The curtain has finally and unequivocally been ripped back: Gov. JB Pritzker is all-in on new nuclear.
Pritzker released Executive Order 2026-01 Executive Order To Accelerate New Safe Nuclear Power Generation In Illinois – the final missing element of a plan for a more nuclear-reliant Illinois, dating back to the two-part repeal of Illinois’ nuclear power construction moratorium.
The executive order is well tinseled with the various problems and rationalized solutions to them that a nuclear boom is alleged to address: projected shortfalls in power availability, issues of questionable system reliability, high and growing price of electricity and the ever-elusive legitimate value for data center power requirements.
Many are seriously legitimate. Some are self-fulfilling prophecies. Most can be resolved through non-nuclear means – if the political will and courage were available to implement them.
The text of the executive order makes one thing abundantly clear – it is a fait accompli, a marching order, not a call for reasoned debate or thorough investigation of the pros and cons. It is certainly not a call for any meaningful public input.
This executive order is the Pritzker version of HR1146, the 2014 Michael Madigan “study to show, not know,” designed to demonstrate that nuclear will be made to work – any downsides be damned. Certainly not examined or publicly debated. And definitely not voted on by the public. The outcome is predetermined – make the nuclear square pegs fit, no matter what.
While the content is alarming, what is absent is of equally grave concern.
Since the language ordering the work of state agencies is frequently framed to “make it so,” there is little to no language directly ordering investigation into any unresolved or anticipated downsides of nuclear, such as:
Radioactive waste, and its permanent disposal(a legally defined term)
Environmental justice issues, in and outside of Illinois (more uranium mining, radwaste disposal)
Proactive transition funds and post-closure plans for reactor communities (think: the Zion experience)
Adverse build-out and market impacts on Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) and Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) mandated renewables, efficiency and energy storage coming from a potentially glutted, or nuclear-favored market
The executive order does not explicitly solicit any input or participation from the state environmental community, which played a key role in the development of FEJA, CEJA, and CRGA laws.
No public meetings, hearings or referenda or avenues for direct input are authorized. This is energy policy being done to ratepayers, not with them.
If climate is still an important issue for the state, it is incomprehensible why the governor and legislature would promote the most expensive, slowest to deploy, least cost-effective greenhouse-gas-displacing, most inherently dangerous, and in the case of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNRs) – nonexistent – method to deal with it.
The world in which the Pritzker administration and legislature intend to grow more nuclear has become far more dangerous than ever before.
In the past year alone, we have seen:
Concerns about new large reactor costs borne out by the most recent Lazard’s levelized costs analysis (June 2025), indicating new reactors as more expensive than new solar, onshore and offshore wind, and energy storage. Projected costs for mythical SMNRs vary wildly, but are following this same trend.
President Trump’s May 2025 Executive Orders cut staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) while simultaneously calling for a quadrupling of nuclear capacity. New reactor licensing emphasis has been shifted to speed over safety. The Trump orders allow for higher levels of “allowable” radiation exposure for the public and workers. And they allow DOGE personnel to overrule some Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing decisions. What could possibly go wrong?
The Department of Energy in early February issued a “categorical exclusion” rule exempting advanced nuclear reactors under its jurisdiction from National Environmental Policy Act reviews. NEPA requires federal agencies to consider the environment when undertaking new projects and programs.
On Jan. 21, Trump offered Silicon Valley an extraordinary deal to build their own nuclear power plants to run AI, and his administration will approve designs in just three weeks.
Internationally, the threats to reactors in war zones like at Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and in an increasingly climate disrupted world where catastrophic climate events are stronger, more frequent and increasingly difficult to predict call for an entirely new way to evaluate nuclear power.
Pritzker should know, issuing ill-conceived executive orders resembling those of the current president should not be an action worth emulating.
The governor should instead heed the advice of Albert Einstein: “Clever people solve problems. Geniuses avoid them.”
David Kraft is director of Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS), a Chicago-based safe-energy advocacy/anti-nuclear organization formed in 1981 to watchdog the nuclear power industry, and to promote a renewable, non-nuclear energy future.
This article appears in February 26 – March 4, 2026.
