WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) emphasized nuclear energy’s central role in meeting the nation’s growing energy demands during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.

“In recent years, we have had people come in here and predict what was going to happen as far as demand for electricity for America because of AI and other things that are coming on board. I have to tell you, I was a doubter at the beginning, but the further we go, the more obvious it is becoming that we are going to be inundated with demand for electricity. But the good news is that this particular problem, we know how to deal with, and that is, we know how to generate electricity.

We, in Idaho, in 1951, demonstrated for the first time that nuclear energy could be used to create electricity. And we’ve been at it ever since. [. . .] But now, I think the world knows there’s a real renaissance going on as far as nuclear energy is concerned. Not only in the United States, but also particularly in the globe.”

Senator Risch has consistently advocated for greater domestic nuclear energy production and the commercialization of advanced nuclear technologies. In a Washington Times editorial, Senator Risch underscored that expanding U.S. civil nuclear energy is essential for powering America’s future.

Idaho is home to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the nation’s flagship facility for civil nuclear research and the first place in the world to generate electricity using a nuclear reactor. INL is driving significant progress in new nuclear research by collaborating with industry to demonstrate advanced technologies, such as small modular reactors, microreactors, and safer, more efficient nuclear fuels.