[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                            POWERING DEMAND:
                NUCLEAR SOLUTIONS FOR AI INFRASTRUCTURE
=======================================================================
                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 12, 2025

                               __________

                           Serial No. 119-15

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
 
 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

         Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
         
                                __________
                                
                U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-594PDF              WASHINGTON : 2026
=======================================================================


              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                   HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chairman
RANDY WEBER, Texas                   ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking 
JIM BAIRD, Indiana                       Member
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JAY OBERNOLTE, California            HALEY STEVENS, Michigan
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee         DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California             ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York             VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida              EMILIA SYKES, Ohio
MAX MILLER, Ohio                     MAXWELL FROST, Florida
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              GABE AMO, Rhode Island
MIKE COLLINS, Georgia                SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM, Virginia
VINCE FONG, California               LUZ RIVAS, California
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina         SARAH McBRIDE, Delaware
KEITH SELF, Texas                    LAURA GILLEN, New York
PAT HARRIGAN, North Carolina         GEORGE WHITESIDES, California, 
SHERI BIGGS, South Carolina               Vice-Ranking Member
JEFF HURD, Colorado                  LAURA FRIEDMAN, California
MIKE HARIDOPOLOS, Florida            APRIL McCLAIN DELANEY, Maryland
MIKE KENNEDY, Utah                   JOSH RILEY, New York
NICK BEGICH, Alaska                  BILL FOSTER, Illinois
VACANT
                                 ------                                

                         Subcommittee on Energy

                   HON. RANDY WEBER, Texas, Chairman
JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina, 
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee             Ranking Member
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York             ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
PAT HARRIGAN, North Carolina         LAURA FRIEDMAN, California
SHERI BIGGS, South Carolina          JOSH RILEY, New York
JEFF HURD, Colorado                  VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
NICK BEGICH, Alaska
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             June 12, 2025

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Randy Weber, Chairman, Subcommittee 
  on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................     9
    Written Statement............................................    10

Statement by Representative Deborah Ross, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and 
  Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................    11
    Written Statement............................................    13

Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..    14
    Written Statement............................................    16

Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    17
    Written Statement............................................    17

                               Witnesses:

Mr. Pat Schweiger, Chief Technology Officer, Oklo
    Oral Statement...............................................    18
    Written Statement............................................    21

Ms. Kathleen L. Barron, Executive Vice President and Chief 
  Strategy and Growth Officer, Constellation Energy
    Oral Statement...............................................    26
    Written Statement............................................    29

Dr. Jeremy Renshaw, Executive Director AI & Quantum, Electric 
  Power Research Institute (EPRI)
    Oral Statement...............................................    35
    Written Statement............................................    37

Discussion.......................................................    45

              Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Mr. Pat Schweiger, Chief Technology Officer, Oklo................    70

Ms. Kathleen L. Barron, Executive Vice President and Chief 
  Strategy and Growth Officer, Constellation Energy..............    74

Dr. Jeremy Renshaw, Executive Director AI & Quantum, Electric 
  Power Research Institute (EPRI)................................    76

 
                            POWERING DEMAND:
                           NUCLEAR SOLUTIONS
                         FOR AI INFRASTRUCTURE

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2025

                  House of Representatives,
                            Subcommittee on Energy,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in 
room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Randy Weber 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

    Chairman Weber. The Committee will come to order; the 
Subcommittee on Energy is convening.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare 
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
    Welcome to today's hearing entitled, ``Powering Demand: 
Nuclear Solutions for AI (Artificial Intelligence) 
Infrastructure.'' I recognize myself for 5 minutes for an 
opening statement.
    So listen, good morning everybody. We're glad you all are 
here. That includes the audience, by the way. Welcome to the 
hearing titled, ``Powering Demand: Nuclear Solutions for AI 
Infrastructure.''
    Folks, with artificial intelligence's rapidly growing 
demand on our power grid, this hearing is going to examine the 
U.S. energy landscape and our capacity to meet that need. In 
light of recent announcements around the country, we are going 
to focus on nuclear energy's role as a baseload power source. 
We will also review the Department of Energy (DOE's) research, 
development and demonstration programs supporting the next 
generation of nuclear reactors. Much like the 1940s--most of 
y'all weren't here then and, just for the record, neither was 
I--much like the 1940s, America stood at the dawn of the atomic 
era, we now stand on the threshold of a new age, driven by 
artificial intelligence.
    With promises of increased efficiency and productivity, AI 
has the potential to revolutionize every single aspect of our 
economy and our way of life. Unsurprisingly, this potential has 
spurred a major influx of private capital aiming to turn these 
very promises into our reality.
    Additionally, this technology is poised to dramatically 
transform our electric grid and our energy sector due to the 
construction of those very same AI data centers. According to a 
recent report from a leading consulting company, data centers--
do you all say data or data?
    Data. There is one vote for data right there in the back. 
All right.
    According to one consulting company, data centers are 
projected to consume 5.2 percent of U.S. electricity this year, 
with that share expected to increase to 11.7 percent by the 
year 2030. Their energy use would rise from 25 gigawatts to 80 
gigawatts. Let's put that in perspective: 1 gigawatt of energy 
equates to roughly 294 utility-scale wind turbines, 1.8 million 
solar panels, 103 offshore wind turbines, or 1 large light 
water nuclear reactor, which is why we're here. I see your 
excitement down there.
    Due to these immense energy demands, major technology 
companies and hyperscalers who traditionally sit on the energy 
sidelines are now climbing into the driver's seat to secure 
their long-term power supply. Nuclear has emerged as the ideal 
energy source, given its clean baseload power and unmatched 
reliability. Nuclear's capacity factor of 92.5 percent--let 
that sink in--is the highest of any, any energy source. This 
level of reliability is essential for data centers, which can 
afford no more than 5.25 minutes of downtime annually. No more 
than 5.25 minutes downtime annually.
    As a result, tech companies are making substantial 
investments and forging strategic power purchase agreements 
with nuclear designers. For instance, Amazon has invested over 
$300 million in X-energy. Google has signed a 500 megawatt 
power purchase agreement with Kairos Power, and Switch secured 
up to 12 gigawatts from Oklo Energy, another witness here 
today, to partner with Microsoft to recommission a nuclear 
reactor at the Three Mile Island site.
    In addition to investments and partnerships, tech firms are 
also redesigning interconnection agreements. Traditionally, 
data centers relied on the front-of-the-meter interconnection 
agreements, in which a utility generates, transmits, and then 
distributes energy to the end user. Now tech companies are 
pursuing behind-the-meter-agreements where energy assets 
directly power the data center. This approach reduces 
transmission costs, streamlines the approval process, and 
provides for greater operational control to the end user.
    Last year Talen Energy sold Amazon a data center and agreed 
to a behind-the-meter power agreement, supplying up to 480 
megawatts from its Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant. Although 
FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) blocked this 
specific agreement, I believe back-of-the-meter interconnection 
agreements will be commonplace when we're constructing new 
nuclear power plants.
    As the nuclear and tech sectors deepen their collaboration, 
the Department of Energy, DOE, Office of Nuclear Energy plays a 
crucial role in AI's future success. The office manages the 
Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) which helps 
commercialize new nuclear technologies, including X-energy's 
XE-100 reactor. Just recently Dow and X-energy submitted their 
construction permit application for a proposed project in 
Seadrift, Texas, which is right south of our district--my 
district.
    DOE also manages the Nuclear Fuel Security Program and the 
Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability Program, both created under 
the Energy Act of 2020. These initiatives are critical to 
deploying next-generation reactors that rely on high-assay, 
low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, fuel. DOE recently announced it 
will provide help to X-energy, Kairos Power, Radiant 
Industries, Westinghouse, and TerraPower.
    In tandem, the Trump Administration has accelerated the 
deployment of AI through recent executive orders (EOs). In 
April DOE issued a request for information, RFI, soliciting 
feedback on whether industry would be interested in using 
Federal land at DOE sites to host AI data centers. Given the 
strong support for DOE and its nuclear security missions, these 
sites are perfect, perfect for hosting data centers powered by 
nuclear reactors. From the atomic bomb to artificial 
intelligence, DOE's labs have consistently stood at the 
precipice of technological advancement. They continue to meet 
generational challenges and drive innovations that strengthen 
America as we enter this new area.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Weber follows:]

    Good morning. Welcome to today's Energy Subcommittee 
hearing titled, ``Powering Demand: Nuclear Solutions for AI 
Infrastructure.'' With artificial intelligence's rapidly 
growing demand on our power grid, this hearing will examine the 
U.S. energy landscape and its capacity to meet that need. In 
light of recent announcements around the country, we will focus 
on nuclear energy's role as a baseload power source. We will 
also review the Department of Energy's research, development, 
and demonstration programs supporting the next generation of 
nuclear reactors.
    Much like the 1940s, when America stood at the dawn of the 
atomic era, we now stand on the threshold of a new age driven 
by artificial intelligence. With promises of increased 
efficiency and productivity, AI has the potential to 
revolutionize every aspect of our economy and way of life. 
Unsurprisingly, this potential has spurred a major influx of 
private capital aiming to turn these promises into reality.
    Additionally, this technology is poised to dramatically 
transform our electric grid and energy sector due to the 
construction of new AI data centers. According to a recent 
report from a leading consulting company, data centers are 
projected to consume 5.2% of U.S. electricity this year, with 
that share expected to increase to 11.7% by 2030. Their energy 
use would rise from 25 GW to 80 GW. To put that in perspective, 
1 GW of energy equates to roughly 294 utility-scale wind 
turbines, 1.8 million solar panels, 103 offshore wind turbines, 
or one large light-water nuclear reactor.
    Due to these immense energy demands, major technology 
companies and hyperscalers, who traditionally sat on the energy 
sidelines, are now climbing into the driver's seat to secure 
their long-term power supply. Nuclear has emerged as the ideal 
energy source given its clean baseload power and unmatched 
reliability. Nuclear's capacity factor of 92.5% is the highest 
of any energy source. That level of reliability is essential 
for data centers, which can afford no more than 5.25 minutes of 
downtime annually.
    As a result, tech companies are making substantial 
investments and forging strategic power purchase agreements 
with nuclear designers. For instance, Amazon invested over $300 
million in X-Energy, Google signed a 500 MW power purchase 
agreement with Kairos Power, and Switch secured up to 12 GW 
from Oklo, which is one of our witnesses here today. This led 
Constellation Energy, another witness here today, to partner 
with Microsoft to recommission a nuclear reactor at Three Mile 
Island.
    In addition to investments and partnerships, tech firms are 
also redesigning interconnection agreements. Traditionally, 
data centers relied on front-of-the-meter interconnection 
agreements, in which a utility generates, transmits, and 
distributes energy to the end user. Now, tech companies are 
pursuing behind-the-meter agreements, where energy assets 
directly power the data center. This approach reduces 
transmission costs, streamlines the approval processes, and 
provides greater operational control to the end user.
    Last year, Talen Energy sold Amazon a data center and 
agreed to a behind-the-meter power agreement supplying up to 
480 MW from its Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Although FERC 
blocked this specific agreement, I believe back-of-the-meter 
interconnection agreements will be commonplace when 
constructing new nuclear power plants.
    As the nuclear and tech sectors deepen their collaboration, 
the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy plays 
a crucial role in AI's future success. The office manages the 
Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which helps 
commercialize new nuclear technologies, including X-Energy's 
Xe-100 reactor. Just recently, Dow and X-Energy submitted their 
construction permit application for a proposed project in Sea 
Drift, Texas, right next to my district.
    DOE also manages the Nuclear Fuel Security Program and the 
Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability Program, both created under 
the Energy Act of 2020. These initiatives are critical to 
deploying next-generation reactors that rely on high-assay low-
enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel. DOE recently announced it will 
provide HALEU to X-Energy, Kairos Power, Radiant Industries, 
Westinghouse, and TerraPower. In tandem, the Trump 
Administration has accelerated the deployment of AI through 
recent executive orders.
    In April, DOE issued a Request for Information (RFI) 
soliciting feedback on whether industry would be interested in 
using federal land at DOE sites to host AI data centers. Given 
the strong support for DOE and its nuclear security missions, 
these sites are perfect for hosting data centers powered by 
nuclear reactors.
    From the atomic bomb to artificial intelligence, DOE's labs 
have consistently stood at the precipice of technological 
advancement. They continue to meet generational challenges and 
drive innovations that strengthen America as we enter this new 
era.
    I look forward to our discussion here today and yield back 
the balance of my time.

