China is quickly becoming the global leader in nuclear power, with nearly as many reactors under construction as the rest of the world combined. While its dominance of solar panels and electric vehicles is well known, China is also building nuclear plants at an extraordinary pace. By 2030, China’s nuclear capacity is set to surpass that of the United States, the first country to split atoms to make electricity.

Many of China’s reactors are derived from American and French designs, yet China has overcome the construction delays and cost overruns that have bogged down Western efforts to expand nuclear power.

At the same time, China is pushing the envelope, making breakthroughs in next-generation nuclear technologies that have eluded the West. The country is also investing heavily in fusion, a potentially limitless source of clean power if anyone can figure out how to tame it.

Beijing’s ultimate objective is to become a supplier of nuclear power to the world, joining the rare few nations — including the United States, Russia, France and South Korea — that can design and export some of the most sophisticated machines ever invented.

“The Chinese are moving very, very fast,” said Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace who has written a book on China’s nuclear program. “They are very keen to show the world that their program is unstoppable.”

As the United States and China compete for global supremacy, energy has become a geopolitical battleground. The United States, particularly under President Trump, has positioned itself as the leading supplier of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. China, by contrast, dominates the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, seeing renewable power as the multi-trillion-dollar market of the future.

Nuclear power is enjoying a resurgence of global interest, especially as concerns about climate change mount. That’s because nuclear reactors don’t spew planet-warming emissions, unlike coal and gas plants, and can produce electricity around the clock, unlike wind and solar power.

The Trump administration wants to quadruple U.S. nuclear power capacity by 2050, even as it ignores global warming, and it hopes to develop a new generation of reactor technology to power data centers at home and sell to energy-hungry countries overseas. Officials fear that if China dominates the nuclear export market, it could expand its global influence, since building nuclear plants abroad creates deep, decades-long relationships between countries.

Yet in the race for atomic energy, China has one clear advantage: It has figured out how to produce reactors relatively quickly and cheaply. The country now assembles reactors in just five to six years, twice as fast as Western nations.

While U.S. nuclear construction costs skyrocketed after the 1960s, they fell by half in China during the 2000s and have since stabilized, according to data published recently in Nature. (The only two U.S. reactors built this century, at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Waynesboro, Ga., took 11 years and cost $35 billion.)

“When we first got this data and saw that declining trend in China, it surprised me,” said Shangwei Liu, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government who led the paper.

The big questions, Mr. Liu said, are how China got so good at nuclear power — and whether the United States can catch up.

How China mastered nuclear power

A modern nuclear power plant is one of the most complex construction projects on Earth.

The reactor vessel, where atoms are split, is made of specialized steel up to 10 inches thick that must withstand bombardment by radiation for decades. That vessel, in turn, is housed in a massive containment dome, often three stories high and about as wide as the U.S. Capitol dome, made of steel-reinforced concrete to prevent dangerous leaks. Thousands of miles of piping and wiring must meet exacting safety standards.

Financing these multibillion-dollar projects is staggeringly difficult. Even minor problems, like needing regulator approval to modify a component midway through, can lead to long delays and can cause borrowing costs to skyrocket.

Over time, China has conquered this process.

It starts with heavy government support. Three state-owned nuclear developers receive cheap government-backed loans to build new reactors, which is valuable since financing can be one-third of costs. The Chinese government also requires electric grid operators to buy some of the power from nuclear plants at favorable rates.

Just as importantly, China’s nuclear companies build only a handful of reactor types and they do it over and over again.

That allows developers to perfect the construction process and is “essential for scaling efficiently,” said Joy Jiang, an energy innovation analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, a pro-nuclear research organization. “It means you can streamline licensing and simplify your supply chain.”

The fact that the Chinese government has a national mandate to expand nuclear power means that companies can confidently invest in domestic factories and a dedicated engineering work force. In a sprawling complex near Shanghai, giant reactor pressure vessels are being continuously forged, ready to be shipped to new projects without delay. Teams of specialized welders move seamlessly from one construction site to the next.

