WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration is more willing to support loan guarantees and tax breaks for nuclear power than for wind and solar because it is "more American" than those forms of energy, the director of the U.S. Energy Dominance Council said on Thursday.
Jarrod Agen, the director of the White House-based council, said nuclear power is more likely to be made from U.S.-made parts than wind and solar farms. Therefore, the administration is more willing to give it financial aid from the U.S. Loan
Programs Office and support tax incentives, Agen told an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Nuclear is new in that we need to invest in it to get ahead - and it's the long-term play that the president wants to put in place," he said. "It hasn't had the proper kind of investment. It hasn't had the focus that some of the other intermittent (energy sources) have had."
Companies at the forefront of building nuclear reactors are American companies, he added.
Agen said building out nuclear power is the third prong of the Trump administration's approach to winning the artificial intelligence race against China after extending the lifespans of aging coal plants that are retiring and increasing the efficiency of the existing electric grid.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Valerie Volcovici; editing by Diane Craft and Lincoln Feast.)