    Chairman Weber. I look forward to our discussion today, and 
I'm going to yield the balance of my time to the gentlelady to 
my right, the Ranking Member.
    Ms. Ross. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Weber, for 
convening this hearing today to discuss the potential for 
nuclear energy solutions to power our Nation's growing 
artificial intelligence infrastructure.
    I also want to thank our distinguished witnesses for being 
here to share your testimony and insights on this topic.
    We've heard repeatedly from a wide range of sources about 
how the advancement of AI could fuel economic growth, 
geopolitical advantages, and the acceleration of science and 
technology. I'm proud to represent North Carolina's 2d 
District, where AI is driving a rapidly growing job market, 
education and workforce development, and research and 
innovation that could play a significant role in ensuring our 
Nation's competitive edge.
    Just over a month ago an organization in the Research 
Triangle Park added a cutting-edge AI tool for clinical trial 
optimization, leading to fewer required patients per trial, 
requiring--reducing timelines and costs, and ultimately 
increasing success rates. However, these advancements depend on 
our ability to power them, and that's why we're here today.
    A recent assessment from SemiAnalysis found that the energy 
needed to meet this infrastructure demand is projected to 
require 80 gigawatts of additional energy by 2030. This need is 
not foreign to me. Data center construction rose 15 times in 
North Carolina last year. AI data centers are particularly 
unique in their energy requirements, with some calling for 24/7 
supply and massive--at a massive scale, and that scale is only 
projected to grow as hyperscalers invest billions of dollars 
toward these centers.
    Much like the promise of AI, these data center investments 
can accelerate our economy and provide workforce benefits for 
years to come, but not without a cost. There are many impacts 
to consider in trying to meet this energy demand.
    First, the environmental cost of rapid data center 
expansion are--that's far from negligible. We've been hearing 
about this in the western part of North Carolina. A report from 
DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released last year 
said that the total greenhouse gas emissions for U.S. data 
centers in 2023 was estimated to be 61 billion kilograms of 
CO2 equivalent. As a former clean energy lawyer, I 
know firsthand that meeting this energy demand while working to 
build a sustainable future for North Carolina and the Nation is 
not an easy task. We must intentionally build a more reliable 
and sustainable energy supply, and we should be using any 
environmentally benign resources, including nuclear, available 
to do so at the lowest cost possible for the American people.
    We must also consider using existing under-utilized sources 
of power, and must be intentional with our siting for data 
centers required for this type of development. Siting data 
centers near existing power generation, including in areas 
where manufacturing has moved away, should remain top of mind. 
And this has happened in North Carolina.
    Now, while not directly connected to a specific data center 
by a dedicated power line, the Yadkin River Hydroelectric 
Project in western North Carolina plays a role in the overall 
power grid that served the data center that is in this Hickory 
corridor all around that part of North Carolina. This area has 
seen a significant investment in data centers, and the region's 
hydroelectric power generation contributes to the overall 
energy supply. We can and should use renewable and existing 
energy sources to help power our data centers across the United 
States.
    That also brings another point up: the cost passed down to 
the American people of constructing new energy sources, the 
ratepayers. They should not be first in line to absorb high 
risk and financially burdened with typical--with the typical 
rates associated with deploying a first-of-kind energy source.
    Today we're here to discuss nuclear power, an energy source 
with immense promise, but with a very high risk of cost and 
schedule overruns thus far. So we must keep top of mind who 
will absorb this risk. I don't have to look far to see the 
negative impacts that the risk being absorbed by the ratepayers 
can--where it can arise. The abandoned VC Summer project in 
South Carolina experienced years of delays and cost overruns, 
eventually resulting in $9 billion of sunk costs. Now, we know 
some other people are looking at taking that over, but that 
does not get rid of what the ratepayers had to absorb. I'm glad 
I'm seeing some nodding heads over there.
    To this day, $5.7 billion is still being paid for by 
customers who do not reap the benefits of a successful nuclear 
project. This contrasts sharply with the very positive 
experience in Georgia with their Vogtle project, which was 
enabled by strategic support from DOE's Loan Program Office, or 
LPO. This is exhibit A for the reason we absolutely must 
maintain expanded resources and capabilities to provide to the 
LPO through the Inflation Reduction Act, and those are at risk 
right now.
    Nuclear projects are inherently challenging, but I believe 
we can learn from past mistakes and proceed responsibly 
considering the use of brownfields, Federal land, strategic 
capital, and, above all, the protection of the ratepayers while 
building a more reliable and sustainable energy supply. We have 
an opportunity to build long-lasting infrastructure that 
unlocks a more reliable and sustainable future, which I intend 
to continue working toward with the Chairman. I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses today on how nuclear energy can help 
us get there, in tandem with a far broader portfolio of clean 
energy resources that should also be considered.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ross follows:]

    Good morning and thank you, Chairman Weber, for convening 
this hearing today to discuss the potential for nuclear energy 
solutions to power our nation's growing artificial intelligence 
infrastructure. I also want to thank our distinguished 
witnesses for being here to share your testimony and insights 
on this topic.
    We have heard repeatedly from a wide range of sources about 
how the advancement of AI could fuel economic growth, 
geopolitical advantages, and the acceleration of science and 
technology. I am proud to represent North Carolina's 2nd 
District, where AI is driving a rapidly growing job market, 
education and workforce development, and research and 
innovation that could play asignificant role in ensuring our 
nation's competitive edge.
    Just over a month ago, an organization in Research Triangle 
Park added a cutting-edge AI tool for clinical trial 
optimization, leading to fewer required patients per trial, 
reduced timelines and costs, and ultimately increased success 
rates. However, these advancements depend on our ability to 
power them.
    A recent assessment from SemiAnalysis found that the energy 
needed to meet this infrastructure demand is projected to 
require 80 gigawatts of additional energy by 2030. This need is 
not foreign to me: data center construction rose 15x in North 
Carolina last year. AI data centers are particularly unique in 
their energy requirements, with some calling for 24/7 supply at 
massive scale--and that scale is only projected to grow as 
hyperscalers invest billions of dollars towards these centers.
    Much like the promise of AI, these data center investments 
can accelerate our economy and provide workforce benefits for 
years to come--but not without a cost. There are many impacts 
to consider in trying to meet this energy demand.
     First, the environmental costs of rapid data center 
expansion are far from negligible. In a report from DOE's 
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released last year, the 
total greenhouse gas emissions for U.S. data centers in 2023 
was estimated to be 61 billion kilograms of CO2 
equivalent.
    As a former clean energy lawyer, I know firsthand that 
meeting this energy demand while working to build a sustainable 
future for North Carolina, and the nation, is not an easy task. 
We must intentionally build a more reliable and sustainable 
energy supply, and we should be using any environmentally 
benign resources available to do so at the lowest cost possible 
for the American people. We must also consider using existing, 
underutilized sources of power and must be intentional with our 
siting for the data centers required for this type of 
development.
    Siting data centers near existing power generation-
including in areas where manufacturing has moved away--should 
remain top of mind. While not directly connected to a specific 
data center by a dedicated power line, the Yadkin River 
Hydroelectric Project in western North Carolina plays a role in 
the overall power grid that served the data center corridor 
around Hickory.
    This area has seen significant investment in data centers, 
and the region's hydroelectric power generation contributes to 
the overall energy supply. We can and should use renewable and 
existing energy sources to help power our data centers across 
the United States.
    That brings us to another point we must keep top of mind 
today: the cost passed on to the American people--the 
ratepayers--who should not be the first in line in absorbing 
the high risk and financial burden typically associated with 
deploying a first of a kind energy source. Today we are here to 
discuss nuclear power--an energy source with immense promise to 
be sure, but with a very high risk of cost and schedule 
overruns thus far.
    So, we must keep top of mind: who will absorb that risk?
    I don't have to look far to see the negative impacts of 
that risk being absorbed by taxpayers. The abandoned VC Summer 
project in South Carolina experienced years of delays and cost 
overrun, eventually resulting in $9 billion of sunk cost. To 
this day, $5.7 billion is still being paid for by customers who 
do not reap the benefits of a successful nuclear project. This 
contrasts with Georgia's Vogtle project, which was enabled by 
strategic support from DOE's Loan Programs Office, or LPO.
    This is Exhibit A for the reason we absolutely must 
maintain the expanded resources and capabilities provided to 
LPO through the Inflation Reduction Act. Nuclear projects are 
inherently challenging, but I believe we can learn from our 
mistakes and proceed responsibly--considering the use of 
brownfields, federal land and strategic capital, and above all 
the protection of taxpayers while building a more reliable and 
sustainable energy supply.
    We have an opportunity to build long-lasting infrastructure 
that unlocks a more reliable and sustainable future, which I 
intend to continue working towards.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how 
nuclear energy can help us get there, in tandem with the far 
broader portfolio of clean energy resources that should also be 
considered.
    Thank you, and I yield back.

    Ms. Ross. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. Thank you, Ranking Member Ross. I now 
recognize the Chairman of the Full Committee, Chairman Babin.
    Chairman Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses today for being here. 
I want to thank our Energy Subcommittee Chairman, my good 
friend, Mr. Weber, for holding this timely hearing on powering 
data centers with advanced nuclear technologies.
    Artificial intelligence is advancing at a breakneck pace. 
Every day we see brand new, groundbreaking developments and 
headlines that highlight AI's expanding role in our economy, 
our national security, and even our daily lives. Fortunately, 
the United States currently leads the world in the AI race, but 
that lead is not guaranteed. Both friends and foes are moving 
swiftly to close this gap.
    At the core of AI innovation are data centers, the engines 
that drive this technological revolution. These facilities 
require enormous and uninterrupted power. And when it comes to 
reliability, only one option consistently meets those high 
standards, and that is nuclear.
    Industry standards for top tier data centers, especially 
those supporting AI workloads, require what's known as the 
``five-9s'' uptime, or 99.999 percent operational reliability. 
This means that over the course of a year the data center is 
expected to be operational 99.999 percent of the time. That 
equates to just 5.2 minutes of allowable downtime per year. Few 
energy sources can meet that bar. In fact, nuclear power, with 
its 92.5 percent capacity factor, stands alone in its ability 
to provide the clean, constant baseload power that these 
systems demand. Plus, nuclear can provide much more energy per 
square foot than its competing energy sources, allowing nuclear 
to be sited nearer to its customers and be less impactful on 
overall land usage.
    As this Administration has stated, nuclear energy will play 
a central role in our energy future. Thanks to executive orders 
from President Trump and recent actions from the Department of 
Energy, we are beginning to cut through the red tape that has 
long stalled nuclear progress, moving quickly but safely to 
scale nuclear power nationwide. To get to this point, the 
Federal Government has spent over a decade significantly 
investing in advanced nuclear through DOE's Office of Nuclear 
Energy. These early stage investments were essential to getting 
first-of-a-kind technologies off of the ground.
    However, in today's budget-constrained environment, that 
support must be seen as a launch pad, not a permanent lifeline. 
It's time for the private sector to stand up--I should say step 
up. Fortunately, the market is ready. The nuclear renaissance 
we anticipated in the early 2000s is now within reach. As the 
demand for power increases, new nuclear companies have a 
critical partner in large technology firms that are willing to 
invest in and help deploy the fleet of nuclear reactors that 
has long been promised. However, these tech companies are not 
only willing to pay a premium to bring these new, first-of-a-
kind power sources online, but they have also shown an appetite 
for current technology.
    Earlier this year Microsoft and Constellation Energy, one 
of our witnesses today, announced plans to reactivate the Crane 
Clean Energy Center, and formerly Three Mile Island, marking a 
historic moment. Additionally, just last week Meta and 
Constellation announced a 20-year agreement to keep the plant 
operational. This isn't just good energy policy. It's good 
economic policy, creating well-paying jobs and generating 
millions in tax revenue that would otherwise be lost.
    This momentum is spreading across the country, including my 
home State of Texas. Lawmakers are advancing pro-nuclear 
policies. Universities are also seeing the benefits of 
partnering with advanced nuclear. Texas A&M, through its Rellis 
Campus, announced the creation of the Energy Proving Ground 
Project. This project will involve Texas A&M assisting four 
chosen SMR (small modular reactor) companies with permitting, 
and providing a location to demonstrate their reactors.
    Now is the time for the nuclear industry to take its next 
step toward unlocking its full potential. The conditions are 
ripe for a resounding success. We're very fortunate to have a 
very strong panel of witnesses with us today who bring deep 
expertise from across the advanced nuclear energy and 
artificial intelligence sectors.
    I want to thank each of you for being here today, and I'm 
looking very much forward to hearing your testimony.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Babin follows:]

    I want to thank our Energy Subcommittee Chairman and my 
good friend, Mr. Weber, for holding this timely hearing on 
powering data centers with advanced nuclear technologies.
    Artificial intelligence is advancing at a breakneck pace. 
Every day, we see new groundbreaking developments and headlines 
that highlight AI's expanding role in our economy, national 
security, and daily lives.
    Fortunately, the United States currently leads the world in 
the AI race--but that lead is not guaranteed. Both friends and 
foes are moving swiftly to close the gap.
    At the core of AI innovation are data centers--the engines 
that drive this technological revolution.
    These facilities require enormous and uninterrupted power. 
And when it comes to reliability, only one option consistently 
meets those high standards: nuclear.
    Industry standards for top-tier data centers, especially 
those supporting AI workloads, require what's known as ``five-
9s'' uptime or 99.999 percent operational reliability. This 
means that over the course of a year, the data center is 
expected to be operational 99.999 percent of the time. That 
equates to just 5.25 minutes of allowable downtime per year. 
Few energy sources can meet that bar. In fact, nuclear power, 
with its 92.5 percent capacity factor, stands alone in its 
ability to provide the clean, constant baseload power these 
systems demand. Plus, nuclear can provide much more energy per 
square foot than its competing energy sources, allowing nuclear 
to be sited nearer to customers and be less impactful on 
overall land use.
    As this Administration has stated, nuclear energy will play 
a central role in our energy future.
    Thanks to executive orders from President Trump and recent 
actions from the Department of Energy (DOE), we are beginning 
to cut through the red tape that has long stalled nuclear 
progress--moving quickly, but safely to scale nuclear power 
nationwide.
    To get to this point, the federal government has spent over 
a decade significantly investing in advanced nuclear through 
the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy. These early-stage 
investments were essential to getting first-of-a-kind 
technologies off the ground. However, in today's budget-
constrained environment, that support must be seen as a 
launchpad--not a permanent lifeline. It's time for the private 
sector to step up.
    Fortunately, the market is ready. The nuclear renaissance 
we anticipated in the early 2000s is now within reach. As the 
demand for power increases, new nuclear companies have a 
critical partner in large technology firms that are willing to 
invest in and help deploy the fleet of nuclear reactors that 
has long been promised.
    However, these tech companies are not only willing to pay a 
premium to bring these new, first-of-a-kind power sources 
online, but they have also shown an appetite for current 
technology.
    Earlier this year, Microsoft and Constellation Energy--one 
of our witnesses today--announced plans to reactivate the Crane 
Clean Energy Center, marking a historic moment. Additionally, 
just last week, Meta and Constellation announced a 20-year 
agreement to keep the plant operational.
    This isn't just good energy policy--it's good economic 
policy, creating well-paying jobs and generating millions in 
tax revenue that would otherwise be lost.
    This momentum is spreading. Across the country--including 
my home state of Texas--lawmakers are advancing pro-nuclear 
policies. Universities are also seeing the benefits of 
partnering with advanced nuclear. Texas A&M, through its RELLIS 
campus, announced the creation of ``The Energy Proving Ground'' 
project. This project will involve Texas A&M assisting four 
chosen SMR companies with permitting and providing a location 
to demonstrate their reactors.
    Now is the time for the nuclear industry to take its next 
step toward unlocking its full potential. The conditions are 
ripe for resounding success.
    We are fortunate to have a strong panel of witnesses with 
us today who bring deep expertise from across the advanced 
nuclear energy and artificial intelligence sectors.
    I want to thank each of you for joining us today, and I 
look forward to your testimony. With that, I yield back.

