The Great Big Power Play

US support for nuclear energy is soaring. Meanwhile, coal plants are on their way out and electricity-sucking data centers are meeting huge pushback. Welcome to the next front in the energy battle.

Take yourself back to 2017. Get Out and The Shape of Water were playing in theaters, Zohran Mamdani was still known as rapper Young Cardamom, and the Trump administration, freshly in power, was eager to prop up its favored energy sources.

That year, the administration introduced a series of subsidies for struggling coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants, which were facing increasing price pressures from gas and cheap renewables. The plan would have put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars. It didn’t work.

In subsequent years, the nuclear industry kept running into roadblocks. Three nuclear plants have shut down since 2020, while construction of two of the only four reactors started since 2000 was ...