It’s been different in the West.

In the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. nuclear construction slowed to a trickle as interest rates rose and regulators frequently tightened safety rules, causing delays. Worries about the disposal of nuclear waste and fears after the 1979 partial meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island, in Pennsylvania, didn’t help. At the same time, private developers kept experimenting with new reactor designs that required different components and introduced fresh complications. U.S. nuclear power died from a lack of predictability.

The contrast became glaring in the late 2000s, when U.S. utilities tried to revive nuclear power with a new reactor model called the AP1000, with improved safety features. Developers struggled with the novel technology, leading to repeated delays and soaring costs. By the time the two reactors in Georgia were finished last year, most utilities were hesitant to try again.

As it happened, China built AP1000s at the same time. It, too, faced severe challenges, such as difficulties in obtaining coolant pumps and unpredictable cost spikes. But instead of giving up, Chinese officials studied what went wrong and concluded they needed to tweak the design and develop domestic supply chains.

“What the Chinese did was really smart,” said James Krellenstein, the chief executive of Alva Energy, a nuclear consultancy. “They said, we’re going to pause for a few years and incorporate every lesson learned.”

China is now building nine more copies of that reactor, known as the CAP1000, all on pace to be completed within five years at a drastically lower cost, an Energy Department report found.

Nuclear proponents in the United States sometimes argue that overly strict safety regulations drive up costs.

China’s safety requirements are similar. But in China the approval process is more predictable, and opponents have fewer ways to challenge a project. Most reactors in China break ground weeks after receiving final approval from the safety regulator, according to research by Ms. Jiang. In the United States, by contrast, projects often need additional permits from state governments that can take months or years.

“China is practiced at building really big things, everything from dams to highways to high speed rail, and those project management skills are transferable,” said David Fishman, a power sector consultant at Lantau Group, a consulting firm.

As China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, seeks to curb pollution, it is counting on nuclear power to play an important role.

Solar and wind power are growing fast and account for most of China’s clean electricity, but the country also burns enormous amounts of coal to supply power when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. More nuclear power could help backstop renewables and displace coal.

China’s nuclear expansion still faces hurdles. One of China’s plants suffered a smaller radioactive leak in 2021, and a bigger accident could trigger a public backlash. The country is still figuring out where to bury its nuclear waste, and some cities have seen impassioned protests over plans for waste reprocessing plants. Beijing has also blocked new reactors in much of China’s interior over concerns about their water use. If that moratorium persists, it could limit the industry’s growth.

For now, though, the country is barreling ahead, with plans to build hundreds of reactors by midcentury.

Can the U.S. catch up?

In the United States, nuclear power is one of the rare types of energy that has support from Republican and Democratic politicians alike, especially as demand for electricity rises. Even environmentalists like Al Gore who once fretted about catastrophic accidents and radioactive waste are warming to the technology.

Yet the U.S. is pursuing a starkly different path to nuclear expansion, one that leans more heavily on private innovation than government backing.

Dozens of start-ups are working on a new generation of smaller reactors meant to be cheaper than the hulking plants of old. Tech companies like Google, Amazon and OpenAI are pouring billions into nuclear start-ups like Kairos Power, X-Energy and Oklo to help power their data centers for artificial intelligence. Early projects are underway in Wyoming, Texas and Tennessee, though few, if any, new reactors are expected before the 2030s.

The Trump administration wants to accelerate this work by reducing regulations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which certifies the safety of reactors before they are built. The agency’s critics say it has become too hidebound to handle advanced reactors that are less prone to meltdowns.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the administration is betting that the private capital flowing into nuclear projects will spark American ingenuity and catapult the U.S. ahead of China. “Entrepreneurial capitalist competition is where the U.S. thrives, and I think it’s an advantage over China,” he said in an interview.

Yet some worry that the United States is betting too heavily on technological breakthroughs instead of focusing on the financing, skills and infrastructure needed to build plants, as China has. The U.S., for instance, has lost almost all of its heavy forging capacity to make large reactor components. A new generation of advanced reactors could also take years to perfect, leaving America behind.