    Chairman Babin. With that I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Weber. Thank you, Chairman Babin. I now recognize 
the Ranking Member of the Full Committee for a statement.
    Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you, Chairman Weber and Ranking 
Member Ross, for holding this hearing today, and I want to 
thank the witnesses for being here and for your expertise.
    We have a real challenge ahead of us. We've seen incredible 
strides in the capabilities of artificial intelligence over the 
last few years and its application to research, industry, 
agriculture, and other sectors of our economy. However, we also 
know that training and running AI models can consume enormous 
amounts of energy. And while certainly not the only solution, 
advanced nuclear technologies are quite promising in their 
potential to meet these expected needs.
    And over the past decade in particular, this Committee has 
developed and enacted bipartisan, comprehensive legislation to 
explore in advance of this research--resource. In fact, the 
last bill we had before this Committee on next-gen nuclear was 
adopted unanimously, and this is another reason why I am so 
disappointed with the Administration's budget proposal for 
2026.
    The budget also states that it--and this is a quote--
``unleashes America's energy dominance through funding for 
nuclear energy.'' But it would cut support for DOE's Office of 
Nuclear Energy by 21 percent, and slash funding for the 
flagship Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program by 51 percent.
    The budget also states that it is ``prioritizing fusion 
research,'' but it proposes to cut fusion research by 6 
percent. Now, this may be old fashioned, but I think words 
actually should mean something, especially when they come from 
the U.S. Government, and these words do not reflect the actual 
proposal.
    Now, some may note that the budget request does include 
support for loan guarantees for nuclear technologies, and 
that's all well and good until you look at the rescission 
reconciliation bill that the Republicans in the House passed, 
which, of course, the President endorsed. If enacted, that bill 
would eliminate more than four times as much support for DOE's 
loan guarantee program as this budget proposal would provide. 
It would cut tax incentives that industries told us are 
critical, in tandem with a robust Federal loan program, to 
enabling the widespread deployment of new nuclear power plants.
    So I look forward to discussing these stark contradictions 
and other challenges to our clean energy future with this 
really excellent panel of witnesses. And with that I want to 
thank you all for being here. And so we can get directly to 
your testimony, I yield back the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]

    Good morning and thank you, Chairman Weber and Ranking 
Member Ross, for holding this hearing today. And thank you to 
the witnesses for being here this morning.
    We have a real challenge ahead of us. We have seen 
incredible strides in the capabilities of artificial 
intelligence over the last few years and its applications to 
research, industry, agriculture, and various other sectors of 
our economy.
    However, we also know that training and running AI models 
can consume enormous amounts of energy. While certainly not the 
only solution, advanced nuclear technologies are quite 
promising in their potential to meet these expected needs. And 
over the past decade in particular, this Committee has 
developed and enacted bipartisan, comprehensive legislation to 
explore and advance this resource.
    This is another reason why I am frankly so disappointed 
with the Administration's budget proposal for 2026. While the 
budget plainly states that it ``unleashes America's energy 
dominance through funding for nuclear energy,'' it would cut 
support for DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy by 21%, and slash 
funding for its flagship Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program 
by 51%.
    The budget also states that it is ``prioritizing fusion 
research'' while proposing to cut fusion research by 6%. Call 
me old fashioned, but I think words actually need to mean 
something, especially when they come from the U.S. government, 
and these words are sadly hollow.
    Now some may note that the budget request does include 
support for loan guarantees for nuclear technologies, and 
that's all well and good until you look at the House-passed 
Republican reconciliation bill, which of course the President 
endorsed. If enacted, that bill would eliminate more than 4 
times as much support for DOE's loan guarantee program as this 
budget proposal would provide. And it would gut tax incentives 
that industry has informed us are absolutely critical, in 
tandem with a robust federal loan program, to enabling the 
widespread deployment of new nuclear power plants.
    So, I look forward to discussing these stark contradictions 
and other challenges to our clean energy future with this 
excellent panel of witnesses. With that, I thank you all again 
for being here, and yield back the balance of my time.

    Chairman Weber. The Ranking Member of the Full Committee 
yields back. I now recognize Deborah Ross to the right of me.
    Ms. Ross. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous 
consent (UC) that Mr. Beyer from Virginia be permitted to 
attend this hearing and after all Committee Members have had 
their opportunity to ask questions of the witness.
    Chairman Weber. Without objection.
    I do want to remind something I left out earlier. Members 
are reminded that this Committee's practice is to submit 
letters and other items for the record to the Committee before 
seeking unanimous consent to insert such items into the hearing 
record. This allows the Committee to ensure that such items 
meet the rules of decorum, and verify their length and 
provenance that they do not contain sensitive, proprietary, or 
controlled information. The Chair reserves the right to object 
to any UC request to insert items in the record that are not 
provided in advance.
    So let me introduce our witnesses.
    Our first witness today is Mr. Pat Schweiger, the Chief 
Technology Officer (CTO) of Oklo.
    Our next witness, Ms. Kathleen Barron--am I saying that, 
Ms. Kathleen?
    Ms. Barron. Barron.
    Chairman Weber. I can do this. Barron, OK, Executive Vice 
President and Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at 
Constellation Energy.
    Our final is Dr. Jeremy Renshaw--thank you for the easy 
name to say--Executive Director of AI and Quantum at EPRI.
    I now recognize Mr. Schweiger for 5 minutes to present his 
testimony.

                TESTIMONY OF MR. PAT SCHWEIGER,

                 CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, OKLO

    Mr. Schweiger. Good morning, Chairman Weber, Ranking Member 
Ross, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify and for holding this important hearing. 
My name is Pat Schweiger, and I am the CTO at Oklo, an advanced 
nuclear technology and fuel recycling company. Prior to Oklo I 
worked 21 years at the Fast Flux Test Facility, an 
internationally recognized premier sodium fast reactor where we 
tested advanced fuels and materials for fusion and fission. We 
set performance records that no other nation has been able to 
achieve, even to this day.
    Oklo is developing fast fission power plants known as 
Aurora powerhouses to provide clean, reliable, and affordable 
energy at scale. Oklo is at the forefront of transforming the 
technological basis and business model associated with nuclear 
power in America. In our build, own, and operate business model 
we plan to sell power in the form of electricity and heat 
directly to customers, where we believe we can allow for fast 
track customer adoption. Most importantly, we are 
commercializing fast reactor technology pioneered by the U.S. 
Department of Energy over 50 years ago, and have a site use 
permit from DOE for our commercial reactor at Idaho National 
Laboratory (INL).
    AI has triggered a Sputnik moment, accelerating the demand 
for dependable domestic power. According to Goldman Sachs, AI 
data centers will have a significant contribution to power 
demand growth, driving a 160 percent increase in power demand 
through 2030. Our partnership with Equinix was the first 
commercial advanced nuclear energy deal in the data center 
industry that included an investment from a data center company 
to a nuclear company.
    Energy is the foundation upon which America's AI future 
depends. Oklo represents a new approach to leveraging the 
benefits of mature nuclear power generation to meet the growing 
energy demands associated with emerging AI applications. The 
market has rewarded this approach with a pipeline of over 14 
gigawatts of commitments from prospective customers, and most 
recently through a 12 gigawatt master power agreement with AI 
and data center provider, Switch, which Randy mentioned, one of 
the largest corporate clean power agreements in history.
    Oklo's powerhouse builds on America's investment in 
cutting-edge nuclear technology in the first atomic age. Right 
now there are no fast reactors operating in the U.S., but Oklo 
will change that, leveraging a legacy that blossomed with 
research and test reactors such as the Fast Flux Test Facility 
and Experimental Breeder Reactor 2, which was a fast reactor 
that ran at INL for 30 years and a capacity of 20 megawatts of 
electric power.
    Oklo's reactors are based on this proven liquid metal 
cooled sodium fast reactor technology. The reactor is self-
stabilizing, self-controlling, and cooled by natural forces. 
This means the plant is walk-away safe, and can be sited in 
closer proximity to populated areas, crucial locations for data 
centers, and other AI infrastructure, as Ms. Ross noted, as 
well.
    Additionally, fast reactors can derive energy from spent 
nuclear fuel. Thanks to U.S. innovation, spent nuclear fuel can 
be recycled, and is being done at our national labs today. 
Idaho National Lab is producing spent fuel from EBR-II into 
HALEU, and Argonne National Lab is advancing the technology 
further with support through ARPA-E. Fast reactors are ready to 
be commercialized and poised to meet this moment for AI.
    To meet the needs of this critical moment in our country, I 
want to offer the Committee a few policy changes to accelerate 
advanced nuclear deployment.
    No. 1, unlock an abundance of nuclear fuel. Congress should 
continue to push DOE to accelerate its support of the domestic 
fuel supply chain and HALEU production, and to think creatively 
about new ways to enhance the domestic fuel supply, including 
the accelerated processing of DOE spent fuel into HALEU.
    No. 2, continue investment in next-generation research. 
U.S. Government research is driving American nuclear 
innovation. Research programs in the fuel cycle, commercial 
fuel recycling, and next-generation core technologies are 
necessary to compete globally.
    And then, finally, No. 3: modernize regulations around 
technologies with decades of proven safety. Congress should 
rethink how we regulate inherently safe, proven nuclear 
technologies, from advanced reactors to commercial fuel 
recycling to waste management, so that American nuclear plants 
can serve energy needs for AI civilian, DOE, and military 
installations. It's inevitable that advanced nuclear reactors 
will be part of the energy solution to ensure U.S. leadership 
in AI. Our groundbreaking approach is redefining nuclear 
energy, making it safer, faster to deploy, and more cost 
effective than ever before.
    Oklo is ready to work with the Committee and Members of the 
House to ensure the success of both the nuclear and AI 
industries. I look forward to today's discussion.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Schweiger follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Weber. Thank you, Mr. Schweiger. You have a very 
interesting quote, which I love, when you say AI has triggered 
a Sputnik moment. Is that a--I don't mean to put you on the 
spot, but is that original with you?
    Mr. Schweiger. Well, not to me personally, but original to 
who wrote--help me write this.
    [Laughter.]
    Chairman Weber. Well, that's is a very, very good point.
    Ms. Barron, I am going to yield 5 minutes to you. Thank 
you.

