The top 10 states of nuclear -- ANS / Nuclear Newswire
In light of this, the Nuclear News team decided to review the current “state of the states” and curate a top 10 list (it’s possible that weekly college football rankings influenced how we chose to approach this complicated topic). How hard could it be to channel Buzzfeed and boil down decades of policy, technology development, and economic shifts into a listicle?
This ranking is intended as a snapshot of current trends and initiatives. Below, we highlight states actively pursuing new reactor projects, supporting research and innovation, and investing in supply chain infrastructure. This has been a fun way to review the state of the industry and track individual states’ nuclear development. Our goal was to be as objective as possible as we reviewed the details of each state’s current fleet, potential future deployments, nuclear supply chain developments, company headquarters, and so forth. But no matter how many metrics we apply, this list remains part science and part gut feeling.
While there are no shocking entries in the top 10, going through 50 states and picking just 10 doesn’t capture all the momentum building around the country. So before we get to our top 10, let’s review some states on the outside looking in—some honorable mentions:
Utah—While Gov. Spencer Cox has gone all-in on nuclear—even courting Valar Atomics and Deep Fission—Utah has no current reactors and is also linked to the failed UAMPS plan to site NuScale reactors in nearby Idaho. The state is home to EnergySolutions but lacks a large network of nuclear suppliers, vendors, and operators. Even so, Utah’s future is bright.
Wyoming—Wyoming made an earlier version of our top 10, as Kemmerer was chosen to host TerraPower’s Natrium reactor, and the state has the added success story of bringing nuclear power to an old coal town, potentially creating a playbook for future advanced reactor deployments. However, Wyoming lacks a current fleet, and while BWX Technologies wants to manufacture fuel in the state, other companies have recently left for greener pastures due to a lack of policy action and pushback from local communities.
Georgia—Our first honorable mention with a current fleet, Georgia currently has no near-term prospects for new nuclear. The 10-plus years of construction and tens of billions of dollars in extra costs to build Vogtle-3 and -4 left an impression on Georgians. While the state has a robust nuclear workforce and supply chain and has hinted about additional AP1000s, there are no commitments and no other advanced fission or fusion prospects.
California—While there are too many venture capital–backed startups to list here, the state has no reactor startups on the horizon. Among the several reasons California could be included on our top 10 list are its national laboratories and research institutions, but nuclear power remains a contentious issue in the state. Diablo Canyon may be operating now, but the lack of future prospects for new fission or fusion plants has left it outside looking in this year.
Wisconsin—With Kewaunee shut down for almost 13 years now, Wisconsin is left with just two operating reactors, both at Point Beach. (EnergySolutions did announce in 2025 its intention to use the Kewaunee site for new nuclear deployment.) Additionally, through the work of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the state has spawned multiple fusion startups and is home to both SHINE Technologies and Realta Fusion (Type One only recently moved to our top-ranked state—a hint for those who didn’t cheat and look ahead!).
New York—Gov. Kathy Hochul has come in and changed the prospects for nuclear in the state, but the closure of Indian Point nearly five years ago and no definitive new nuclear announcements have kept New York off this year’s list.
New Mexico—This is the third state with prominent national laboratories that didn’t make our list. Los Alamos and Sandia alone deserve to be mentioned, as part of the state’s and the nation’s nuclear history, and about one-third of the uranium fueling U.S. reactors is enriched in the state. However, with no commercial nuclear reactors and no plans for future reactor deployments, we kept New Mexico off the list.
With so many more states seriously looking at nuclear power, it’s difficult to stop here with our honorable mentions. Compiling our top 10 has been both entertaining and thought-provoking in that there are many ways this list could have played out, and states are making news almost daily. This leads to the next-best thing: nitpicking our list as a reader! Write us at nucnews@ans.org to tell us what we got right (we’re pretty sure we won’t need to encourage readers to tell us what we got wrong). Better yet, call us out on LinkedIn and give us your own top 10 states of nuclear!