“You look at the number of designs, particularly in the U.S., you think, Oh, God, help us,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “I would think narrowing down is the sensible thing to do.”

While the Trump administration has moved to speed up nuclear permitting and increase domestic supplies of nuclear fuel, some important government tools for advancing new reactors, such as the Energy Department’s loan office, have been hampered by staffing cuts. Efforts to slash safety regulations could be contentious. There is also a risk that interest by tech giants could fizzle if the A.I. boom slows.

“There’s no reason the United States couldn’t expand nuclear power,” said Stephen Ezell, vice president for global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “But are we just going to see a few small reactors power a few data centers, or are we going to see a serious whole government approach to bring back nuclear power as an essential source of electricity?”

A race to power the world

China’s fast-paced nuclear program is a prelude to a larger goal: dominating the global market. Chinese companies have already built six reactors in Pakistan and plan to export many more.

At the same time, China is working to surpass the United States in technological innovation. China has built what it calls the world’s first “fourth generation” reactor, a gas-cooled model that can provide heat and steam for heavy industry in addition to electricity. The Chinese are also pursuing technologies that use less uranium, such as thorium reactors, or recycle spent nuclear fuel. It’s a recognition that China doesn’t have enough domestic uranium for a massive build-out of traditional reactors.

Even if U.S. companies and labs remain at the forefront of innovation, one recent report warned that China was 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy next-generation reactors widely.

It’s a familiar story: The United States invented solar panels and batteries, only to watch as China scaled those technologies and now controls global markets.

“Maybe we can convince some of our allies not to buy Chinese reactors, but there are going to be plenty of other countries out there with growing energy demands,” said Paul Saunders, president of the Center for National Interest, a conservative-leaning think tank. “And if America isn’t ready, we won’t be able to compete.”

Californians purchased a record number of zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the third quarter of 2025, seizing their final opportunity to claim federal tax incentives before they were eliminated under President Trump’s sweeping budget cuts.

California residents bought more than 124,700 zero-emission vehicles or plug-in hybrids from July 1 to Sept. 30, marking the highest quarterly sales of clean vehicles since the state began tracking those numbers in 2008, according to the California Energy Commission. Electric vehicles and long-range hybrids made up 29% of new car sales statewide, capturing the largest quarterly market share in that 17-year span.

Consumers rushed to dealerships to take advantage of expiring, Biden-era tax credits, which offered up to $7,500 toward buying or leasing new zero-emission or hybrid vehicles. The incentives were vital in making EVs more affordable, given their batteries had primarily been made with expensive rare earth minerals, adding to sticker prices compared to gas-powered vehicles.

Now, for the first time in more than a decade, EVs must compete with their gas-powered cars without government-funded discounts. Although EV model lineups have expanded and prices have become more competitive, they remain $5,000 to 10,000 more expensive than comparable gas models, raising concerns about whether California will maintain momentum on its clean car goals.

“Most of the major brands that our dealers represent have one or more EVs that are available today — and many more in the pipeline,” said Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Assn., which represents over 1,200 franchised new-car dealers statewide. “So EVs are here to stay. The question is, at what sales level?”

The top-five counties with the highest share of EV sales were all in the Bay Area. Santa Clara, where nearly 47% of vehicle sales were zero-emission or hybrids, led the way. EV sales were also high in Orange and Los Angeles counties, accounting for nearly 36% and 31% of total car sales in the quarter, respectively.

Tesla remained California’s top-selling EV car brand by far.

But its third-quarter sales this year fell by nearly 7% compared to the same period in 2024. The big winners seem to have been Honda and Volkswagen, whose zero-emission sales in California more than doubled year-over-year; Audi wasn’t too far behind, with sales increasing 90%.

Ford also did well, posting record national sales of its electrified Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning — more than 15% of which were sold in California.