              TESTIMONY OF MS. KATHLEEN L. BARRON,

          EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF STRATEGY

            AND GROWTH OFFICER, CONSTELLATION ENERGY

    Ms. Barron. Good morning, Full Committee Chairman Babin, 
Ranking Member Lofgren, Chairman Weber, Ranking Member Ross, 
and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity 
to appear before you to discuss the role of nuclear energy in 
powering America's artificial intelligence infrastructure.
    Constellation is the largest owner and operator of 
commercial nuclear plants in the United States. We operate 21 
reactors in Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania, and 
we have an ownership interest in four additional reactors in 
New Jersey and Texas. But we also have a diverse portfolio of 
power generation resources. All in, we make 32 gigawatts of 
electricity, which is equivalent to powering 16 million homes 
and businesses. I'd like to make three points from my testimony 
today.
    First, there should be no debate. America must win the race 
for AI supremacy. And to do that we need to assure timely power 
supply for AI infrastructure like data centers, while at the 
same time securing reliable, affordable, and clean power for 
all customers.
    Second, the Nation's existing nuclear power fleet can help 
meet the near-term need for power by extending the operating 
life of existing reactors, by increasing the output of the 
existing fleet of plants, and by, as has been mentioned, 
restarting previously closed reactors that are capable of 
resuming operation.
    And third, advanced reactors can add enormous quantities of 
reliable, affordable, and clean energy to the grid in the 
longer term. The most logical place, in our view, to think 
about siting new nuclear plants is at sites that are already 
hosting nuclear reactors, and that's because these sites have 
already been proven to meet environmental and safety-related 
regulatory requirements, and have critical existing cooling 
water, rail, and electric infrastructure to host these new 
reactors.
    You know, and the biggest thing is really these incredible 
communities that host the existing fleet, which is comprised of 
hundreds of workers and their families, are supportive of this 
opportunity to add new nuclear. And they also have land 
available where we could host sites like data centers that can 
collocate and minimize the need for additional electrical 
infrastructure and transmission.
    As has been mentioned by the Full Committee chair, 
Constellation has been working to enable data center 
development in the places where we operate. Last September we 
announced that we will restart unit one, which is the undamaged 
reactor at Three Mile Island. It was one of our best performing 
reactors when it closed prematurely before the end of its 
licensed life in 2019 due to economic factors partly caused by 
poor policy choices. But it will resume operation as the Crane 
Clean Energy Center as part of a 20-year power purchase 
agreement with Microsoft. When that plant is returned to 
service, it will provide 835 megawatts of power to the PJM grid 
for use at Microsoft facilities across the PJM region.
    And then earlier this month, we announced another 20-year 
power purchase agreement with Meta, this time for the output of 
1,100 megawatts at our Clinton Clean Energy Center in central 
Illinois, to support Meta's facilities in the Midwest region 
beginning in 2027. This agreement will allow us to relicense 
the Clinton station for another 20 years, and allow it to 
operate until at least 2047. And it also calls for us to uprate 
the plant, or increase its output by an additional 30 megawatts 
of power. It also allows us to evaluate strategies to extend 
the plant's existing early site permit at the NRC (Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission), or perhaps to seek a new construction 
permit from the NRC to pursue development of an advanced 
reactor at that site.
    These agreements ensure that the Crane and Clinton 
facilities will remain on the grid for at least two decades to 
support economic growth and to power America's artificial 
intelligence infrastructure. But to ensure all of the reactors 
stay online and expand to meet this increased demand, 
supportive policies are critical.
    President Trump's recent executive orders direct that the 
Department of Energy shall prioritize work with the nuclear 
energy industry to facilitate 5 gigawatts of power uprates to 
existing nuclear reactors, and have 10 new large reactors with 
complete designs under construction by 2030. These are 
appropriately ambitious goals. But in order to achieve them we 
recommend first that Congress continue the Section 45U 
production tax credit for existing nuclear plants, as well as 
the Section 45 and 48 technology neutral tax credits for 
nuclear generation, which is consistent with comments from the 
Administration and the recently passed House reconciliation 
measure.
    Second, Congress should retain funding for the Department 
of Energy's Loan Program's Office for Nuclear Investment.
    Third, Congress should continue to support Department of 
Energy programs within the Office of Nuclear Energy to support 
research, development, and demonstration activities related to 
advanced nuclear power, including the Advanced Reactor 
Demonstration Project.
    And finally, Federal agencies like the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission should remove barriers that prevent data 
centers from accessing and using available sources of energy. 
FERC has been debating for over a year the rules for data 
centers to collocate with power plants. As the President has 
recognized, collocation is--which is when the data center is 
sited right at or near the power plant, as Ranking Member Ross 
mentioned--enables development on a quick basis. And that's 
because it minimizes the need for new transmission lines to 
deliver power over long distances, which also lowers costs for 
both the data centers and all customers.
    Data center projects should be permitted to access the grid 
using the configuration that makes the most for that facility 
and in that location, and should not be slowed down by a lack 
of clear Federal rules.
    So thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you 
today, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Barron follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Weber. Thank you, ma'am.
    Dr. Renshaw, you've got a hard act to follow. You're 
recognized for 5 minutes.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. JEREMY RENSHAW,

                EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AI & QUANTUM,

            ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE (EPRI)

