U.S. needs major nuclear power expansion to meet rising electricity demand, Southern Company CEO says

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The United States needs to build a significant number of nuclear plants to supply surging energy demand while also meeting climate goals, the CEO of Southern Company said at an event on Thursday. "This country will need more nuclear plants going forward," Chris Womack said at the Reuters Global Energy Transition conference in New York City. "It's upwards of 10 large gigawatts of nuclear power that I think we have to have going forward," the CEO said. This is equivalent to about 10 new nuclear plants with a single reactor each. The typical reactor in the U.S. produces about a gigawatt of electricity, according to the Department of Energy. Based on market capitalization, Southern Company is the second largest name in the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLU) . It's also one of the largest providers of electricity in the nation, serving millions of people across Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Last year, the Atlanta-headquartered utility completed the first nuclear plant in the U.S. in more than three decades, with the second of two new reactors having started commercial operations in April. Womack said Southern Company is seeing a level of electricity demand that that the utility has not faced since the advent of air conditioning and heat pumps in the South in the 1970s and 1980s. After two decades of nearly flat power growth, Southern Company is now expecting demand to grow by three to four times, the CEO said. "A lot of this is dependent and contingent upon what we see with artificial intelligence and all those large learning models and what data centers will consume," Womack said. "You're also seeing in the Southeast, this incredible population growth and you're seeing all this onshoring with manufacturing."