There was a simultaneously nauseating and infuriating video the other day that just reinforced what kind of profligate thieves the Biden administration was and worked hand in glove with.
Louisiana's Senator John Kennedy was quizzing Energy Secretary Chris Wright about the amount of money that had flown willy-nilly out the door during the waning days of the POTATUS reign. Specifically, the few short months between Trump's November 5th triumph and his right hand being raised on January 20th.
The corruption makes you sick.
Democrats laundered $93 billion during the 76 days between when Donald Trump was elected and Joe Biden was leaving
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) November 23, 2025
Update: As of today only $24.16 billion from the $93 billion in rushed Biden-era loan and grant commitments have been recovered
$69 billion remains unrecoverable… pic.twitter.com/NrRO4wxCxh
...$69 billion remains unrecoverable
No Democrats have gone to prison for this
“So you're telling me that the Department of Energy in a 76-day period before their boss was gonna leave office gave or loaned money to, to entities that had no business plan?”
“Correct”
“No financials?”
“Correct”
“My God.”
It builds on what Lee Zeldin discovered when he first got to his office at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and found the Stacey Abrams-related $20B slush fund hidden in a New York City bank account.
All wing and a prayer, nearly untraceable Green grifting handouts of mindblowing amounts of cash, taxpayer cash, most of which were never meant to be seen again, either in tangible returns on investment or as refunds.
This administration is, thank God, united on all fronts in resisting the cult forces at every level, from Trump himself to Interior to Energy, to the EPA - they act with one purpose.
This administration will not bend to climate activists.
— Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright) November 17, 2025
We intend to lead with science, not speculation. The previous administration’s obsession with the “climate catastrophe,” left our citizens politically polarized and economically destroyed.https://t.co/uwRVjNqBDa
To secure America's energy independence first, while enabling and promoting American energy at every possible juncture.
Key to that goal is nuclear, and Wright has pledged to devote top resources to reviving the nuclear industry in this country. With AI energy requirements driving demand and tremendous private capital already pouring into the sector, the Energy Secretary is pledging loan assistance to facilitate the nuclear power developments that those technologies will require.
Nuclear power will receive most of the money from the Energy Department’s loan office as the Trump administration pushes to quickly break ground on new reactors, Secretary Chris Wright said on Monday.
“We have significant lending authority at the loan program office,” the Secretary of Energy said at a conference hosted by the American Nuclear Society in Washington D.C. “By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants — to get those first plants built.”
President Trump signed an executive order in May that called for the U.S. to break ground on 10 large nuclear reactors by 2030. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to restart old nuclear plants, upgrade existing ones, and deploy new reactor technology to meet the electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers.
Wright said he expects electricity demand from AI to attract billions of dollars in equity capital to build new nuclear capacity from “very creditworthy providers.” The Energy Department could match those private dollars by as much as four to one with low cost debt financing from the loan office, he said
Two years ago, I wrote about a decommissioned nuclear plant in Michigan - the fifty-year-old Palisades facility - the lonely bones of which had been sold in 2022 to a company called 'Holtec' out of Florida. Initially, the plan had been a tear-down - that's what Holtec does. But then some Holtec visionaries (even in an environment as hostile to nuclear as Biden's) had a Six Million Dollar Man sort of thought.
MAYBE WE CAN REBUILD IT
To their credit, Holtec stuck their toe in the nuclear heavy water. They got turned down on the first go, but not crushed - they were encouraged to reapply during the next approval session.
In the meantime, Holtec went out looking for partners to buy the electricity if they got the approval, and had no problem getting someone to sign on.
This past April, the company's press announcement was almost giddy.
Holtec International is on the verge of doing something that’s never been done before in the nuclear sector: bringing a nuclear plant back to life.
The company is working to repower the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan by 2025 and received a conditional commitment of up to $1.52 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help out.
But that’s not the only groundbreaking work happening there.
The company also plans to build its first two small modular reactors (SMRs) at the plant by 2030 to nearly double the power generation at the site.
This past summer, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted Palisades an exemption from the regulation that requires a nuclear facility to remain permanently dead (what a stupid law, no?) once it has been decommissioned and its fuel rods removed.
...The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the enclosed exemption from the requirements of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Section 50.82(a)(2), “Termination of license,” concerning the prohibition against operating the reactor and emplacing fuel into the reactor vessel for the Palisades Nuclear Plant (PNP). This action is in response to the application dated September 28, 2023 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML23271A140), requesting an exemption from 10 CFR 50.82(a)(2) to allow for a one-time rescission of the PNP docketed 10 CFR 50.82(a)(1) certifications, to remove the restriction that prohibits operation of the PNP reactor and emplacement and retention of fuel into the PNP reactor vessel.
The NRC staff has separately reviewed and approved Holtec’s license transfer application and four license amendment requests related to the resumption of power operations at PNP. The NRC staff is issuing its approval of these actions concurrently with its approval of this exemption to reauthorize power operations at PNP. The effectiveness of this exemption will occur on August 25, 2025, Holtec’s planned date to transition to the power operations licensing basis, as stated in its July 1, 2025, letter.
The Palisades plant has become the first decommissioned plant in history to be reactivated, and they were hoping to bring it online by the end of the year.