    Dr. Renshaw. Thank you. Chairmen Weber, Babin, and 
Ranking----
    [Audio malfunction.]
    Chairman Weber. Dr. Renshaw, I'm sorry. Turn your mike on.
    Dr. Renshaw. I'm sorry. Would you like me to start over?
    Chairman Weber. In a word? Heck, no.
    [Laughter.]
    Dr. Renshaw. All right. EPRI has worked with AI for 
decades, observing rapid growth in computational needs 
accelerated by recent breakthroughs in generative AI. Advances 
in GPUs (graphics processing units) have improved compute 
efficiency, but these gains have been outpaced by the 
increasing size of AI models. AI is redefining how knowledge is 
created.
    The Industrial Revolution used machines to turn raw 
materials into goods more efficiently, and now the AI 
revolution is using data to turn--to accelerate productivity 
and discovery across all industries. Thus, AI and energy 
industries have become intertwined, with more energy needed to 
support AI, and AI enabling more efficient and productive 
energy systems. Therefore, EPRI launched the Open Power AI 
Consortium to build a collaborative ecosystem between the 
energy and technology industries to maximize benefits to 
stakeholders and the public.
    With over 100 organizations engaged, the consortium will 
focus on building more efficient and performant AI models to 
achieve better results with less compute and energy needs. For 
example, accelerating interconnection queues which have led to 
bottlenecks in connecting new generation, transmission, and 
distribution infrastructure to the grid.
    Predicting the future energy needs of AI is challenging. 
Recent work by EPRI and others points to significant growth and 
uncertainty in the future power consumption of data centers 
from AI, which are influenced by model size, volume of training 
data, inference loads, adding reasoning capabilities, hardware 
efficiency, and more. Moreover, future innovations could alter 
the trajectory of energy needs including novel chip designs, 
advanced computing and model architectures, emerging compute 
modalities such as quantum computing, and software 
optimization.
    AI is delivering value globally, driving growth in data 
center utilization and energy use. AI-specific data centers 
consume up to five times more energy than traditional data 
centers. The International Energy Agency predicts that global 
data center energy use in 2030 will double to 945 terawatt 
hours, more than Japan's total electricity use today. AI data 
centers may have highly variable loads with spikes in energy 
demand, compared to traditional flat loads from data centers. 
This variability presents a challenge and an opportunity for 
the grid. While data centers represent substantial new loads, 
they also offer opportunities such as workload flexibility and 
utilizing backup generators as a dispatchable grid resource.
    EPRI launched the DC Flex Initiative to explore how data 
centers can provide these grid services supporting utilities, 
operators, and consumers alike. Some perceive data centers as 
growing unsustainably and straining the grid. The Open Power AI 
Consortium and DC Flex Initiative can change that perspective 
and utilize data centers to accelerate productivity, knowledge 
generation, and innovation across all sectors while growing 
responsibly. Advanced forms of energy generation may support 
data center energy needs.
    Advanced nuclear is one of several options for powering the 
next generation of AI infrastructure. Having worked in the 
nuclear industry for over 15 years, I will discuss the benefits 
and limitations of nuclear to support growing energy demands. 
No energy source is perfect, and all have benefits and 
limitations, and a robust energy mix combines multiple sources 
to improve overall system performance, reliability, and reduced 
risk.
    Nuclear plants provide safe, reliable, and carbon-free 
baseload power. Nuclear power has a track record of being one 
of the safest forms of energy generation over the last several 
decades. Advanced nuclear reactors offer additional capability 
for flexible operation, improved safety, efficiency, and a 
range of fuel sources, including spent fuel, supporting high-
intensity variable loads like AI data centers, and reducing 
waste. However, fuel and irradiated materials must still be 
managed. As with any technology, first-of-a-kind 
implementations include risks such as delays and cost overruns. 
Other clean, reliable generation sources can augment overall 
energy system performance.
    In conclusion, AI is transforming our society and its 
energy demands are growing rapidly. Improvements in chip 
efficiencies reduce energy use while larger models and 
increased utilization increase energy use. AI is accelerating 
productivity and knowledge generation across all industries 
today, and is poised to continue. Meeting data center energy 
needs is a growing challenge, with many solutions being 
evaluated. While energy intensive, data centers can also be a 
part of the solution via flexible operation and grid 
integration.
    While there is no perfect energy source, advanced nuclear 
is among the options that offer safe, reliable, flexible, and 
clean power to meet future needs. Nuclear technologies can play 
an important role to support the growing needs of AI and the 
benefits it can provide to society.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Renshaw follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Weber. I thank the witnesses for their testimony. 
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Schweiger, unlike regulatory bodies such as the NRC, 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy is an 
industry-facing institution advancing the commercialization of 
new technologies. I think we'd all agree with that.
    Through DOE's programs, Oklo has secured EBR-II fuel, and 
selected Idaho National Laboratory for its Aurora reactor. So, 
in your opinion, how important is DOE to Oklo's success and its 
ability to provide those 12 gigawatts of power to hyperscalers 
like Switch?
    Mr. Schweiger. Thank you for the question and also for your 
work on the advanced program. We appreciate that, the industry.
    I would say I worked with the DOE about 45 years off and 
on, and the Fast Flux Test Facility was in that DOE program. 
EBR-II and the recycled fuel that we're going to receive, I 
think, is essential. When my associates in the industry say, 
well, what's Oklo going to do for fuel, I go, well, it's 
handled. And I think it--I don't know this for darn sure, but 
I'm pretty sure it's the only SMR that's got a fuel supply 
ready and available--or, you know, in the process of being made 
available through DOE.
    So that program gets us to where we want to be faster, and 
that's crucial right now.
    Chairman Weber. Especially in the development of AI.
    Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may 
complain that the President's Fiscal Year 2026 budget, as well 
as DOE's reorganization, will hurt companies like Oklo. Can you 
describe your interactions with the Trump Administration and 
any of their actions that slowed the development of Aurora?
    Mr. Schweiger. Mm-hmm. So as CTO, I'm not as tightly 
coupled with the business side, as you can imagine. But the 
Oklo business plan is less reliant on the Federal Government. 
So what Oklo is trying to do is fund, go build power plants, 
and then sell that power. And we're well on track for that with 
private funding.
    So Oklo uniquely is not going to be much affected by the 
government policies like with the Federal loan program. So 
that's what I can comment to. I don't know the inner workings 
of the rest of it.
    Chairman Weber. OK, very few of us do. I thank you for 
that.
    Ms. Barron, I'm going to come to you. Over the last decade, 
non-regulated utilities have been at the forefront of 
displaying next-generation nuclear reactors. Southern Company 
completed the construction, as we all know, of two AP1000s at 
Vogtle, and the TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, recently 
announced that it submitted a construction permit for GE 
Vernova's BWRX-300 at its Clinch River site.
    Can you explain for our benefit why merchant markets are 
lagging in deploying next-generation nuclear reactors, compared 
to these non-regulated entities? What's inhibiting, for 
example, your company from constructing a new reactor?
    I will yield the time to you.
    Ms. Barron. Thank you for the question, Chairman.
    So as you pointed out, the--operates where--the markets 
where Constellation operates are competitive markets. That 
means that, moment to moment, a system operator chooses which 
asset to run based on cost. And if you get picked because 
you're competitive, you run. And if you aren't, you don't. And 
customers, you know, get the benefit of that. Over the years 
customers have seen much lower costs in the competitive markets 
because of that dynamic. There is no guaranteed rate recovery 
for anyone that operates in a competitive market.
    So you contrast that to the monopoly markets, where 
regulators will make a decision to invest in a technology. And 
in a guarantee rate recovery, that is the explanation for why 
you had seen Vogtle move forward in Georgia and in VC Summers's 
case in South Carolina.
    I think what's changed is that there are now corporates 
that are looking to help fund investment in new technology. We 
have supportive Federal policy that is helping many reactor 
developers, including Oklo, come to the market. And we have an 
interest across the financial sector, the OEMs (original 
equipment manufacturers), and then ultimately the operators to 
work together to try to figure out how to bring these projects 
to bear.
    So I wouldn't look to the past as an indicator of the 
future. I think you'll see some of these developments in 
competitive markets, as well.
    Chairman Weber. I wish I could train my wife not to look to 
my past as something about the future.
    [Laughter.]
    Chairman Weber. But I want to come back to you. How many 
customers of y'all's would you say that that affects when 
you're trying to make sure the prices are the best? How many 
customers do you all serve?
    Ms. Barron. So we make enough--we're a wholesale producer 
of electricity, so we make enough electricity to put out into 
the grid to serve 16 million homes and businesses. On our 
competitive--the competitive side of our business, where we 
sell electricity in places, where that's permitted, i.e. the 
non-monopoly markets, we serve about three-quarters of the 
Fortune 100. So we have both large commercial industrial 
customers and then residential customers that we rely on. And 
we have to compete to serve those customers by providing the 
best price and the best product.
    Chairman Weber. Right. And the reason I ask that is for the 
benefit of everybody watching, you all are trying to do the 
best thing for the most people. We appreciate that.
    I'm going to jump now to this question. With technology 
companies and hyperscalers taking an active role in procuring 
power for AI--you all have got to be watching that--do you 
believe that this paradigm shift will empower companies like--
my writing--they wrote this ``like yours,'' but in Texas we say 
like y'all's, OK? Like y'all's. Do you believe that that will 
affect y'all's ability to build a new reactor into the market?
    Ms. Barron. You know, I think, from our perspective, we 
think you should do the cheapest thing first. And the cheapest 
thing is to ensure that the existing fleet remains in 
operation.
    You know, unlike other sources of technology, nuclear needs 
to be licensed by the Federal regulator, which does a great 
job. And there's a finite licensed life to the existing 
reactors. So investing in the plants, asking for a second 
license extension, allowing the plants to run another 20 years, 
these plants can run well past mid-century into the 2070s.
    Second, we can uprate them or do modifications at the site 
to create more output from the same physical plant, and those 
are investments that we have underway. And all-in across just 
our fleet, if we were to do all the remaining uprates available 
we could make another 1,000 megawatts, so equivalent to a whole 
new reactor.
    Chairman Weber. Well, thank you. I've well over-stated my 
time, so I appreciate your diligence. And I'm now going to 
yield at least 5 minutes to the Ranking Member.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, Chairman Weber. I'm going to take a 
little bit at the end, but not to quiz our witnesses.
    Thank you all for your very insightful and comprehensive 
testimony.
    Ms. Barron, I'm going to go--talk a little bit about the 
monopoly markets, because North Carolina is a monopoly market. 
And while meeting the significant energy demands of AI 
infrastructure, we also worry about our ratepayers in the 
monopoly market. And as we discussed, in South Carolina the 
ratepayers really were on the hook.
    In North Carolina there's a debate within our legislature 
about whether to allow construction work in progress, which we 
don't allow for nuclear. And so I worry that ratepayers can end 
up with higher energy prices like what happened in South 
Carolina when the project is failed or there are long delays.
    And I support the need for more nuclear, but in that 
monopoly market it becomes difficult with the ratepayers. It 
also becomes difficult when the data centers want to have their 
own sources of energy because the monopoly market doesn't 
really like that very much. And I had that experience even on a 
military installation when I was in--when I was practicing law 
and trying to help get solar panels at Fort Bragg, of all 
things.
    So can you describe how utilities can protect ratepayers 
from these unnecessary costs while also advancing other 
projects like nuclear?
    Ms. Barron. Thank you.
    Chairman Weber. Mike on.
    Ms. Ross. Mike on.
    Ms. Barron. Thank you for the question. And as I mentioned, 
we do operate in competitive markets. So I'm a little bit 
outside of my lane.
    But I do think it's fair to acknowledge that all first-of-
a-kind technologies have challenges with remaining on time and 
on budget, and we've seen that on the East Coast with a number 
of programs supporting offshore wind up and down the Mid-
Atlantic and into the northeast, where, you know, unexpected 
cost increases have led to having--States having to renegotiate 
contracts, and the challenge that you identified being front 
and center, because these programs are funded by customers.
    That being said, these are long-lived assets. I mean, these 
stations, according to the NRC, can run for 80 years, maybe 
longer, but they do take a long time to build. And during that 
period of construction--I agree it is a challenge to how you 
can you can manage those costs and make sure that the risk is 
shared and is not exclusively borne by customers. In our case, 
in a competitive market, we would look to a customer to help 
support the project during development, and ultimately 
guarantee the offtake so that we can share that risk and not 
create the situation that you mentioned that you're facing in 
North Carolina.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you. My next question is--sorry, my next--
thank you, Mr. Chairman--my next question is for Dr. Renshaw.
    At the end of your testimony you talked about an energy 
mix, and how we can maybe use more intermittent resources in 
conjunction with baseload power, and actually even sell energy 
back to the grid, be--have this dispatchable resource that may 
be backup, and helping other consumers of energy. Are there any 
examples going on right now in the country where you can tell 
us this--this really works, it's a great model?
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes. So first, if you'll indulge me for a 
second, we can also cover where it doesn't work. And we've seen 
this in the past when Russia invaded Ukraine, gas prices went 
through the roof, and many European utilities were in a very 
difficult situation, losing millions to hundreds of millions of 
dollars per day based on the increase in gas prices because 
they were overly reliant on one source. That's why a mix of 
energy sources is important that are clean, safe, affordable, 
and environmentally responsible.
    One thing that is exciting is EPRI just announced this 
morning, as part of the DC Flex Initiative, three test sites 
that we will be starting from locations around the world to 
evaluate data center flexibility in terms of using those data 
centers, backup generators potentially powered by clean fuels, 
to operate flexibly and provide power back to the grid in a way 
that we can either shift the time or location of workloads or 
use those backup generators.
    Ms. Ross. So having this backup as dispatchable and also 
being able to do load shifting could be a really good model? 
Great.
    I'm going to use my remaining 15 seconds to thank Joseph, 
right here, for his amazing service to the SST Committee. He is 
going back to North Carolina to--to work in the area of--area 
of nuclear because, it's really so important in North Carolina. 
And so I'd like the Committee to give him a round of applause.
    [Applause.]
    Ms. Ross. And I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. OK. The chair now recognizes the Full 
Committee, Dr. Babin, for 5 minutes.
    Chairman Babin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Schweiger and Ms. Barron, several States, including my 
home State of Texas, have passed legislation to help attract or 
develop the nuclear industry there. Texas House Bill number 14, 
the Texas Advanced Nuclear Deployment Act, has been sent to the 
Governor's desk to be signed into law. This bill creates a 
State office, the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office, to 
identify regulatory and financial barriers, promote public 
education, and support the growth of a nuclear energy supply 
chain. It also establishes the largest state-level grant 
program in the Nation to develop nuclear projects.
    How do actions like this support Federal investments that 
allow this sector to advance from DOE projects to actual 
electrons on the grid?
    Ms. Barron.
    Ms. Barron. Thank you for the question. And, I mean, I 
think the answer is leadership matters. I think the State of 
Texas has spent a lot of time focusing on this, starting at the 
commission and the task force that was formed, Commissioner 
Glotfelty's report. And then, obviously, the work the 
legislature did to enact the bill that you referenced. It makes 
a big difference, and it sends a signal that this is important, 
and that the State supports it.
    And we are seeing that leadership across a number of our 
States. The Governor of New York has done the same thing, 
launched a process to figure out how the State can encourage 
new reactors in the State. Maryland passed a bill that supports 
the addition of new reactors, as well. So I think those are all 
tremendous signs.
    Chairman Babin. OK.
    Ms. Barron. To get to the nub of your question, though, you 
know, to get these reactors actually onto the grid is a 
challenge. The industry is going to need to meet this moment. 
And we have a lot of leadership here at the table to--to talk 
about that further. But I agree with the premise of your 
question that these actions at the State level make--make a 
very big difference to the industry.
    Chairman Babin. OK. And then I'm going to ask Mr. 
Schweiger.
    I'm going to ask you a little bit different. Oklo has 
championed the use of milestone-based contracts to support the 
liftoff of advanced reactors similar to NASA (National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration's) Commercial Orbital 
