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A year ago, Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s office released a research report that recommended the state invest<\/a> in rebuilding a nuclear industry in Texas. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed legislation that created a $350 million grant program for nuclear projects in Texas.<\/p>\n Texas A&M University also moved forward with opening up a site at its RELLIS Innovation and Tech Campus in Bryan to become a nuclear proving ground. At Abilene Christian University, the university and a private company are working toward building the nation\u2019s first research reactor in decades.<\/p>\n \u201cThe time is now for Texas to lead the way for a nuclear power renaissance in the United States of America,\u201d Abbott said Friday in an address to a conference room full of nuclear industry leaders, academics and engineers. \u201cTo power our future, Texas must be the epicenter for nuclear power generation.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite progress, an air of urgency has crept into the nuclear industry after decades of inaction. It was present at the conference in the form of various branded merchandise bearing the slogan, \u201cTime to build.\u201d<\/p>\n Only three nuclear reactors have come online since 2000, and the most recent, Georgia\u2019s Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, was plagued with delays and cost overruns that did little to assuage any skepticism of the industry.<\/p>\n \u201cVogtle was a debacle,\u201d said Toby Neugebauer, CEO of the Texas-based nuclear company Fermi America, which went public this year and was co-founded by former Gov. Rick Perry.<\/p>\n Large reactors like the two completed at the Vogtle plant can each provide about 1,000 megawatts of power \u2014 enough electricity to power at least 250,000 homes. Texas has four such reactors on the ERCOT grid, including two at the Vistra-owned Comanche Peak plant about an hour\u2019s drive southwest of Fort Worth.<\/p>\n But nuclear experts see smaller, mass-produced reactors as the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. NuScale, for instance, is marketing an 80 megawatt reactor it says can be scaled to meet the electricity demands of any large industrial user or AI data center.<\/p>\n Texas state Reps. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, and Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said that it was incumbent on the companies to coalesce around a project that makes sense to give lawmakers something to show when the state Legislature reconvenes in 2027. Harris was the author of House Bill 14<\/a>, which created the $350 million Texas Advanced Nuclear Development Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n