U.S. Nuclear Materials Push Draws Global Energy Attention

The U.S. government and national laboratories are pushing to close a widening nuclear technology gap with China, a competition OilPrice.com reported as central to global energy leadership.

According to OilPrice.com, the United States remains the world’s largest nuclear power producer, but China has vastly outspent the U.S. on nuclear research and development for years. The source said China’s sector is younger, more advanced and growing quickly, while the American fleet stagnates and reactors age out.

China is also pushing small modular reactors and molten salt reactors, giving Beijing influence over the sector’s future direction, OilPrice.com reported.

Damien Ma, energy lead analyst for Gavekal Technologies, wrote in a 2026 report quoted by OilPrice.com and the South China Morning Post in June: “By a wide margin, China will have the world’s most dynamic and significant nuclear industry through 2035.”

Ma also said construction efficiencies mean China can build a new plant in about six years, compared with more than a decade for the latest Vogtle reactors in the United States, according to the report.

OilPrice.com said the Trump administration is determined to change that trajectory, with the stated intent to “produce lasting American dominance in the global nuclear energy market.” The source added that the effort builds on priorities emphasized by the Biden administration, including federal funding for next-generation and advanced nuclear technologies.

For Bakken operators, royalty owners and North Dakota, the story matters less as a direct oil market event than as a signal of how global energy technology competition is evolving. The Bakken formation is North Dakota’s primary oil-producing region, and operators compete for capital, markets and long-term demand in a changing global energy mix.

OilPrice.com reported a materials breakthrough announced this week by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. They developed a new metal alloy that has demonstrably withstood stresses of up to 600 megapascals at room temperature. The source said the durability could make the material indispensable in future nuclear reactor designs.

The experimental alloy, called V555, also confirmed a process called robust alloy design, or RAD, developed by PNNL to rapidly screen, simulate and optimize materials for nuclear power contexts, OilPrice.com said.

Osman El Atwani, PhD, a materials scientist and study leader, told Interesting Engineering: “The work has developed into a pathway for the nuclear materials community to explore and evaluate a broader range of materials for future nuclear systems.”

Mohan Nartu, PhD, a PNNL materials scientist who worked on the project, said in a press release quoted by OilPrice.com: “We wanted to show that you can actually choose elements from scratch, if you have the right criteria in mind, and can systematically design a material for nuclear applications.”

OilPrice.com said such materials breakthroughs are expected to speed up as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into the sector. The reported gap in construction timelines and research spending underscores why advanced nuclear technology is becoming a strategic market issue.

The source did not provide Bakken production, price or rig data tied to the nuclear materials story.