As the Trump administration doubles down on its energy and AI dominance agenda, U.S. energy companies have found themselves navigating tricky communication strategies. Touting the clean, carbon-free nature of renewable energy no longer carries the clout it did under the Biden administration, and policy has shifted against certain forms of renewables. At the same time, energy companies are being called upon to meet rising power demands of data-center developers, many of which are prioritizing carbon-free options.

This has forced energy companies to shift the way they communicate: They must garner political favor while also positioning themselves as an answer to the coming onslaught of electricity demand.

The wind and solar industries are focusing on electricity affordability and the fact that wind farms and photovoltaics are the cheapest and fastest way to add new energy generation. Battery storage developers are aligning themselves with Trump’s domestic manufacturing push, scaling up efforts to shift supply chains to the United States as they battle uncertainty over tariffs.

Nuclear power companies are touting their ability to go small and modular—theoretically a faster way to get reactors running. Next-generation geothermal developers are staying the course but playing up the industry’s crossovers with oil and gas. Hydrogen, too, is being highlighted as similar to fossil fuels. And the offshore wind industry is mostly preoccupied with using the courts to fight the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to ban development.

It’s not that the renewable technologies themselves have changed, says Samuel Furfari, former European Commission senior energy official and current energy geopolitics professor at ESCP Business School in London. “Mr. Trump has made a communication revolution, not an energy revolution,” he says about the state of the industry in the United States and abroad.

Trump Declares His Energy Darlings

Trump’s affinity for fossil fuels and his disdain for certain renewables, such as wind, have constructed a new federal hierarchy of energy sources. On day one of his second term as U.S. president, Trump issued an executive order listing which energy resources his country should promote. The list mentions fossil fuels, geothermal, and nuclear but excludes solar, wind, and hydrogen.

Then, in July, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act slashed renewable energy incentives for wind and solar while extending the tax credits for geothermal through 2033. On 1 December, Trump’s Department of Energy renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to the National Laboratory of the Rockies—a moniker to demote renewables and reflect the lab’s “expanding mission” under Trump. And in an eleventh-hour move, the Department of the Interior at the end of 2025 halted all offshore wind projects under construction, citing national security risks.

At first, the wind and solar industries attempted to fit into the Trump administration’s agenda by leaning into his energy dominance rhetoric, says clean energy consultant Lloyd Ritter in Washington D.C. But after the government gutted tax incentives for wind and solar, and concerns over high electricity bills became a top election issue, industry players prioritized messaging about affordability for consumers, Ritter says.

“Electricity costs are now a thing in politics, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon,” Ritter says. The cost concerns stem from estimates that electricity use in the United States is projected to increase 32 percent by 2030, mostly from data centers, according to the latest forecast from Grid Strategies.

The solar and storage industries are welcoming these demand projections. That’s because solar is still the “fastest and cheapest form of electronics to get onto the grid,” says Raina Hornaday, cofounder of Austin, Texas–based Caprock Renewables, a solar and storage developer. In her view, meeting the load demands of data centers is going to take care of the political backlash that solar and storage have endured under the Trump administration.

Hornaday sees a particular opening for batteries. “The R&D for battery storage is really the winner across the board, and we don’t consider battery storage renewable. It can utilize renewable energy electrons, but it doesn’t have to,” she says. “It can be power from the grid.”

Sage Geosystems harvests heat from underground water reservoirs. The company has recently shifted from talking about geothermal energy as clean to its ability to get electricity to the grid faster to accommodate data-center growth. Sage Geosystems

Geothermal Inherits Fortuitous Position

The communications framing for next-generation geothermal power has shifted too, despite it being a political favorite. Companies in this sector say they are continuing to emphasize geothermal as a baseload power source—something that can crank out electricity 24/7, like fossil fuels can. But projected increases in power demand have shifted other elements of the conversation.

The leading communication strategies now are less about geothermal’s carbon-free benefits and more about getting energy to the grid faster to address data-center growth, says Cindy Taff, CEO of Houston-based startup Sage Geosystems. Geothermal companies are also talking about how their use of drilling technology, know-how, and other synergies borrowed from the oil and gas industries can fast-track development.

“When we first started Sage four and a half years ago, we were talking about it being clean and renewable, but if you think about it, there’s now a little bit more allergic connotation with clean and renewable,” says Taff, who spent more than 35 years in well construction and project management at Shell before founding Sage.

Lessening the use of climate-focused language is something “the whole industry” is doing, adds Geoffrey Garrison, vice president of operations at Quaise Energy, headquartered in Houston. “I think you have to be cognizant of who’s listening and who has got their hands on the lever.… You tailor your message,” he says.