Maas said he anticipated “gangbuster” third-quarter sales with the impending demise federal tax credit, which allowed for a markdown of over 10% on most EV models. But many of these were “pulling-forward” sales — purchases by consumers who would have bought later, if not for the expiration of the federal incentives.

Many American car companies, including Ford and General Motors, have reported they are forecasting future declines in EV sales, citing federal policy changes.

Maas is among a chorus of industry experts who tend to agree.

“I think any economist expects there to be a dropoff,” he said. “It’s unclear how far that dropoff is going to be. Dealers have been trying to figure out what’s the natural level of EV sales without credits, and they’re trying to align their inventory to reflect that.”

Jessie Dosanjh, president of California Automotive Retailing Group, operates 20 dealerships in Northern California that sell numerous brands, including Chevrolet, Nissan, Acura, Toyota, Infinity, Ford and Hyundai. In August and September, Dosanjh said, dealership floors were more crowded than usual with customers seeking EVs. He advised his employees to inform customers, if they ever considered buying an EV or hybrid, they had a limited window to get the best price.

“It is absolutely a significant amount of money, especially when you look at the leases,” Dosanjh said. “It’s a couple hundred dollars [a month], on average.”

Even with the record quarterly sales, this year’s overall sales still slightly lag behind 2024.

A flurry of tariff announcements, mixed economic forecasts and political backlash against Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk contributed to slumping EV sales in the first half of the year, according to experts.

Environmental deregulation and disinvestment by the Trump administration has rocked market expectations for EV sales.

In addition to ending the federal tax credits, the Trump administration and federal lawmakers chose to not reauthorize a law that gave EV drivers nationally the privilege of driving alone in carpool lane, a popular perk to avoid congested highways. Trump also signed a law revoking federal waivers that allowed California to require automakers to sell increasing percentage of zero-emission vehicles to dealerships statewide, starting with 35% all new vehicles sales in 2026.

The regulatory changes has left dealers rethinking the makeup of the vehicles on their lots.

“If I were a betting person, I would say that EV demand will drop off several percentage points,” Dosanjh said. “To what extent, I don’t know. I don’t think that those consumers will necessarily not buy a car. I think they’ll see a shift to more hybrid vehicles that provide some of the benefits, as far as range and savings. And I also see consumers considering perhaps cheaper internal combustion engine vehicles.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom had previously vowed to restore a state program that provided up to $7,500 to buy clean cars, if Trump terminated federal tax credits. However, while taking questions from reporters at a Sept. 19 bill signing ceremony, Newsom walked back that commitment.

“We can’t make up for federal vandalism of those tax credits,” Newsom said. “But we can continue to make the unprecedented investments in infrastructure, which we’re doing.”

The governor’s press office did not respond to a request for comment on his change in stance.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is suing the federal government to reinstate California’s zero-emission vehicle regulations. Meanwhile, state regulators are soliciting ideas for new ways to encourage EV adoption.

The good news is that the state’s innovative policy and environmentally minded residents have already made a lasting mark on the industry, said Adrian Martinez, director of the Right to Zero campaign at Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental nonprofit.

California’s clean air policy is already largely responsible for pushing automakers to incorporate nearly 150 EV models into their lineups, a far cry from the 20 designs on the market in 2012. The state is nearing 2.5 million zero-emission and long-range hybrid vehicles sold since 2008, a testament to the demand for cleaner cars, Martinez said.

“There’s a lot of kind of gloom and doom out there, mainly because we’re seeing efforts at the federal level to put anchors on our electric vehicle industry in this country,” Martinez said. “But there’s been a lot of money and effort and time spent to develop electric vehicle markets. And it’d be crazy for these companies to just bow down to these federal pressures and stop selling these cars which consumers want.”

Maas, the president of the California car dealership association, largely agreed. EVs have become a fixture in California. But car dealers will learn more about how self-sufficient they can be in the coming months.

“I think the long-term future is EVs will continue to sell well, especially in a state like California,” he said, “but perhaps not as well as some had originally hoped.”

There are many stresses that come with being an LGBTQ+ youth: fear, isolation, bullying, feeling as if the world hates you, loved ones pressuring you to change.

