In a moment when electricity demand is climbing faster than the grid can comfortably answer, the United States government has chosen to place a $1.9 billion wager on an older form of power — one that never burns and never sleeps. The Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, long dormant, is being called back into service through federal loan financing, with NextEra Energy leading the effort under a Trump administration that has made nuclear expansion a policy priority. The decision reflects a quiet but consequential reckoning: that the energy sources once set aside as too costly or too complicated