Laura Holgate on the Promise and Perils of Nuclear Innovation

**Laura Holgate** (0:04)
In terms of US political commitment to the growth in nuclear energy, we've seen a remarkable bipartisan consensus on the Hill since the late 2000s that has persisted. That bipartisan support is precious, and it will be damaged by extra politicization of this issue.

**Bill Loveless** (0:25)
The Trump administration has prioritized nuclear energy expansion, aiming to increase US nuclear capacity fourfold by 2050 This nuclear energy resurgence in the US is a rare issue with bipartisan support, and tech companies have poured billions into sustaining nuclear power plants and building new reactors to supply AI data centers. But accelerating nuclear power could mean changing environmental and safety reviews, and small, modular reactors and other innovations in nuclear energy are likely years from commercial readiness. So is there a way to reinvigorate nuclear energy in the US that's safe and fast? What would that mean for the power sector and the communities that support plants today and future sites? Are there any signs that new technologies could address the perennial questions around nuclear safety? And what does all of this mean for national security and energy policy? This is Columbia Energy Exchange, a weekly podcast from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. I'm Bill Loveless.
Today on the show, Laura Holgate. Laura is the president of LSHH International Advisors and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy. She is a two-time ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. She has held multiple positions in and out of government, including vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, special assistant to the president at the White House National Security Council, and a senior official at the Departments of Energy and Defense. Laura and I talked about the state of nuclear innovation and how advanced and modular reactors could be funded and used. We looked at how the Trump administration is approaching nuclear energy development. She shared her concerns about changes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and safety rules for new reactor designs at the Department of Energy. And we explored the state of nuclear arms security. Here's our conversation, which we recorded just days before a major reorganization at the NRC and before the last U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control Treaty expired. Laura Holgate, welcome to Columbia Energy Exchange.

**Laura Holgate** (2:48)
Great to be with you, Bill.

**Bill Loveless** (2:49)
Well I'm thankful to have you here at this time. There's so much going on in this field of nuclear energy and nuclear security. And boy, your background, your career puts you in a position where you can tell us this story as well as anybody can. So I appreciate you're taking the time. And you know, and speaking of this career of yours, how did this career path lead you to focus on nuclear security and energy policy?

**Laura Holgate** (3:14)
Well, nuclear weapons had, this was really kind of the opening point for me as a child of the Cold War. The famous TV movie The Day After really inspired me that my general interest in international relations might be channeled into addressing one of the truly existential threats of our time. And it's been my great privilege to have a chance to continue to work on that over 30 plus years, about half of it inside government, about half of it outside government.
And that's, you go very far into nuclear weapons world and the nonproliferation world before you encounter the interconnection between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. And as my approach to that has been that nuclear energy is going to happen and we need to be sure that we do it well. That includes safety, but it also includes security. Whether that's security of materials or security of facilities or security of fuel cycles or security considerations and how you export nuclear energy capabilities. It is a national security element and needs to be treated as such.

**Bill Loveless** (4:33)
I've heard you say that nuclear energy is national security. And I was going to ask you what you meant by that, but I think you just explained it.

**Laura Holgate** (4:42)
Yeah. I mean, certainly it's a major part of our infrastructure. We need to be sure that our domestic capability is secure, is well protected against cyber threats, against weather, against an adversary. And here we are in 2026, four years into Russia's assault on Ukraine, which included quite shockingly an invasion of two nuclear facilities in Ukraine and the theft of one of them. And so it was not something that we used to have to think about from a nuclear security point of view. And now that needs to be factored in to how we operate, how we design and where we send nuclear power.