Holtec has other big plans for the site besides refiring the original reactor.
As of yesterday, the DoE is touting that Holtec should have two small modular reactors up and humming by the end of the decade.
DOUBLING UP: @HoltecIntl is looking to nearly double the capacity at its Palisades nuclear power plant site by bringing two of its advanced small modular reactors online by the end of the decade.
— Office of Nuclear Energy | US Department of Energy (@GovNuclear) November 24, 2025
Learn more: https://t.co/VGwDowwqZK pic.twitter.com/KELYwTxPFs
Amazing progress, right? Amazing what can happen with an administration that is conducive to all reliable energy sources that make sense.
So, of course, cult heads are exploding, and the usual suspects have filed a federal lawsuit to block the reopening process for the Palisades plant from proceeding.
...Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future are contesting an exemption request from Holtec to reverse the shutdown of Palisades years ago.
WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS
...Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear's radioactive waste specialist, told News Channel 3 that the reopening process has been rushed and is irresponsible, as well as illegal.
"They are risking a large-scale nuclear catastrophe on the scale of a Chernobyl or a Fukushima," Kamps said.
Kamps also claimed the power plant has outdated, deteriorating machinery and equipment that Holtec and the NRC have not accounted for, including steam generator tubes.
..."They make their decisions, they carry out their actions while the proceedings are still unfolding," he said. "It's messed up."
Hopefully, the judge hearing the complaint in Kalamazoo likes his heat and lights on in the winter, and wants his electricity bills to be reasonable.
The DoE has also pledged a loan to get one of the infamous Three Mile Island reactors restarted - the one that Microsoft had already contracted for in order to supply their data centers, which is not the one that caused the panic so many years ago.
The Trump administration will provide Constellation Energy with a $1 billion loan to restart the Crane Clean Energy Center nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, Department of Energy officials said Tuesday.
Previously known as Three Mile Island Unit 1, the plant is expected to start generating power again in 2027. Constellation unveiled plans to rename and restart the reactor in Sept. 2024 through a power purchase agreement with Microsoft to support the tech company’s data center demand in the region.
Three Mile Island Unit 1 ceased operations in 2019, one of a dozen reactors that closed in recent years as nuclear struggled to compete against cheap natural gas. It sits on the same site as Three Mile Island Unit 2, the reactor that partially melted down in 1979 in the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.
The loan would cover the majority to the project’s estimated cost of $1.6 billion. The first advance to Constellation is expected in the first quarter of 2026, said Greg Beard, senior advisor to the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, in a call with reporters. The loan comes with a guarantee from Constellation that it will protect taxpayer money, Beard said.
What was interesting about this plan, which I covered when it was first announced, is that the Trump administration loan is meant to facilitate a quicker operational date, which, in turn, is intended to help consumers in the PJM electrical interconnection grid.
...When asked why Constellation was receiving the loan now, Beard said Tuesday that Constellation could have completed the project without help from the Energy Department. But the loan will help make electricity cheaper for consumers on the grid operated by PJM Interconnection, which serves more than 65 million people across 13 states, Beard said.
“What’s important for the administration is to show support for affordable, reliable, secure energy in the U.S.,” Beard told reporters. “This loan to Constellation will lower the cost of capital and make power cheaper for those PJM ratepayers.”
Founded in 1927, the PJM wholesale grid is massive and now has some of the highest electricity rates in the country.
The PJM Interconnection operates a competitive wholesale electricity market and manages the reliability of its transmission grid. PJM provides open access to the transmission and performs long-term planning. In managing the grid, PJM centrally dispatches generation and coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or part of 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia) and the District of Columbia. PJM’s markets include energy (day-ahead and real-time), capacity and ancillary services.
Where once the power from TMI was destined for Microsoft's exclusive use, now, with the infusion of the DoE loan, it seems as if it's going to hook into the PJM grid and benefit everyone.
...Greg Beard, head of the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, or LPO, said the restart would support the PJM regional grid. “This type of energy is important because it’s large, stable, affordable base load power,” Beard told reporters.
Constellation said the loan will help it lower the cost of financing and leverage private investment to restore power to the grid.
The LPO has more than $250 billion in capital, and “a large portion of that we expect to be deployed to help reinvigorate the large-scale nuclear reactor development,” Beard said. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said this month that the bulk of the LPO money would go to nuclear projects.
Constellation in June had moved up the timeline to restart the reactor by about a year to 2027 after PJM fast-tracked its review process to connect the project to the grid.
Things are moving in the right direction, finally.
.@SecretaryWright: "We have far safer designs, operations, and experience today. Reactor 2, that had that failure, was long ago permanently shut down. This is Reactor 1 that ran all the way until 6 years ago... The U.S. needs more affordable, reliable, secure energy. People are… https://t.co/KvGZh8ksqA pic.twitter.com/hcXaB2BNHJ
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 19, 2025
... People are tired of expensive electricity prices, and the Trump admin is all in to do something about it."
And he's right. The United States needs more affordable, reliable energy brought back online, which is the one thing the climate cult has been mindlessly, heedlessly stripping away.
It's so nice to start getting our money's worth again.
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