The Trump administration sharpens its grip on energy regulatory bodies, states accelerate nuclear policy reform to feed AI-driven demand, and NERC quietly acknowledges what grid insiders already knew: batteries are beginning to deliver on their promise. This edition of GridBrief looks at the shifting balance of regulatory power, the SMR stampede, and the grid resilience benefits of batteries.

Trump Fires NRC Democrat Amid Push to Overhaul Nuclear Safety Rules

In a controversial late-Friday move, President Trump dismissed Christopher Hanson, a Democratic member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)—an act legal analysts argue violates the commission’s independent status. The firing arrives amid broader efforts to purge Democrats from independent energy boards, and it could set the stage for a major legal showdown.

Hanson, a Trump appointee in 2020 who later served as NRC chair under Biden, publicly decried the dismissal as illegal. The White House claims the firing was within the president’s authority, citing the need for aligned leadership across executive agencies. But unlike most federal agencies, the NRC was designed as a politically insulated body with bipartisan balance.

This isn't just political theater—it’s a policy reset. The administration wants the NRC to speed up reactor approvals, rewrite safety standards, and streamline environmental reviews, all part of a larger plan to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. But critics warn this approach risks undermining trust in the very agency tasked with preventing disasters like Fukushima and Three Mile Island.

If the White House succeeds in reshaping the NRC, it could accelerate nuclear buildouts—but at the cost of institutional independence.

States Launch SMR Gold Rush to Feed AI Power Demands

The nuclear “renaissance” may have stalled for two decades, but AI just breathed new life into it. A quiet policy revolution is underway in state legislatures, where over 200 nuclear-related bills have been introduced this year. From Indiana to Texas to Arizona, the message is clear: if AI is coming, reactors must follow.

In Indiana, Governor Mike Braun has signed a trio of bills encouraging SMR deployment while launching a task force to make the state a nuclear manufacturing hub. One law mandates that data centers cover 80% of reactor development costs—a nod to growing skepticism over socializing risk for private benefit.

Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) is already moving, partnering with TVA and others to seek federal funds for a 300 MW SMR at the retiring Rockport coal plant. With Google and Amazon promising multi-gigawatt data centers across the state, utilities see a nuclear future as the only viable path to meet demand without deepening reliance on fossil fuels.

But not everyone’s on board. Critics, pointing to the ghost of Marble Hill—Indiana’s abandoned $2.5B nuclear project in the 1980s—warn of history repeating. And with the state already keeping aging coal plants on life support, the SMR pitch starts to sound less like clean tech and more like a stopgap.

Nationwide, at least six states have enacted new nuclear policies this year, and Texas has approved a $350 million nuclear fund. Whether this will spark real deployment—or simply more permitting paperwork—remains to be seen.

NERC: Batteries Are Quietly Making the Grid More Reliable

While everyone’s eyes are on AI’s demand surge, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has quietly confirmed that battery energy storage systems (BESS) are doing something critical: keeping the lights on.

In its latest State of Reliability report, NERC found that in 2024, none of the billion-dollar weather disasters led to operator-initiated load shedding. One key reason? Batteries.

Regions with high BESS concentrations are seeing improvements in primary frequency response—thanks in part to mandates like Texas’ reliability rule requiring batteries to participate in frequency support. Last year, Texas saw multiple instances where batteries provided 100% of frequency regulation capacity.

And there’s more to come. U.S. utility-scale battery capacity is expected to nearly double by 2026, reaching 65 GW. As inverter-based resources (solar, wind, and batteries) scale, their reliability is increasingly under scrutiny. But for now, NERC says batteries are delivering, especially in areas with clear rules and incentives.

Still, looming demand from AI, EVs, and industrial load growth means the honeymoon might be short. Batteries help, but they’re no substitute for comprehensive grid expansion—and they’re often competing for the same rare minerals and manufacturing space as GPUs.

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Conversation Starters

• IEEE – Reactive Power May Be the Culprit Behind Iberian Blackout
  Investigations into April’s Spain-Portugal blackout point not to solar or wind generation itself, but to outdated regulations that fail to incentivize reactive power balancing—a must for 21st-century grids.

• The Atlantic – Energy Abundance Won’t Lower Bills Without Efficiency
  Trump’s DOE is rolling back Biden-era appliance efficiency standards, but economists warn that abundant energy without modern conservation still leads to high bills. Efficiency isn’t just climate policy—it’s economic relief.

• Futurism – Sam Altman: A “Significant Fraction” of Earth’s Power Should Run AI
  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that AI might require a massive slice of global electricity to operate. He might be joking. He might not. Either way, it’s clear the AI-electricity nexus is only growing tighter.

Good Bet, Bad Bet

Good Bet: Long-Range Grid Storage
As the U.S. builds out BESS capacity at unprecedented rates, companies providing longer-duration storage—think Form Energy and its iron-air batteries—stand to profit. These technologies will be crucial as we move from seconds and minutes of grid support to hours and days.

Bad Bet: NRC Independence
Investors banking on the NRC’s regulatory stability to de-risk advanced reactor approvals may want to reassess. Trump’s surprise firing of Commissioner Hanson is likely to spark lawsuits and policy whiplash. A partisan NRC is faster, but also far more fragile.

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