Transportation Services, or COTS, C-O-T-S, which led developed 
commercial cargo delivery capabilities to the International 
Space Station. In that instance NASA required skin in the game 
from the contractors equal to 50 percent of the development 
costs, and spread the development risk across multiple 
contractors.
    What are the benefits of a milestone approach, and should 
DOE continue to use this form of contracting in the future, as 
they did recently in their request for proposals for the Gen 
III+ demonstration project?
    And what conditions should be included in milestone-based 
contracts to ensure scheduled discipline?
    Mr. Schweiger. OK, thank you----
    Chairman Babin. That's a two-part question.
    Mr. Schweiger. Yes, thank you for the question.
    I'd like to add to your first question that education is so 
crucial. If you think back to post-Fukushima, people's desire 
to use nuclear was pretty low, and they just didn't understand.
    Chairman Babin. Right.
    Mr. Schweiger. OK. Then, for the milestone-based program, I 
think there's inherently value in it. The Oklo approach is 
going to be less tuned to that because of our business model, 
which is to build the plants and then sell the electricity.
    When you look across the nuclear--all the--the Gen IV 
plants that are trying to build new reactors and all those 
initiatives, milestone-based--what I like about it is you have 
to perform to get funding, instead of just getting a tranche of 
money that may or may not produce something. So the milestone, 
presumably, would have performance milestones in there. And 
then, when achieved, then more money can be released.
    Chairman Babin. Right.
    Mr. Schweiger. So, yes. So as far as what should be in the 
milestones, I'm not----
    Chairman Babin. Yes, what conditions.
    Mr. Schweiger. Yes, conditions. That's going to take a 
little bit of thought, but----
    Chairman Babin. Well, I don't have but 37 seconds left.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Schweiger. I know. There we have a problem.
    I think conditions for milestone-based would be do you have 
a technology that's viable? You know, the person seeking 
milestone support, is their technology actually viable? So, you 
know, some sort of evidence. Are you at a technology readiness 
level of four, five, six, somewhere in there?
    And then, when you've established credible technology, then 
marking the progress of that. And I'm--I'm partial to that 
technology readiness assessment process that NASA pioneered and 
DOD has been using--and DOE.
    Chairman Babin. Yes. OK, thank you.
    And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. I have another question, 
but we'll have to submit that for the record.
    Chairman Weber. Thank you, sir. The Chairman recognizes the 
Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Zoe Lofgren of 
California.
    Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you, Mr.----
    Chairman Weber. For as much time as she may consume.
    Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You know, when we look at the international landscape, and 
particularly at China, there's--we're seeing massive levels of 
investment toward AI infrastructure, as well as nuclear energy. 
And I think they're building more nuclear than anyone else in 
the world. Meanwhile, we're debating here whether to limit 
programs that provided research and loans and the like.
    How would each of you rate our ability to compete with 
China's massive nuclear expansion, particularly in developing 
next-generation reactor technologies?
    And specifically, do any of you think it's a good idea to 
cut support for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program by 
more than half, as the Administration has proposed in its 
budget resolution?
    Whoever wants to go first.
    Ms. Barron. I can just make a few comments. I have some 
understanding of how the development is--is occurring in China. 
And, you know, I think when you have a centralized authority 
that is in charge, and you have construction crew A, B, C, D, 
E, and you can sort of dispatch them around the country, you 
can move faster. We have a different model here.
    We have bifurcated authority between the Federal Government 
and the States over energy policy, and that, you know, keeps 
those of us up here in a job for a long period of time. But it 
does mean that it's a bit more--more complicated. So--but it 
allows, you know, involvement and--and appropriate input across 
different levels of government. And that's important.
    So I think our challenge, as I mentioned a moment ago, is--
is to sort of meet this moment now, and put all of our effort 
into trying to move forward as fast as we possibly can, and we 
have seen a lot of support for that of late, which I think is 
important.
    Dr. Renshaw. If I can add to that, I would say China is 
definitely moving fast. They have the infrastructure in place, 
manufacturing capabilities that have accelerated their ability 
to perform. Currently they are on pace to build reactors in 
about 52 months, so just over 4 years, and they're doing that 
on time and on budget, meaning that they are growing in 
credibility and trust with the people who are ordering those 
plants. So that's a credibility and trust that would be 
important to have in other regions of the world, to be able to 
say this is how much a reactor will cost to build, and this is 
how long it will take.
    Ms. Lofgren. You know, it just seems to me--I--the Chairman 
mentioned Fukushima, which made people around the world 
nervous. And the legacy systems are different than the next-
generation system, which has broad support. And I'm thinking 
about my own State. Near Morro Bay there's a legacy nuclear 
plant that was going to be decommissioned because, you know, 
building a dam or a nuclear plant is a way to find an 
earthquake fault, and they found new earthquake faults near the 
facility. We're keeping it open because of the energy needs, 
but people are uneasy about it because it's a legacy system, 
and we don't have that unease about the next generation.
    So what about the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program 
and the reduction that's being proposed? Does that make a 
difference for our future?
    Dr. Renshaw, do you have an opinion?
    Dr. Renshaw. Well, EPRI doesn't comment on government 
policy.
    Certainly, investments in research and development can help 
to accelerate the processes that we have, as well as the 
technologies. So I would say that is--if we are investing 
correctly, then it helps to accelerate all forms of research 
and development, whether it's nuclear or otherwise.
    Ms. Lofgren. One of the things--and I'm glad that our 
colleague, Mr. Beyer, is here, he's the co-chair of the Fusion 
Caucus--but, you know, we're skating toward where the puck is 
going to be here. And both in terms of new energy sources, but 
also the energy use, there is some in the AI space who believe 
that the power consumption is actually going to go down as 
quantum comes into play and, using different algorithms, that 
the energy issue is going to be different than it is today. Do 
you have a view on that, Dr. Renshaw?
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes, I would say--I would refer back to my 
testimony that the future energy needs are very uncertain. 
Certainly, quantum computing is a technology that holds 
significant promise in terms of accelerating certain types of 
computing problems. AI may be one of those problems, as well as 
optimization, search materials development, and so forth. So 
there is the potential that future quantum computing modalities 
would help to significantly reduce the--the amount of energy 
that's required to train and test models.
    But I would also point out Jevons Paradox, which 
interestingly came out of the coal industry, where the 
increases in efficiency of using a technology often results in 
the expansion of usage of that technology. So if we can make 
the use of quantum computing help AI training and inference, 
then there's the potential for massively increased usage of AI 
and other technologies.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My time has expired, so 
I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. Thank you, ma'am. The Chair now recognizes 
Lieutenant Colonel Biggs from South Carolina for at least 5 
minutes.
    Mrs. Biggs. Thank you, Chairman Weber, and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here today.
    The growing energy demand of AI infrastructure requires 24/
7, 365-day baseload power generation that never goes dark. So 
do our American businesses and consumers. Nuclear energy is the 
solution. It provides clean, efficient, and resilient power 
that keeps the lights on and the rates low.
    South Carolina is already a leader in nuclear. Over 50 
percent of power generated in South Carolina comes from a 
nuclear plant. I'm blessed to live just a few miles from one of 
the largest nuclear power stations in the United States. The 
Oconee Nuclear Station has provided reliable power to the 3d 
District for over 50 years, and it was recently renewed for 
another 20 years.
    South Carolina is an exciting place to be. We have a record 
economic and population growth. However, we are also reaching a 
point of energy criticality. South Carolina needs the kind of 
reliable and resilient energy production that nuclear does 
provide. The newly formed Palmetto Nuclear Coalition was 
launched with the goal of bringing the nuclear renaissance to 
South Carolina, whether that is in the form of traditional 
reactors or small modular reactors. So my question is to Mr. 
Schweiger.
    The energy demand from data centers and manufacturing is 
only increasing, while American baseload has stagnated over the 
last 20 years. What Federal policies could help scale nuclear 
capacity fast enough to meet and exceed the growing energy 
demand?
    Mr. Schweiger. OK, thank you for the question. That's a bit 
of a toughie.
    I think that--so I grew up in Washington State. There were 
five nuclear plants that were under construction. Only two--
actually, one--got built. Four were canceled. And so, when you 
look at what happened, it was--at the State level they didn't 
have the funding duration to support all five reactors.
    So I think what's crucial is that the U.S. industry moves 
at pace. We've heard other panel members here talk about--or 
witnesses here talk about how quickly we can get a plant built. 
So the industry has to move faster in America. And then there 
has to be the money to back the initiatives.
    Mrs. Biggs. Thank you.
    For Ms. Barron, how could the licensing process be 
simplified to allow for quicker project initiation to power 
generation?
    Ms. Barron. Thank you, Representative Biggs, for that 
question. And, thankfully, that has been a subject of much 
attention of late, with the President's executive orders 
focusing on streamlining the relicensing and licensing 
timeline.
    There is no question that we need a very competent and very 
responsible Federal regulator to be overseeing the industry, 
but we also need to move as quick as we possibly can, making 
sure that we meet all, you know, regulatory and safety 
requirements and we reduce unnecessary regulation.
    Like, for example, for us to get an early site permit 
renewed at our Clinton site costs about $35 million, take a 
couple of years to evaluate whether that site is suitable for 
nuclear power when it already has a reactor on the site. Like, 
these are the kinds of things we're trying to point out that we 
could reduce the unnecessary work, focus on the necessary work, 
and do our work as quickly as possible. We can achieve the goal 
of getting the reactors online faster.
    Mrs. Biggs. Great. So we're on a roll. I'm just going to 
continue with you. What is the most effective role for the 
Federal Government to aid in the production and scaling of 
small modular reactors?
    And how might they be useful for building out AI 
infrastructure and keeping our rates low?
    Ms. Barron. Well, in my testimony I mentioned some critical 
policies including 45Y and 48E tax credits to support 
investment in--in new--new reactors. I mentioned the Loan 
Programs Office, which is another very important tool. And then 
there are some grant programs that are underway, both for SMRs 
and, ideally, for other large-scale, new reactors, as well. 
Depending on the use case you might prefer to have a larger 
reactor, as opposed to a smaller reactor. And of course, the 
larger reactor, the AP1000, has already been successfully 
deployed in Georgia, and so it doesn't have to go through that 
same sort of licensing as--as the newer reactor designs.
    But all of these programs obviously have to work together.
    Mrs. Biggs. Thank you so much for your insight.
    And with that I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. I thank the gentlelady. The Chair 
recognizes the gentlelady from Oregon for at least 5 minutes.
    Ms. Salinas. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our 
Ranking Member and our witnesses for being here today.
    Whether we're using nuclear on different power sources, I 
think we need to make sure that we also maintain focus on 
efficiency, and this kind of goes to the question that our 
Ranking Member of the Full Committee was having.
    If we can limit data center power needs in the first place, 
that will make it easier to lead the world in AI while keeping 
costs under control for our electric grid. For example, in 
Oregon, the Corvallis Microfluidics Tech Hub is a consortium 
tackling R&D to make chips more efficient and easier to cool.
    Dr. Renshaw--and again, you had a little bit of this 
conversation--you alluded to this in your testimony. Can you 
elaborate on the R&D being done in this space, and how energy 
demand projections change depending on what we are able to 
accomplish in that efficiency space?
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes, so great question. I would say there are 
many opportunities in this space.
    So you had mentioned advances in chip designs, which we've 
seen significant improvements in efficiency, thousands of times 
of improvements of the number of tokens or word portions that 
we can generate per unit of energy. Additionally, what we've 
seen is that as new models, new model architectures for AI are 
developed, they're often more efficient and more performant.
    One of the things that we're doing at EPRI right now is 
partnering with others in industry to look at how can we use 
domain-specific models, so models that are customized for a 
particular task to be able to not only get better performance, 
but use less energy in combination.
    So we think that all of these together will help to at 
least blunt the growth of artificial intelligence energy needs.
    Ms. Salinas. Thank you.
    Ms. Barron--and again, teeing off of the conversation with 
Ms. Biggs--while meeting the significant energy demands of AI 
infrastructure is important, I too worry that ratepayers could 
end up with higher energy prices along the way. Past examples 
of nuclear energy construction projects have either failed or 
were completely after long--completed after long delays and 
cost overruns. And while I support the need for clean energy to 
be added to the grid, I want to make sure that ratepayers are 
not flipping the bill and subsidizing the costs as risks of 
powering these data centers continue.
    Can you describe how Constellation is protecting ratepayers 
from unnecessary costs?
    Ms. Barron. Thank you for the question. And, you know, I--
as we talked about earlier in response to Ranking Member Ross, 
there's no question when you're deploying a first-of-a-kind 
technology that there are going to be challenges. And we've 
seen that with, for example, the offshore wind development over 
here on the East Coast. But--but once the resources reach nth-
of-a-kind, and you can get some more predictability, then it's 
easier to manage the cost, of course.
    I mean, I think it's true that, if you look at the Georgia 
example, Vogtle Unit 4 was 30 percent cheaper than Vogtle Unit 
3. And so when you can get an order book in place and you can 
get to that nth-of-a-kind spot, obviously this is all easier. 
But in the short term it is challenging.
    In our case, given that we don't have captive ratepayers 
and we're in competitive markets, what will likely happen is 
that we will have some corporate off-taker, likely some type of 
data economy customer, who will say I want to work with you to 
develop that resource, and I will take the power when it's 
done. And so there will be no ratepayer impact of that 
technology investment if it happens. But there still is a lot 
of work to get to that point. And that's what we're working 
hard to do.
    Ms. Salinas. All right. And just as a follow up, are you 
worried that a reduction in LPO's ability to provide loan 
guarantees for large energy infrastructure projects, whether as 
a result of staff reductions or funding recisions, will 
inadvertently lead to an increase in ratepayer costs?
    Ms. Barron. I mean, there's no question that the LPO, when 
it provides loans, can help bring down the costs of these new 
technologies, and that has benefits across the country for all 
ratepayers when you have a technology that can get 
commercialized at a lower cost. So we have been pleased to see 
the focus on continuing the investment through the LPO, both in 
small modular reactors and larger reactors through that 
program.
    Ms. Salinas. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Indiana for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, and 
thank the witnesses for being here today.
    Ms. Barron, I'm going to start with you. And Constellation 
was among the first major utilities to invest in grid scale 
small reactor technology. And with this backing from Rolls 
Royce, the SMR in 2020, this endorsement from a credible 
nuclear utility served to inspire investment in the space, 
unlocking capital flow into several other SMR designs.
    And with the President last month setting a goal of 
expanding America's nuclear capacity and capability from 100 
gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050, the moment again calls for 
major credible first movers to help America win the race and 
drive deployment commitments from small modular reactors.
    So my question really comes--since we're in this race, what 
policy hurdles or other impediments that inhibit or prevent 
major nuclear operators such as yourself from transitioning 
investment in SMR designs to the actual deployment of these 
SMRs?
    Ms. Barron. Thank you for the question, Representative. And 
you're right. We did make an early equity investment in the 
Rolls Royce SMR, and that might be confusing to some because, 
of course, we're here in the United States. And why did we do 
that? But we did that because the UK government made an 
investment in that technology and launched a process to seek 
input and bids to award contracts to a large number of SMRs for 
use by the UK citizens. And we saw that as a signal that the 
government was supporting that technology, and that there was a 
future for Rolls Royce and potentially other SMR developers in 
the UK. And we're pleased to see that that has borne out the 
case, that the UK has selected Rolls Royce to move forward.
    So, you know, what's happened in the intervening years 
since we made that investment is that we've had tremendous 
support here in the U.S., and we have a lot of very promising 
designs that are underway. And so we're--we're hopeful that the 
U.S. will--will see that same level of investment both in the 
work that Oklo is doing with the military and with commercial 