Other Trump administration priorities, like moving industry and manufacturing back to U.S. soil, are top of mind for geothermal companies, says Sarah Jewett, senior vice president of strategy at Fervo Energy, also in Houston. “We are thinking a lot more about localization of [the] supply chain, in large part due to this administration’s focus,” Jewett says.

In its pitches to investors, Fervo Energy includes talking points about how geothermal energy drilling uses technology from the oil and gas industry. Fervo Energy

Overall, Fervo’s messaging has remained “pretty consistent” between U.S. presidential administrations, Jewett says. In its pitch to investors, Fervo includes talking points about how next-generation geothermal uses drilling technology from the oil and gas industry. But clean energy isn’t completely missing from Fervo’s communications. “Some sides of the aisle like parts of it, and other parts of the aisle like other parts of it,” Jewett says.

Like geothermal, nuclear power has enjoyed support from both political parties in the United States. It too is now focusing on touting its ability to meet rising electricity demand, albeit through the restarting of decommissioned reactors, the building of massive new plants, and experimentation with advanced solutions such as small modular reactors and microreactors.

Countries Adopt ‘Energy Addition’ Tack

It’s not just U.S. companies that are shifting the message. In November at ADIPEC, the world’s largest annual energy conference, held in Abu Dhabi, widely adopted buzzwords such as “energy transition”—a term referring to the shift away from fossil fuels—were being swapped with “energy addition.”

That’s not solely a result in shifting political tides. The surge in energy demand may indeed necessitate more of an addition, rather than a complete transition. It’s a reasonable shift, given the “hockey stick” demand increase the industry is facing, says Taff at Sage. “Energy transition was, in my opinion, when [demand] uptick was very steady. But now that you’ve got the hockey stick, the use of ‘addition’…is much more applicable,” she says.

Abroad, Trump’s impact reverberates, Furfari says. “We were shy to mention fossil fuel. Mr. Trump does not care, and says, ‘No, we need fossil fuel.’ This is changing the world.”

The United States aims to embark on its most active new nuclear construction program since the 1970s. In its most high-dollar nuclear deal yet, the Trump administration in October launched a partnership to build at least US $80 billion worth of new, large-scale nuclear reactors, and chose Westinghouse Electric Company and its co-owners, Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, for the job.

The money will support the construction of AP1000s, a type of pressurized water reactor developed by Westinghouse that can generate about 1,110 megawatts of electric power. These are the same reactors as units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia, which wrapped up seven years behind schedule in 2023 and 2024 and cost more than twice as much as expected—about $35 billion for the pair. Along the way, Westinghouse, based in Cranberry Township, Penn., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Chief executives of investor-owned utilities know that if they were to propose committing to similar projects on the same commercial terms, they’d be sacked on the spot. As a result, the private sector in the United States has been unwilling to take on the financial risk inherent in building new reactors.

The $80 billion deal with the federal government represents the U.S. nuclear industry’s best opportunity in a generation for a large-scale construction program. But ambition doesn’t guarantee successful execution. The delays and cost overruns that dogged the Vogtle project present real threats for the next wave of reactors.

Streamlining AP1000 Reactor Construction

What might be different about the next set of AP1000s? On the positive side, delivering multiple copies of the same reactor ought to create the conditions for a steady decline in costs. Vogtle Unit 3 was the first AP1000 to be built in the United States, and the lessons learned from it resulted in Vogtle Unit 4 costing 30 percent less than Unit 3. (Six AP1000s are currently operating outside the United States, and 14 more are under construction, according to Westinghouse.)

There’s been a bipartisan effort in the United States to streamline regulatory procedures to ensure that future projects won’t be delayed by the same issues that hampered Vogtle. The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act that was signed into law by former U.S. President Joe Biden in 2024 includes several measures intended to improve processes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The last nuclear reactors to be built in the United States—Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Waynesboro, Georgia—were completed seven years behind schedule and cost more than twice as much as expected.Georgia Power Co.

That included a mandated change in the NRC’s mission statement, setting a goal of “enabling the safe and secure use and deployment of civilian nuclear energy technologies.” It was a symbol of Congress’s intent to encourage the commission to support nuclear development.

In May, President Trump built on that legislation with four executive orders intended to speed up reactor licensing and accelerate nuclear development—a framework that has yet to be tested in practice. In November, the NRC published regulations setting out how it planned to implement the president’s orders. The changes are focused on removing redundant and duplicative rules.

One of Trump’s orders included a series of provisions intended to help build the U.S. nuclear workforce, but it’s clear that will be a challenge. The momentum gained in training skilled workers during the construction at Vogtle is already dissipating. Without other active new reactor projects to move on to immediately in the United States, many of the people who worked there have likely gone into other sectors, such as liquified natural gas (LNG) plants.