Those realities come into sharper view in the first release of findings from an ongoing study by the Trevor Project to track the mental health of about 1,700 youth across the U.S. over an extended period of time.

Researchers from the West Hollywood-based nonprofit saw a sharp increase in mental distress among the participants. Over the course of one year, the proportion of participants who reported anxiety symptoms rose from 57% to 68%.

As political rhetoric in the last couple of years has boiled over on issues such as teaching about LGBTQ+ identity in schools, transgender students playing on sports teams and whether to allow gender-affirming care, the share of youth who said they’d experienced symptoms of depression rose from 48% to 54%. Those reporting having suicidal thoughts went from 41% to 47%.

Transgender and nonbinary youth were nearly twice as likely to say they’d struggled with anxiety and suicidal thoughts than their cisgender peers — a pattern that held steady throughout the first year of data collection on participants in this group.

“This allows us to clearly and unequivocally document what we know to be true: The manner in which LGBTQ+ youth are treated in this country harms their health and risks their lives, and it is only getting worse,” Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black said in a statement.

Even in California, a state that’s considered a haven for trans people, the climate seems to be shifting. In a surprising move for an elected official who has proclaimed support for the trans community, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently vetoed a bill that would have required 12 months of hormone therapy coverage for transgender patients in California, citing cost concerns.

Another striking finding in the study: An increase in the proportion of youth who said they’ve faced pressure to undergo “conversion therapy,” a controversial and scientifically dubious counseling process that its advocates claim can suppress or erase same-sex desire, change the gender identity of youth who identify as trans and discourage those are questioning.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness calls conversion therapy “discredited, discriminatory, and harmful,” and supports bans on a practice it says can damage, not improve, the mental health of those who undergo it. California became the first state to ban the practice in 2012.

But reports of being threatened with conversion therapy doubled in the first year of tracking, with 22% of respondents saying they experienced this intimidation, up from 11% at the start of the study. The percentage of those who said they’d been exposed to conversion therapy in some way climbed from 9% to 15%.

The findings come as the Supreme Court hears arguments in one of the most closely watched cases of its current term. In Chiles vs. Salazar, a Christian counselor has argued that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youth violates her free speech rights in voluntary therapy sessions with questioning minors. Members of the court’s conservative majority, who prevailed earlier this year in a decision upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors, openly voiced skepticism about the Colorado ban in hearings this week. The court’s decision is expected to rule in case by the end of its session in June.

“Many people believe it to be a relic of the past, but the data indicate that these dangerous practices are still happening,” said Dr. Ronita Nath, Trevor Project’s vice president of research. She added that threats of and exposure to conversion therapy contributed to future depression and suicidal thoughts among study participants.

The researchers started recruiting in September 2023. Each participant filled out mental health surveys every six months after joining the study.

This is the first time that the Trevor Project has monitored changes in queer youth mental health over such a long period. Nath said this type of sophisticated, long-range study is important for public health providers and policymakers alike because it provides fresh evidence of a cause-and-effect link between societal risk factors — such as pressure to undergo conversion therapy and a lack of access to affordable mental health services — and future crises.

“Societal and structural conditions are driving these mental health outcomes, not just coinciding with them,” Nath said.

The study did identify some positives: The percentage of LGBTQ+ youth who reported feeling supported at school rose from 53% to 58% over the course of the first year. Also, 73% of participants said they sought help from friends, up from 45% at the beginning of the first year.

Many who took part in the study, however, said they avoided seeking care either because they couldn’t afford it or because they worried they’d be stigmatized for having a mental health crisis.

Only 60% of respondents said they had access to mental health services by the end of their first year in the study, down from the 80% at the start of their tracking.

On the other hand, 75% of those who did get counseling over the course of their first year in the study said they benefited from it, up from 61% at the start.

The proportion of youths who said they sought help during suicidal episodes doubled to 64% in that time frame, though, which points to the increased level of distress youths experienced in that span, Nath said.