The first ‌five or 10 new planned U.S. ​nuclear reactors will "almost certainly" receive loans from the U.S. Energy Department's ⁠lending office, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright ​told lawmakers in a hearing Thursday.

President Donald Trump ⁠signed an executive order last year calling for 10 new large nuclear reactors to be under construction ‌by 2030 and for the ​Nuclear Regulatory ‌Commission to speed reactor approvals.

There are currently no approved ‌plans to build new large reactors.

The last U.S. reactors that came online in 2023 and ⁠2024, built at Georgia's ‌Vogtle site, ⁠were delayed by about seven years and cost about $17 ⁠billion ⁠more than budgeted, despite securing billions in loans from the ‌energy department's loan office during Trump's first administration.

The energy department's Office of Energy Dominance Financing ‌has nearly $290 ​billion to ‌loan and Wright said last year that "by far the biggest use of those ​dollars will be for nuclear power plants."