customers across--across the country.
    Mr. Baird. So I'm going to continue on somewhat in that 
vein. In April, Representative Harrigan, Tenney, and I 
introduced the Small Modular Reactor Commercialization Act, and 
that was aimed at securing United States' preeminent position 
to industrialize grid scale small modular reactor technology. 
The bill amends the outdated, arbitrary 300 megawatt threshold 
for SMRs, which has really disadvantaged the U.S., and 
established a working group to continuously recommend policy 
that protects American status as the most competitive Nation 
for reactor companies to base manufacturing beyond first-of-a-
kind demonstrator volumes.
    So from your perspective, would you elaborate on what it 
takes and on this bill in order to move and have the workforce 
that we need to commercialize these SMRs?
    Ms. Barron. Did you want to cover that?
    Mr. Schweiger. Who are you directing the question to?
    Ms. Barron. I'm happy to answer, but----
    Mr. Baird. Now that we've taken this time, all three of 
you. But I'm going to start with Ms. Barron.
    Ms. Barron. I'm not--I'm not familiar with every provision 
of the bill, but I understand that it's designed to help the 
SMR industry. So I, you know--and sort of modernize the code in 
order to--to ensure that it can be commercialized. So that's an 
important step.
    I think there's also steps that the industry needs to take 
on the workforce question to make sure that we're helping 
support certification programs, bringing students into--from 
high school, through the trades, through the 4-year schools, 
into industry to--to power it moving forward. And we are doing 
that at Constellation.
    Mr. Baird. Mr. Schweiger?
    Mr. Schweiger. So when I was young, which was a few years 
ago, at the plant I worked at what became crucial is that the 
plant design was basic enough where you didn't have to have a 
Ph.D. to run it. So I think one of the keys in getting these 
SMRs to market beyond first-of-a-kind is to make sure the 
designs are as simple as possible so they're cost effective, 
easier to build, easier to run.
    Mr. Baird. Dr. Renshaw.
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes, I would agree with what has been said so 
far.
    If I can add one piece of additional knowledge, I would say 
that training is an important area, and the workforce that we 
would need in the future for supporting nuclear is 
significantly larger than what it is today. This might be an 
opportunity to utilize AI to accelerate training proficiency, 
to be able to help this--the new generation to understand the 
technologies in these areas faster, to be able to get up to 
speed, to be able to replace the current workforce--or not 
replace, but augment the current workforce.
    Mr. Baird. I thank all of you and I yield back. My time is 
up.
    Chairman Weber. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
recognizes the gentlelady from California for at least 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Friedman. Thank you very much, Chair Weber and Ranking 
Member Ross, and for the witnesses coming here today.
    My constituents in California are really struggling with 
surging electrical rates: 1 in 5 ratepayers are behind on their 
power bills as of last year, and rates are more than 80 percent 
higher than the national average. Our State is home to more 
than 270 data centers, with 70 in Los Angeles alone and two in 
downtown--and in downtown Los Angeles, real estate developers 
are racing to build even more data centers to keep up with 
demand.
    As AI-driven data centers and that demand surges, it's 
really important that we make sure that our ratepayers can also 
pay for the cost of electricity. Given how data intensive or 
how energy intensive these AI centers are, and given that 
California is one of the homes of a lot of this technology, how 
do we make sure, No. 1--well, my question is, are we building 
new power capacity, really, to satisfy the demands of data 
centers more than of ordinary citizens and their homes and 
their businesses?
    And how do we ensure that none of those costs are being 
passed along to ratepayers?
    [Pause.]
    Ms. Friedman. And I don't know if you can speak to that, 
because I think maybe you're more on the technical side, but 
yes, go ahead.
    Ms. Barron. I'm happy to try. I'm not an expert on 
California, per se, but I do think--and there was a prior 
question about, you know, are we going to see this sustained 
level of--of demand growth as the AI industry evolves, and I 
think that is--that is a good question.
    But I also think, if we are going to continue to electrify 
our economy, if we're going to continue to try to onshore more 
manufacturing, and if we are going to continue to lose coal 
plants that go off the system, we are going to need to find new 
technologies to bring onto the grid. And--and all of that is 
going to benefit California and the country if we can do that 
successfully.
    But we should be choosing the lowest-cost solutions. We 
should not be choosing things that we prefer because we like 
those technologies. We should be choosing the things that can 
achieve the goal of clean and reliable electricity at the 
lowest cost. And, you know, I think that's what we're all up 
here trying to do, and so that's what I would say to that 
question.
    Ms. Friedman. Right now we--you know, in California I don't 
think that new nuclear is even allowed by law at this point.
    Ms. Barron. That's right.
    Ms. Friedman. We have Diablo Canyon, which is an older 
plant, which is--whose life has been extended recently through 
legislation which is actually tremendously costly to continue 
to operate.
    But in terms of other parts of the country where new 
nuclear is allowed, you know, we hear a lot about permitting 
and how difficult permitting it is. And I can only imagine for 
a nuclear plant how many layers of safety review you have to 
do, and different levels of permitting. I'm curious as to 
whether anyone has ever done an analysis as to how much of that 
permitting may be repetitive, if there is permitting 
requirements that are--that could be streamlined, that are more 
low-hanging fruit to get things moved along more quickly and in 
a more cost effective way without sacrificing safety, community 
input, siting issues, that kind of thing.
    Are there--if we're interested in making the permitting a 
little bit--have more sense to it and be easier for those 
communities who want to add new advanced energy and nuclear, 
where would we look at that?
    And have you seen these kinds of--I mean, are--when you're 
doing the permitting, are you pulling your hair out saying I've 
already done this analysis, why do I have to do it again?
    Ms. Barron. Well, I mean, I gave the example of the early 
site permit that we have, where we have to evaluate the 
environmental and other seismic issues associated with the new 
reactor, even though we're looking at the exact same site where 
we have existing reactors. So those kinds of things clearly are 
in focus to make sure that those are not things that we're 
wasting time on when we should be spending time on--on trying 
to get these newer designs certificated.
    But I also think it's one of the reasons why using an 
existing site makes some more sense. You already have a cooling 
lake there, you don't need to build a new one. You have rail, 
you have electrical infrastructure, and those can bring down 
the cost and shorten the time of bringing on new reactors.
    Ms. Friedman. Does anyone else have any thoughts as to what 
you would look at for anyone here who's looking at any kind of 
permitting, streamlining or reform?
    And it's OK if you don't know.
    Mr. Schweiger. Well, I think--so I've worked in fusion and 
fission, and the U.S. has policies in place that are making 
fusion permitting go faster. And so, you know, the fresh look 
at how to go get a nuclear-related technology to market, you 
know, to power the grid, there's already an example where the 
U.S. is--is moving faster with permitting.
    So--and in fission there is some momentum gaining here, but 
I think it's important to support that and give it impetus.
    Dr. Renshaw. And if I could add just two thoughts on this, 
as well--I know we're close on time--the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission has already performed internal reviews on how they 
can streamline their own processes and procedures. That's been 
ongoing for several years now.
    One thing that we could also utilize--not to beat a dead 
horse--but AI. AI is very good at streamlining and distilling 
large volumes of information. You may have hundreds of pages in 
a report. The person who's reviewing that report may only need 
certain key pieces of information. So instead of reading the 
entire report, could you utilize AI to accelerate the reviews 
of--of the permitting processes and so forth to be able to 
streamline on both sides of the review and preparation?
    Ms. Friedman. Thank you, I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Hurd, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Hurd. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for convening 
this meeting on a very important topic.
    The Trump Administration has signaled that nuclear energy 
is a key part of achieving energy dominance. The President's 
executive orders on nuclear energy, I think, send a strong 
message that America must lead the world in nuclear energy. And 
his executive orders focus on the nuclear supply chain, 
existing reactors, new reactors, and much more. However, what 
will matter is how they are implemented. We have to make sure 
that they're implemented in a way that creates predictability 
for companies so that they can raise private capital, but also 
allows projects to be built faster.
    Mr. Schweiger, Oklo's CEO (Chief Executive Officer) was at 
the executive order signing ceremony, if I'm correct. How do 
these EOs impact Oklo's plans to build your reactors?
    Mr. Schweiger. Well, they'll certainly help. Again, going 
back to the business model where Oklo is--is raising their own 
capital, building their own plants, and then selling that 
power, the EOs don't have a direct impact on Oklo as a company. 
I think there are--to the nuclear industry in general, it's 
great to have some tailwinds moving it along.
    Mr. Hurd. Good. I'm happy to hear that.
    Ms. Barron, I think Constellation's CEO was also at that 
executive order signing ceremony. Similar question: how do 
these executive orders impact Constellation's plans related to 
maintaining your current nuclear fleet and also for building 
new reactors?
    Ms. Barron. Thank you for the question. That is true, my 
boss was there.
    And I think the--the focus on the timelines, both for 
license extensions, which we talked about, how important they 
are to allow the existing fleet to continue operating for 20 
years, streamlining that process, and looking at the reactor 
oversight process and the reactor security rules which haven't 
been updated in a long period of time, those are some important 
pieces of this executive order, although there are many that 
relate to workforce and other things, as you mentioned.
    We are not currently developing a new reactor at this 
point, but we're looking at what that would take. And so having 
this streamlining in the EOs is going to make a--is going to be 
a big help.
    Mr. Hurd. What do you think is the most challenging part of 
the EO to implement? Does anything come top of mind, Ms. Barron 
or Mr. Schweiger or Mr. Renshaw?
    Ms. Barron. Well, as I mentioned in my testimony, there are 
some ambitious goals. I mean, 10 new large reactors under 
construction by 2030. It's ambitious, it's appropriately 
ambitious, but we have a lot of work to do to make that happen.
    Mr. Hurd. Mr. Schweiger, the most challenging part of these 
EOs to implement, any thoughts?
    Mr. Schweiger. None at the moment.
    Mr. Hurd. OK, Mr. Renshaw, how about you? Anything to 
contribute here with respect to the President's executive 
orders?
    Or maybe what role should Congress play in making these 
executive orders successful and impactful?
    Dr. Renshaw. I'll go back to EPRI generally doesn't comment 
on policy or directions that Congress should take, so I will 
refrain from answering.
    Mr. Hurd. OK, fair enough.
    I want to ask--this is a question for all of you, so let's 
see who wants to answer. Given the bipartisan support for 
expanding our nuclear energy generation fleet and the taxpayer 
money that's gone into developing and fostering this industry, 
what barriers is the industry facing, and how can Congress help 
remove them so we can start building more reactors and putting 
electrons on the grid?
    Mr. Schweiger. Thank you for the question.
    I think the one barrier I see right now is just fuel 
supply, you know, having enough fuel. There's a lot of plants 
that need HALEU that are in the works. And so whatever can be 
done to get that fuel released for use, and then funding the 
research to be able to undergird what these--the new generation 
plants are trying to bring to market.
    Mr. Hurd. Can I ask--do you see a future--do any of you see 
a future where spent fuel could be reused or reprocessed 
economically and securely in the United States, or is that not 
something that you see on the horizon?
    Mr. Schweiger. So Oklo is doing that. We're working with 
Idaho National Lab right now to recycle the EBR-II fuel. And 
then one of the next objectives at Oklo is to go to the 
commercial spent fuel and recycle that. So it's very much in 
our program. We're seeing support from Congress, the U.S. 
Government, and we think it's a wonderful thing because there's 
a lot of spent fuel that could be used before it's buried.
    Mr. Hurd. Ms. Barron, do you see any--with advanced 
reactors coming online, do you see any role that spent fuel 
inventories might play in fueling those systems?
    Ms. Barron. I'm learning along with you about the Oklo 
design and the promise of that potential. I know that that is 
occurring overseas, like, for example, in France, but we 
haven't done that here in the U.S. And it would be a great 
development if that could be a source of power for a new 
reactor design, yes.
    Mr. Hurd. Something to consider, indeed.
    Mr. Chairman, I see my time has expired. I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. The gentleman yields back. The Chairman 
recognizes the gentlelady from North Carolina for at least 5 
minutes.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you to our witnesses for being here 
today and for--to our Chair and Ranking Member for holding this 
hearing.
    Dr. Renshaw, recent research published by Caltech and UC 
(University of California) Riverside looks at the fact that 
AI's environmental footprint can be disproportionately higher 
in certain regions, and raises questions about how we should 
fairly balance AI's rapid expansion with its regional 
environmental impact. Can you discuss how AI's environmental 
impacts can vary by region, and how--and should Congress 
consider addressing potential environmental inequities posed by 
AI's infrastructure?
    Dr. Renshaw. So that is a very deep question, so we'll only 
scratch the surface on that today. But certainly there are 
disproportionate impacts, especially on under-privileged 
communities, because they're often sited in less desirable 
areas that may be close to power generation, facilities that 
may be more higher polluting or otherwise. And so we often look 
at the benefits of AI, but this is looking at kind of what is 
the flip side. So looking at the water use, the energy use are 
all things that we need to take into account.
    I would say, on the positive side, as we continue forward 
on the path of research and development of these technologies 
to utilize advanced chips, more performant model architectures, 
domain-specific models, and advanced computing modalities such 
as neuromorphic and quantum computing, I think we can blunt 
some of that energy demand from data centers.
    And we also have to remember on the environmental side that 
while the largest impacts are in the immediate area, certainly 
pollution can expand to greater regional areas, and pollution 
can, of course, cross cities and State lines. So we have to be 
cognizant that it affects all of us.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you for sharing that insight.
    Ms. Barron, I'm proud that our AI task force report from 
last Congress dedicates an entire chapter to discussing AI's 
energy and environmental impacts. As I've mentioned before, I'm 
concerned about how the environmental demands like water and 
local land resources needed to support AI's rapid arrival are 
affecting prior and recent commitments of our Nation's leading 
technology firms to become net zero emissions by the year 2030.
    As we move into the second half of this decade and approach 
2030, how do you assess the current capabilities of our 
Nation's clean energy infrastructure to support AI's continuing 
expansion today?
    And what should technology firms and Congress be doing now 
to ensure that AI technology development into the future is 
sustainable? I think you touched on a bit of that earlier.
    Ms. Barron. I did, but I appreciate that question. And in 
response as well to your last question, I guess I would I would 
say two things.
    One is, you know, we've talked about this notion of 
collocation. You know, our plants tend to be very remote from 
population centers, and they have enormous land buffers. In 
most cases we have thousands of acres of land around the plant, 
and people don't even know that the plants are there. But that 
does make it an ideal location for locating a data center, 
which likely, you know, may cause some of the same concerns in 
that people don't usually want to look at that all day long, or 
hear it in some cases.
    But to your exact question, addressing that land use issue 
by collocating with an existing plant and addressing the water 
issue, as well--as you may know, we have to create cooling 
lakes or cooling ponds to--to have water to cool our reactor. 
And in some cases it may be the case that the data center can 
use some of the water that we have already created for use by 
the plant. Sort of discharge water that we use for cooling they 
can also use for cooling. So there will be no impact on the 
local community for the water side, as well.
    And then just to the last question on the potential for 
using AI to help with clean energy infrastructure development, 
one example I can give you is in addition to our nuclear 
reactors we own the largest hydro dam east of the Mississippi 
at the Conowingo up on the Susquehanna. And we also own a 
pumped storage facility that's right nearby. And these two 
facilities both use the water from the river to create 
electricity. But using AI, we've been able to optimize the use 
of the water in a way that we haven't been before that allows 
us to make 250,000 megawatt hours from that plant, which is 
enough to power 25,000 homes. That's more renewable energy we 
didn't have before we used this technology.
    So a small example, but we're hoping those kinds of 
things--we can come back to you with--with--with even more 
impactful examples in the future.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you, and my final question to Dr. 
Renshaw.
    As a fellow North Carolinian, you know my district is a 
leader in researching and developing emerging technologies like 
quantum and AI. What opportunities are there in the upcoming 
reauthorization of both the National Quantum Initiative Act and 
the National AI Act of 2020 to advance U.S. leadership at the 
intersection of technologies like quantum and AI?
