Kozeracki's Sledgehammer
Prodigy from the Department of Energy Unveils Roadmap for American Abundance
“It’s happening…”
This morning, Julie Kozeracki and the Department of Energy released the long-rumored update to the Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear report. If you want to have a big kid perspective on America’s energy future, schedule three hours to power through it, then meet in the comments.
The 83-page sledgehammer smashes the complacency of American nuclear, aligning us with what energy-insecure countries already know: nuclear energy dramatically lowers the cost of energy by avoiding an overbuild of storage and transmission.
Like the first version of the report, the call remains the same: triple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. In vibrant green pastels, the first eighteen Figures paint a rosy picture, reinforcing that nuclear energy is the most reliable, carbon-free power source available — essential for achieving a stable, low-carbon grid.
By Figure 20, Kozeracki is gloves-off and chalkboarding the cost and timelines of the buildout. The pieces are already in place: we have the makings of a workforce, the technology roadmap, and the acreage to build on. With lessons from Vogtle 3 & 4, we also have the financial model to fund this future, with major investors ready to lean into these de-risked megaprojects.
Last week at Climate Week NYC, Kozeracki gave a sneak preview of the report to a room full of enviromental activists on the campus of Cornell Tech.
Since then, the internet has been giving Julie her flowers, calling her a luminary and leaking screenshots of the report. Now that the report is launched, its time for us to distribute her sledgehammer to every able-minded enviromentalist so we can smash the boulder of energy scarcity into the infrastructure of the future.
Both US presidential candidates support the nuclear buildout, banks are lining up to fund it, and utility companies are seeing renewed investor confidence every time they signal interest in nuclear projects. The window of opportunity has opened wide, and many are warning it won’t stay open for long.
Americans and our allies are dropping into this wave together. Across Climate Week, nuclear advocates kept saying “It’s happening” incredulously to each other, to the point that it became the motto of the trip.
Here’s the report. “It’s happening”. Say it back.
Thanks for this post, Ryan. Diablo Canyon Power Plant helped to lay the foundation for this DoE report. See page page 33 of 83 of the Liftoff Report.
A dose of reality from within the DOE? Nuclear is really becoming bi-partisan. This is good.