President Donald Trump has made rebuilding the United States’s nuclear industrial base a central part of his energy agenda. Last week, a nuclear startup operating in Emery County, Utah, took an important step toward making that revival real. Valar Atomics became the first Department of Energy-authorized reactor built outside a national laboratory to reach “criticality.”
Valar successfully completed a zero-power-fueled criticality demonstration, which means its reactor sustained a controlled nuclear chain reaction at very low power. The milestone does not mean the reactor is yet producing commercial electricity, but it is still a major step. It is the nuclear equivalent of starting an engine for the first time: The car is not yet on the highway, but the machine has come alive. Valar says it aims to produce power by July 4.
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The U.S. used to be the world’s leader in nuclear power. America pioneered the nuclear age, but that leadership has eroded. The White House notes that it took nearly 40 years for the U.S. to add as much nuclear capacity as another developed nation managed in just 10. As American nuclear power has slowed, other countries have stepped into the void. According to the White House, 87% of nuclear reactors installed worldwide since 2017 are based on designs from two foreign countries. Not only has the U.S. fallen behind on nuclear design, but it has also become dependent on foreign sources of uranium and uranium enrichment.
This matters because electricity needs are entering a period of explosive growth. Artificial intelligence, data centers, advanced manufacturing, and military installations all require enormous amounts of reliable power. Trump understood this when he returned to office. His administration has treated nuclear power not as a boutique climate project, but as a central pillar of American energy dominance, industrial strength, and national security.
The first major step came on May 23, 2025, when Trump signed four executive orders designed to revive the U.S. nuclear industry. Those orders set a goal of expanding U.S. nuclear capacity from roughly 100 gigawatts today to 400 gigawatts by 2050. They also directed federal agencies to accelerate reactor testing, reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, rebuild the domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, deploy advanced reactors for national security, and promote American nuclear exports abroad.
Next came the direct attack on the biggest obstacle to new nuclear power: regulatory paralysis. Trump ordered reforms at the NRC to speed up licensing, to make it clearer and less hostile to innovation. The goal was not to abandon safety. It was to end a culture in which endless process had become an enemy of progress. No industry can survive if building the first project takes longer than developing the technology itself.
Then, in June 2025, the Department of Energy launched the Reactor Pilot Program. This created a new pathway for advanced reactor companies to build, operate, and test reactors under DOE authorization, with the goal of getting at least three advanced reactor designs located outside national laboratories to reach criticality by July 4, 2026.
The progress came quickly. On June 4, Antares Nuclear’s Mark-0 reactor reached criticality at Idaho National Laboratory, becoming the first advanced reactor in the pilot program to hit that mark. Just two weeks later, Valar’s Ward 250 reached the same milestone in Utah, making it both the program’s second successful reactor and the first DOE-authorized reactor built outside a national laboratory to do so.
The U.S. now has not one but two advanced reactor companies that have crossed a threshold many critics said could not be crossed.
Valar’s zero-power fueled criticality is not the finish line. It is something better: proof of life. It shows that the U.S. can still build hard things when the government clears the path and entrepreneurs are allowed to move.
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Trump’s biggest nuclear achievement so far is not a completed commercial power plant. It is the restoration of ambition. His administration has rewritten the federal posture toward nuclear energy, tied it to AI and national security, accelerated reactor testing, and helped push two advanced reactors to criticality in less than a month. If this momentum holds, the next decade could bring the nuclear renaissance America has needed for half a century.
The future will require more electricity, not less. Trump’s nuclear revival will help ensure America is ready to produce it.
