National [Nuclear] Energy Security
Nuclear energy's role in national security
National energy security begins with a simple promise: a country should be able to obtain the energy it needs, when it needs it, at a price its people and economy can bear.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) defines it as “the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price.”
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) broadens that definition, describing the secure and reliable delivery of energy as “crucial for national security, the economy, public health, and public safety.”
The definitions make energy security broader than simply producing enough electricity in an average year. It includes reliability, affordability, resilience, infrastructure, diversity of supply, and the ability to withstand deliberate attack, natural disaster, market disruption, or geopolitical rupture.
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In other words, a nation is energy-secure only to the degree it can keep the lights on, the factories running, and the military supported without asking permission.
Drawing from these frameworks, four capabilities stand out:
Reliable domestic or trusted supply of primary energy resources
Industrial capacity to convert those resources into usable power
Resilient infrastructure that can absorb shocks
Strategic freedom to operate without the consent of an adversary or dependence on an irreplaceable single supplier
Realization requires deliberate policies including stockpiles, diversified production, a protected industrial base, and long-term investments that markets alone will not provide.
Natural gas is currently the foundation of that strategy. It’s been America’s largest source of domestic energy production since 2011, and US output reached another record in 2025. Its scale, domestic availability, dispatchability, storage network, and ability to serve electricity, heating, and industry make natural gas the country’s principal instrument of national energy security today.
Nuclear power is now being asked to shoulder more of that burden. Rising electricity demand from AI data centers, manufacturing reshoring, and electrification, combined with the need for reliable, low-carbon baseload, has returned nuclear to the center of energy strategy.
Since COP28 in 2023, the pace of nuclear policy, investment, procurement, and deployment activity has accelerated dramatically:
Legislative and executive foundation (ADVANCE Act, May 2025 EOs, 2025 National Security Strategy)
Restarts and capacity additions (Palisades, Crane/TMI, Duane Arnold, Diablo Canyon, V.C. Summer)
Hyperscaler offtake (Amazon/Talen, Microsoft/Constellation, Google/Kairos, Meta deals)
Fuel cycle and industrial base (DPA Consortium, $2.7B LEU/HALEU, NNSA DUECE, $80B Westinghouse partnership)
Military and pilot programs (Project Janus, DIU ANPI, Reactor Pilot Program, Fuel Line Pilot Program, Nuclear Energy Launch Pad)
International (US-UK Atlantic Partnership, Japan $40B)
Yet, the transition is incomplete. Nuclear can deepen American energy security, but capturing its full strategic value requires a secure industrial system behind the reactor.
America’s fuel and supply chain remains nuclear energy’s strategic vulnerability.
Uranium still comes overwhelmingly from abroad. The only commercial-scale enrichment plant operating inside the United States is foreign-owned. Reactor vessels and large forgings remain heavily dependent on overseas manufacturers. Until those domestic weaknesses are addressed and closed, nuclear adds capacity without delivering the strategic independence the phrase “national energy security” demands.
This piece is the first in a series that will examine what national energy security requires across the full nuclear value chain (fuel, manufacturing, construction) and where the United States currently falls short.