My most anticipated trend is around the announcement of build out of nuclear power in the United States in 2025, as a function of deregulation and some new technologies.
Evidence from 2025 shows both regulatory reforms and major new nuclear project announcements in the U.S. that match the prediction:
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Regulatory reforms easing nuclear build‑out: In May 2025, the White House issued an executive order "Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission" directing the NRC to facilitate increased deployment of new reactor technologies, lower regulatory and cost barriers, reorganize to process licenses more quickly, and explicitly add facilitation of nuclear power to its mission, not just safety. (whitehouse.gov) In June 2025, the NRC implemented a new fee rule cutting hourly charges for advanced reactor applicants and pre‑applicants by more than 50%, as required by the ADVANCE Act, directly lowering the cost of licensing new reactors. (ans.org) Together, these are material regulatory changes intended to speed and cheapen advanced nuclear licensing.
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Significant new U.S. nuclear power plant projects announced in 2025: In July 2025, Westinghouse publicly laid out plans to build ten new AP1000 reactors in the USA by 2030, an explicit large‑scale build‑out, framed in the context of Trump’s May 23 executive orders to support the U.S. nuclear supply chain and quadruple nuclear capacity by 2050. (world-nuclear-news.org) In October 2025, Amazon and Energy Northwest announced the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state, a new SMR power station using X‑energy’s Xe‑100 reactors (initially four units, expandable to 12) to supply Amazon’s data‑center demand—one of the first large, tech‑backed modular nuclear projects in the U.S. (tomshardware.com) In parallel, DOE approved a $1 billion federal loan in 2025 to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1 (the Crane Clean Energy Center) for long‑term power to Microsoft data centers, signaling federal support for bringing dormant nuclear capacity back online as part of a broader build‑out. (apnews.com)
Because 2025 saw both (1) meaningful regulatory reforms at the NRC that lower costs and aim to speed approvals, and (2) high‑profile announcements of new reactors and restarts in the U.S., the prediction that 2025 would bring announcements of nuclear build‑out and/or regulatory easing for nuclear power is substantially borne out.