The question for the US nuclear energy industry is not whether it can build new reactors, but whether it has what it takes to “get moving” and build at scale, Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) president and CEO Maria Korsnick has said.

Korsnick told the annual Nuclear Energy Policy Forum in Washington that the industry is ready to build at scale, but it will take government funding, private-sector capital and international buy-in to achieve its goals.

She said federal and state governments had made serious commitments to nuclear over the past year and these commitments are the foundation upon which the industry must build.

Within a single week last month, Kairos Power broke ground on its Hermes 2 reactor in Tennessee, and days later TerraPower and Bechtel began construction on the Natrium reactor in Wyoming.

Korsnick said she could not remember the last time two projects of that scale launched that close together. “The state of the nuclear energy industry is strong and getting stronger,” she said.