The Policy Catalyst
Washington is doing something it rarely does cleanly: aligning fiscal incentives, permitting streamlining, and procurement pressure all on the same target. The Inflation Reduction Act's Production Tax Credit for existing nuclear (Section 45U) hands qualified nuclear operators roughly $15 per megawatt-hour of zero-carbon output — a direct subsidy to the marginal economics of keeping reactors online. Layer on top of that Executive Order 14156, which directs federal agencies to prioritize energy security and domestic clean generation, and the DOE's own guidance pushing data center operators toward carbon-free firm power. The result is a policy stack that makes behind-the-meter nuclear power purchase agreements not just attractive but, for hyperscalers under public decarbonization scrutiny, close to mandatory.
Behind-the-meter means the data center co-locates at or directly interconnects with the plant, bypassing grid congestion entirely. The AI buildout needs always-on power that solar and wind cannot provide without storage that does not yet exist at scale. Nuclear is the only carbon-free source that runs at 90-plus percent capacity factor around the clock. Federal policy did not create that physics — it created the price signal and the regulatory framework that makes the economics close.