{"id":308024,"date":"2026-10-16T15:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T15:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/308024\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T15:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T15:36:09","slug":"pittsburgh-region-positioned-to-lead-as-u-s-aims-to-triple-nuclear-power-production-by-2050","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/308024\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh region positioned to lead as U.S. aims to triple nuclear power production by 2050"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">A top official in the U.S. Department of Energy predicted the Pittsburgh region would play a big role in the Trump administration\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/06\/23\/vision-nuclear-westinghouse-electric-dan-sumner.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">massive buildout of the nuclear industry<\/a> that will see not only more large-scale reactors like Westinghouse Electric Co.\u2019s AP1000, but also smaller generators that will power data centers and factories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cYou have the people here in the region; you have the industrial capacity; and you have the nuclear DNA to lead,\u201d said Rick Christensen, associate deputy assistant secretary for nuclear reactors at the U.S. Department of Energy. He was the keynote speaker at the Energy &amp; Industrial Future Summit held Wednesday in downtown Pittsburgh by the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">President Donald J. Trump\u2019s four executive orders in May 2025 have sparked what Christensen called a nuclear renaissance: Speeding the development of newer small- and medium-sized reactors and expanding the capacity of the existing nuclear fleet, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/06\/23\/nuclear-supply-chain-westinghouse-loan.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tens of millions of dollars of federal money to develop and build at least 10 Westinghouse AP1000 reactor<\/a>s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The DOE\u2019s goal is to more than triple the production of electricity from nuclear from about 100 gigawatts today to 400 gigawatts by 2050. That will help power data centers, a reshoring of manufacturing and other expansion of uses of electricity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/10\/14\/pittsburgh-region-nuclear-renaissance.html?ana=wpxi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/10\/14\/pittsburgh-region-nuclear-renaissance.html?ana=wpxi\">Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A top official in the U.S. Department of Energy predicted the Pittsburgh region would play a big role&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[126291,73,75,74,14262,126293,723,126292],"class_list":["post-308024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-nuclear-industry","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-region","tag-rick-christensen","tag-trump-administration","tag-u-s-department-of-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}