At Three Mile Island, the lights flip on — and a generation sees its destiny

Just over a year ago, the headlines were everywhere: Three Mile Island Unit 1 was coming back online as the Crane Clean Energy Center. A site that once defined an entire industry’s future has done it again, this time as a symbol of hope, optimism, and unity as we move toward a reliable and clean energy future.

For us, young professionals in the nuclear industry, this moment showed what’s possible when communities come together. From union members and business leaders to viral social media posts and major media outlets, everyone celebrated the announcement of the restart. In a society often defined by polarization, this was a rare moment of shared pride and common purpose.

We know that America’s ability to deliver reliable, emissions-free energy will define the nation that Gen Z will lead tomorrow — politically, economically, and environmentally.

As 2025 draws to a close, nuclear energy sits at the center of a new national conversation — one driven by optimism, innovation, and a shared commitment to a cleaner future. Public support for nuclear energy is at historic highs, with six in 10 Americans in favor of its expansion. Companies that defined Gen Z’s childhood, like Meta, Google, and Amazon, are partnering with nuclear producers to power the data centers that keep our digital lives running. For Gen Z, this isn’t just about keeping the lights on: It’s about building a future where clean energy powers our ambitions, our communities, and our planet.

Growing up, many of us felt politics was a binary choice — two parties, two options, and endless division. But today, nuclear energy stands out as something different: a safe haven for young people across the political spectrum. It’s one of the few issues drawing support from both sides, with the Biden and Trump administrations both advancing policies that strengthen nuclear energy’s role in America’s energy mix.

For Gen Z, that bipartisanship represents progress, not politics. We know that America’s ability to deliver reliable, emissions-free energy will define the nation that Gen Z will lead tomorrow — politically, economically, and environmentally.

Now it’s up to all of us to seize this unique opportunity and recognize nuclear power’s potential to redefine America’s energy conversation. Nuclear energy is more than a technology — it’s a catalyst for unity, resilience, and innovation. It can deliver on our generation’s hopes for a cleaner, fairer, and more sustainable world.

Nuclear power doesn’t just create reliable, emissions-free energy: It offers countless societal benefits. Generating stations do more than generate electricity. They can also support system add-ons that produce clean water through desalination and help yield valuable medical materials for diagnosing heart disease and providing crucial cancer care.

When we think back to history class, we learned about iconic generational causes like the space race and the wonders that could be unlocked in the internet age. Each generation had something tangible to rally around, something that brought people together to move the world forward. For Gen Z, that unifying cause can be nuclear energy: a reliable, emissions-free solution that defines progress for our time.

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Photo by Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

We’ve seen it firsthand. We both took the leap to work in the nuclear industry, and more specifically, on a historic nuclear restart. Three Mile Island Unit 1 in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, closed for economic reasons in 2019, hurting hundreds of families whose livelihoods depended on it.

Yet as energy demands surged, the world rediscovered nuclear energy’s critical role. This momentum led to the announcement of the unit’s restart exactly five years after being shut down.

We are both at the beginning of our careers and hope the momentum we’re seeing now will carry forward for future generations. Being part of the nuclear renaissance, which is turning into a national movement, has filled our young careers with pride and purpose.

Whether you are Gen Z or not, clean nuclear energy can be a uniting force in a divided world. The bipartisan support, private investment, and widespread public acceptance happening today didn’t happen by coincidence — it happened because people came together to focus on what works. We can’t afford to lose that momentum. Let’s build on it to create the next-generation cause: a nuclear energy-powered future.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at RealClearWire.