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes. So I would say that AI and quantum are 
two of the most exciting technologies today. They are both 
exponentially growing technologies. AI is one that everyone in 
this room and pretty much around the world is aware of. Quantum 
is still a little bit under the radar, but it is growing very 
rapidly and very quickly. Certainly in the Research Triangle 
area of North Carolina, here in the D.C. area there are top 
notch universities, as well, as well as many other areas around 
the country and around the world.
    So I would expect that as we continue to advance research 
and development in the areas and then move to practical 
applications, we will start to see not only the benefits of AI 
and the benefits of quantum, but the benefits of merging these 
two technologies together for both more performant systems, 
tools, and models, as well as more energy efficient systems, 
tools, and models.
    Mrs. Foushee. Thank you.
    That's my time. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Weber. You bet. The Chair now recognizes the 
gentlelady from Maryland for at least 5 minutes.
    Mrs. McClain Delaney. Thank you to the Chair and the 
Ranking Member, and thanks to our witnesses. And I know it's 
been a--already a very weighty morning, but incredible 
testimony so far.
    So many of you highlighted earlier in your testimony and 
your answers about how the U.S. is obviously barreling toward 
this energy--I hate to use the word ``crisis,'' but it's really 
something that we've got to address--and that our consumption 
is increasing, driven by AI and our data center expansion. And 
without additional power generation from a variety of sources, 
including nuclear, many of us really are concerned about how 
costs will increase substantially for consumers and companies.
    As we look to the 2030s, one way to drive down costs and 
increase nuclear power generation is the next generation of 
nuclear reactors deployed at scale. And as was noted by our 
Chair, one of the companies highlighted in the preparatory 
materials is my own 6th District's X-energy headquarters. And 
with the Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstrations 
Project and program, X-energy has partnered with Dow Chemical 
to provide a first-of-its-kind deployment of an advanced 
reactor that will generate both electricity and steam for Dow's 
chemical production behind the meter.
    This initial demonstration was deemed critical to attract 
the next customers, and it's an approach that is working as 
Amazon has stepped up to partner with X-energy based on the 
ARDP to invest another $334 million in a second plant and 
target 5 gigawatts of new power. So a couple of things.
    Dr. Renshaw, it appears that the new business models that 
are helping to deploy these small modular reactors at a rate 
that will bring down the initial capital investment needed for 
new generation of energy. How does the collaboration between 
high-need energy consumers and nuclear energy producers like X-
energy's partnerships with Amazon and Dow Chemical meet the 
needs of AI companies while keeping energy prices down for U.S. 
consumers?
    And we talked about that a little bit earlier, but kind of 
delving a little bit into it because I was very impressed with 
X-energy.
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes, if we can maybe peel the onion back one 
more layer to get a little bit deeper, I would say one of the 
key things that's holding us back today is really the financing 
aspect. The cost of financing for all of----
    Mrs. McClain Delaney. I completely agree with that.
    Dr. Renshaw [continuing]. These projects is really the 
largest driver.
    So as we can move from pilot phases to demonstration and 
then production--I heard nth-of-a-kind earlier--we can reduce 
the cost, build that trust and credibility as we take the 
fundamental R&D to applied R&D into production, and that will 
help everyone--not only X-energy, but other reactor vendors--to 
be able to build advanced nuclear, as well as other 
technologies that are clean, safe, affordable, and reliable, 
and put those on the grid for the benefit of all.
    Mrs. McClain Delaney. So building on that, would you say 
that would be something that would be through a public-private 
partnership? Do you see it in terms of private equity markets 
getting into it? Or do you think it's something that we really 
need to step up, as--you know, Congress, and looking at funding 
it, you know, more from a government level as we look at it 
ahead? Because I think that's incredibly important.
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes. In this case I would say all of the above 
are important and helpful. I would say the people who are 
building these systems, they--they would need support and 
collaboration partnerships to be able to make them happen. I 
think my--my co-witnesses can testify to that. And in fact, I 
might defer to them if you want more details on what would be 
important----
    Mrs. McClain Delaney. No, I would love to hear from them 
and--briefly. Then I want to get on to research for a second, 
as well.
    Ms. Barron. Yes, I think that's exactly right. I mean, I 
think the stability of the government policy is important, and 
knowing what tools are available is sort of what everyone is 
looking at at this moment in time.
    But--but once you have that certainty, then you are going 
to need to go to capital markets, you're going to have to bring 
other investors along, you're going to have to understand what 
their cost of capital is and how you're going to share the 
risk. And then you put it together and then you go. I mean, 
that is--that is there's a lot of folks working on how to make 
that happen right now.
    But, you know, the offtaker matters, the government--the 
government policy matters. But we are going to need to look to 
third party capital, as well.
    Mr. Schweiger. OK. Finally, Oklo's perspective, the Loan 
Programs Office, this is an important financial tool for Oklo, 
we want to see it presented. Secretary Wright supports this 
program, as well.
    Mrs. McClain Delaney. So thank you all. I'm just going to 
submit for the record a question that, you know, the budget 
request cut DOE--the President's budget cut DOE's ARDP program 
by 51 percent, totaling $161 million. And I'm really concerned 
about the implications of reduced research funding and nuclear 
power generation, that fundamental research. So I'll submit for 
the record.
    But thank you all, and very informative.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Weber. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from Illinois for at least 5 minutes.
    Mr. Foster. At least? I'd like to understand the legal 
reading of that, and what--the penalties involved for--anyway, 
one of----
    Chairman Weber. Ms. Barron is an attorney, if you're 
interested.
    Mr. Foster. OK. Well, since I haven't yet been assigned a 
Subcommittee here, I think you have considerable leverage in 
that negotiation over me.
    One of the areas where AI is going to have a real impact, I 
hope, is on the compliance and engineering costs for--for 
nuclear that--you know, I was talking to a guy who actually 
runs a company that builds a lot of these data centers. And 
when you deliver the civil construction for a data center, it's 
accompanied by just a telephone book full of documentation on 
how your, you know, tornado resilience is, and you name it.
    And so--and he's in the process of replacing a very large 
group of engineers and--and so on that produces that phone book 
with AI, because once you've done that for one data center, 
trained it on things, you can very rapidly make the minor 
modifications in this.
    And so in the case of, you know, nuclear, if you--if you 
train your AI on every site evacuation plan that's ever been 
written, and say I need a site evacuation plan for one more 
place, you can imagine that that's an instance where the 
engineering costs associated with a new nuclear emplacement may 
go down.
    Also, the regulatory delays if that same level of AI is 
used by the government to evaluate this telephone book that 
you've just submitted to them, then you could imagine a very 
rapid turnaround in that. I was wondering. Are you starting to 
use, you know, AI to generate any of the paperwork or--the 
electronic paperwork so far for your regulatory things?
    Mr. Schweiger. So we have an AI protocol that's in writing 
for Oklo, and we're starting to use AI in expanding capacity. 
When you start looking at design of a first-of-a-kind plant, I 
think you can use AI to a limited capacity. But there is a lot 
of details that go into how, for example, a heat exchanger is 
designed.
    Mr. Foster. OK, but I was referring to the site-specific 
details.
    Mr. Schweiger. OK.
    Mr. Foster. That when you have--OK, I have one of these----
    Mr. Schweiger. Oh, yes.
    Mr. Foster. You know, because one of the messes that you 
have in, like, all the Constellation plants is that they're all 
somewhat different and, you know, the cooling scenario is 
different and the ponds are different. But that is something 
where, once you had the fundamental engineering understood by 
the AI, you could rapidly make a new site-specific plan. And it 
would, I think, change a lot of the economics. And if the 
government would go--move along with you, you know, the 
approval of that could be a lot faster.
    And so anyway, I just urge you to keep your eye on that, 
because I think that--you know, the--it also means that the 
workforce planning will be a lot--you know, the--the group that 
is anticipated by this guy that makes the AI data centers was 
about 5 percent of this current group size--could produce all 
of that paperwork using AI trained on--on projects that have 
already been completed.
    Let's see, one--all right. Another thing, you know, I 
worked at Fermilab for many years. We're a very good customer. 
And one of the deals that we had was that we would get a call 
from the, you know, control room, and said, hey, it's--you 
know, it's a hot afternoon. We're getting in kind of trouble on 
our capacity. Can you guys, like, do some preventative 
maintenance instead of drawing power? And that got us a much 
better rate, power rate. Are you seeing that same sort of thing 
out of the data centers?
    Because the data centers, in principle, you know, they're 
doing a mixture of 2 week-long projects to do--to train models, 
and then rapid response to people that type in queries. The--
the queries could be routed to any data center, you know, in 
the continental United States so that that load can be moved 
around. And you can certainly just say, OK, it's going to take 
2 weeks and 2 days because we had an ice storm in Texas. And is 
that sort of--are you getting that sort of negotiation out of 
the data centers at this point?
    Yes.
    Dr. Renshaw. Yes, so I'll take maybe the first part and 
then defer to Ms. Barron for the second part.
    So we are looking, through our DC Flex Initiative, of data 
center flexibility, how we could do exactly what you're talking 
about, utilizing the ability to delay AI training or move it to 
different sources or different locations. In some cases you're 
able to do that. In other cases you're not. So we want to be 
realistic about what can and can't be done.
    On the flip side, there's also the opportunity, as 
discussed earlier, to be able to use backup generation sources. 
Now, currently many of those are diesel and can only be 
operated so many hours per year, which could still be a good 
resource, even for the top 40 highest peak load hours during 
the year. If cleaner energy sources were used such as hydro-
treated vegetable oil, hydrogen sources, or other, then you 
could potentially use that backup generator as a grid resource 
more frequently.
    So maybe I'll defer to Ms. Barron to talk more about that.
    Ms. Barron. Well, I don't have anything to add. I think 
EPRI has shown tremendous leadership in helping the industry 
get to exactly your question, where is the untapped flexibility 
that we can use so that we can understand what they can do, and 
then we can design market rules that will provide the right 
incentives so that they do dial back at times when the system 
needs the power.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. Well, the other thing I worry about is if 
you just look at it from a CapEx point of view of the data 
center operators, you know, you're asking them--they've put all 
this money into their GPUs, and you're asking them to let that 
CapEx sit idle for some period of time. And so there's a 
calculation that, in principle, you could do right now is--you 
know, at what point they say I don't care, you know, I don't 
care if I get a lower rate. It's--electricity isn't that big a 
deal for me. And that--so that part of the calculation I think 
we can understand now as to whether this is going to be a 
winning game for leveling the load on this.
    Anyway, this is--I'm glad to see you're thinking about it, 
because this is, you know, sort of the first--the challenge 
that nuclear has, frankly, is $0.10 a watt Chinese--that's the 
spot price for Chinese solar panels. I recall, you know, 15 
years ago, when we were arguing about cap and trade, we had 
these U.S. solar startups optimistically projecting a dollar a 
watt, which I was skeptical of. And now it's $0.10 a watt. And, 
you know, Goldman Sachs has done a big analysis of these and 
they find that at current prices the winner by far is a 
collocated solar field and battery and a--and a data center.
    Chairman Weber. The gentleman's 15-year memory time has 
expired.
    [Laughter.]
    Chairman Weber. I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Beyer. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman Weber, thank you so 
much for allowing me to waive on. It's--it's fun to be back 
here.
    And to the witnesses, thank you very much for sitting in 
with us. I apologize for beating a dead horse, but I'm just 
extraordinarily concerned about the future of our country with 
the retraction in our investment in science and technology.
    And Mr. Schweiger, I read you're head of engineering at 
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). We're very excited about 
everything that CFS is doing. I've been to visit a couple of 
times. We have our congressional Fusion Caucus. I'm a co-chair 
with another Democrat and two Republicans, and every--virtually 
everyone on this Committee is part of the Fusion Caucus.
    So we were--and we're thrilled that Commonwealth Fusion has 
cut the deal with Dominion Power to build the first arc power 
plant in the history of humankind here in Virginia, but we're 
also concerned that China last year allocated $1.5 billion to 
fusion. We were at $790, the new budget is down 6 percent to 
$744 million. It's a 6-percent cut. In the CHIPS and Science 
Act we authorized $1.04 billion, which is still way short of 
where we need to be.
    We met with Secretary Wright, our caucus co-chairs. The 
Secretary was very supportive, it was a great meeting. But we 
also know he doesn't control the budget. And it's not just the 
fusion budget. It's also National Science Foundation has been 
cut 55 percent, for example. What's happening at NIH (National 
Institutes of Health) is very sad, in Congresswoman Delaney's 
district, the--the so-called Bethesda declaration.
    Mr. Schweiger, how do we ensure that fundamental enabling 
science that will propel energy technologies is actually 
prioritized, even in the current constrained funding 
environment?
    Well, what do we do to make sure that we're putting our 
money where our dreams are?
    Mr. Schweiger. OK, thank you for the question. It's a great 
one.
    So I had the--I'll call it privilege--to go to China for 8 
years off and on, and learned--learned a lot about how the 
Chinese think and how they run their programs. And I'd say--
this is my view--but America is--is recognized as the premier 
country for ingenuity, thinking of new things and ways to do 
it. And so when you think about how we're going to implement--
whether it's fission or fusion, my high bias is that Americans 
are the ones that are going to do it because we're ingenious.
    And so to the question, the--I think fusion has a ways to 
go, right? There has not been a commercial fusion plant put 
together. It's a good thing, we're supporting that. The--the 
technology I'm representing is ready now. And so when you look 
at implementing technologies that will help, whether it's AI or 
just the power grid, I think America needs to step up. As my 
fellow witness said, you know, let's use what we already have. 
I think that's super important. And then let's get the new 
technology moving forward as fast as we can, by whatever means. 
As Dr. Renshaw said, everything above.
    Mr. Beyer. Yes, yes. I think we all agree with as much as 
we can.
    Dr. Renshaw, to you specifically, one of the cases that we 
made to Secretary Wright is, although we've seen an enormous 
amount of private-sector investment in fusion and in fission 
and others, which we--which we celebrate--I mean, TAE just 
raised $150 million over the weekend, which we're excited 
about--we still recognize that there are fundamental 
engineering and science problems that would serve the entire 
industry that can only likely be done by a Federal Government 
approach.
    For example--and Mr. Schweiger, you know this from your CFS 
days--the high energy neutrons that are thrown off from a DT 
reaction, you know, dissolve metal. We need some way to--to 
figure out the--this--the engineering and the science that will 
allow us to deal with the largest single downturn.
    Isn't that, Dr. Renshaw, the most appropriate place for 
Federal Government investment?
    Dr. Renshaw. So I'll say that EPRI doesn't comment on what 
the policy should be, but I can comment on where is the 
technology going, and how can we get to an end state that is 
beneficial to all.
    So we're looking at how can we bridge the gap between where 
we are now and where we need to be to be able to develop large-
scale fusion plants. I would say that, similar to the other 
technologies that we mentioned in energy, there is no perfect 
energy technology, fusion included. But there are some 
significant benefits to deploying fusion.
    So in--the ways that we can get there are similar to how 
research and investment has been done in the past, where the 
government is able to fund research and development programs to 
be able to foster that innovative culture that Mr. Schweiger 
had mentioned earlier. Some of the things that we're doing at 
EPRI are looking at how can we advance the state-of-the-art in 
fusion materials, as well as fusion plasma control. We actually 
recently completed a challenge for this, and we brought in 
organizations from around the world to compete on the best 
concepts for developing and deploying fusion technologies.
    Mr. Beyer. By the way--and Mr. Chairman, just--one of the 
reasons we're so excited about milestones is because it 
emphasizes competition. You know, we're rewarding the 
entrepreneurs and the scientists and the engineers who can 
figure the problems out. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Weber. The gentleman yields back. I thank the 
witnesses for your very valuable testimony and the Members for 
their questions.
    The record will remain open for 10 days for additional 
comments and written questions from Members. The hearing is 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                Appendix

                              ----------                              


                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 [all]