarks at the Western Governors’ Association workshop at INL’s Idaho Falls campus later that day. “It’s not Utah versus Idaho versus Wyoming. We’re going to be much stronger if we’re working together, because we have some differences that are important and similarities that are important.”
The tristate initiative has the backing of the Trump administration, which has ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed up nuclear licensing and has directed the DOE to have 10 new “large reactors” under construction by 2030 with a goal of adding 300,000 megawatts of nuclear power to the grid by 2050. One megawatt is enough electricity to power about 750 homes.
