The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a rapid growth in the development of nuclear power in the United States. By 1976, however, many nuclear plant proposals were no longer viable due to a slower rate of growth in electricity demand, significant cost and time overruns, and more complex regulatory requirements. Also, there was considerable public opposition to nuclear power in the US by this time, which contributed to delays in licensing planned nuclear power stations, and further increased costs. By the end of the 1970s, it was clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as dramatically as once believed. This was particularly due to the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Al Gore commented on the historical record and reliability of nuclear power in the United States:
Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were cancelled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable. A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of Forbes commented on the overall management of the nuclear power program in the United States:
The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale ... only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible. During the 2000s, aging infrastructure, growing power use and fears of global climate change all prompted what was then called the "nuclear renaissance". Engineering companies noted that the commissioning process was a major barrier to further construction, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission made changes to the system as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, along with new tax incentives and loan guarantees. As many as 30 new reactors were planned by 2009. As of February 2021, only two new reactors were still under construction, both at Vogtle. The project has announced significant delays and budget overruns. These two reactors started power generation in 2023 and 2024. By July 2026, several test reactors achieved zero-power criticality as part of the Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program. As of August 2026, several new reactors are under construction, including the Hermes 2 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Kemmerer Power Station in Wyoming, and Aurora-INL in Idaho.
Cancelled nuclear reactors
"Model" column key: "B&W" is Babcock & Wilcox; "CE" is Combustion Engineering; "GA" is General Atomics; "GE" is General Electric; "GVH" is GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy; "MHI" is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; and "WH" is Westinghouse.
See also Prospective nuclear units in the United States
Notes
References
External links Cancelled Nuclear Units Ordered in the United States