Around the time that construction was wrapping up at Vogtle, many employers in the industry were already reporting difficulties in finding the staff they need, according to the Department of Energy’s 2025 United States Energy and Employment Report. Surveyed in 2024, 22 percent of employers in nuclear construction said it was “very difficult” to hire the workers they needed, and 63 percent said it was “somewhat difficult.” In nuclear manufacturing, 63 percent of employers said hiring was “very difficult.”

If reactor construction really begins to pick up, there is clearly a danger that those numbers will rise.

U.S. Nuclear Power Expansion Plans

So just how many reactors will $80 billion buy? Assuming an average of $16 billion per AP1000—slightly less than for Vogtle, and allowing for cost reductions from economies of scale and learning-by-doing—the plan would mean five new reactors. That would represent an increase of about 5.7 percent in total U.S. nuclear energy generation capacity, if all the reactors currently in service remain online.

The full details of the $80 billion deal, including the precise allocation of financing and risk-sharing, have not been specified. But Westinghouse’s co-owner, Brookfield, did disclose that the partnership includes profit-sharing mechanisms that will give the U.S. government some of the upside if the initiative succeeds.

The Washington Post reported that after the U.S. signs the final contracts for $80 billion worth of new reactors, it will be entitled to 20 percent of all of Westinghouse’s returns over $17.5 billion. And if Westinghouse’s valuation surpasses $30 billion, the administration can require it to be floated on the stock market. If that happens, the government will get a 20 percent stake.

Enriched uranium is loaded at Vogtle Unit 4.Georgia Power Co.

Japan’s government is also playing a key role. As part of a $550 billion U.S.-Japan trade deal struck in July, the Japanese government pledged large-scale investment in U.S. energy, including nuclear. Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toshiba Group, and IHI Corp., are interested in investing up to $100 billion in the United States to support the construction of new AP1000s and small modular reactors (SMRs), the two governments said.

The Westinghouse deal supports a range of the administration’s objectives, including power for AI and investment and job creation in the American industrial sector. The focus on AP1000s also makes it possible to rely on U.S.-produced fuel, strengthening energy security. (Many of the designs for SMRs, which have garnered a considerable amount of excitement globally, use high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, which is not currently produced on a large scale in the United States.)

U.S. Nuclear Energy Investment

There have been other recent moves to add additional nuclear capacity in the United States. Santee Cooper, a South Carolina utility, announced plans for completing the construction of two AP1000 reactors that had been abandoned in 2017 at the V.C. Summer site in Jenkinsville, S.C.

Separately, Google announced in October a deal with NextEra Energy to reopen a 615-MW nuclear plant in Iowa. The Duane Arnold Energy Center was shut down in 2020, and the aim is to have it operational again by the first quarter of 2029. Google has agreed to buy a share of the plant’s output for 25 years.

Construction of two AP1000 reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear site in Jenkinsville, S.C., was abandoned in 2017 after delays and cost overruns. Executives leading the projects were charged with fraud. Chuck Burton/AP

But the plans that have been announced so far pale in comparison to the Trump administration’s nuclear ambitions. Earlier this year, Trump set a goal of adding a whopping 300 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050, up from a little under 100 GW today. That would mean much stronger growth than is currently projected in Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts, which show a near-doubling of U.S. nuclear generation capacity to about 190 GW in 2050.

The main driver behind the Trump administration’s interest in nuclear is its ambitions for artificial intelligence. Chris Wright, the U.S. energy secretary, has described the race to develop advanced AI as the Manhattan Project of our times, critical to national security and dependent upon a steep increase in electricity generation. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in September, Wright promised: “We’re doing everything we can to make it easy to build power generation and data centers in our country.”

One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration has been its readiness to intervene in markets to pursue its policy goals. Its nuclear strategy exemplifies that approach. In many ways, the Trump administration is acting like an energy company: using its financial strength and its convening power to put together a deal that covers the entire nuclear value chain.

Throughout the history of nuclear power, the industry has worked closely with governments. But the federal government effectively taking a commercial position in the development of new reactors would be a first for the United States. In the first wave of U.S. reactor construction in the 1970s, federal government support was limited to R&D, uranium mining and enrichment, and indemnifying operators against the risk of nuclear accidents.

Before the partial deregulation of U.S. electricity markets that began in the 1990s, utilities could develop nuclear plants with the assurance that the costs could be recovered from customers, even if they went far over budget. With many key markets now at least partially deregulated, nuclear project developers will need other types of guarantees to secure financing and move forward.

The first new plants that result from the $80 billion deal will come online years after Trump has left office. But they could play an important role in boosting U.S. electricity supply and developing advanced AI for decades.