Government loans for nuclear reactors

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/u-s-bets-billions-of-dollars-in-low-cost-loans-can-revive-nuclear-power-be8dcf81?mod=hp_lead_pos4

U.S. Bets Billions of Dollars in Low-Cost Loans Can Revive Nuclear Power

Energy Department will let utilities tap government funds to kick-start reactor orders

By Jennifer Hiller, The Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2026

  1. The Trump administration’s Energy Department plans to offer $17.5 billion in low-interest loans for utilities to finance Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors.
  2. The loans aim to speed up construction of 10 reactors in the U.S. by up to three years, with new AP1000s potentially online by 2035.
  3. The Energy Department plans to use bulk equipment purchases and fixed-price contracts to mitigate cost overruns that plagued prior U.S. AP1000 projects.

In a new deal expected to be announced Tuesday, low-interest loans amounting to $17.5 billion from the Energy Department will be available for utilities to finance equipment orders for the Westinghouse AP1000, the company’s flagship nuclear reactor, a version of which China is building at industrial scale.

The loans are intended to speed up construction of 10 reactors in the U.S. Five loans will be available for projects with two reactors each, the Energy Department said. …

The only AP1000s finished domestically — two units at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear-power plant — were originally expected to cost $14 billion, but ultimately exceeded $30 billion. They were meant to be completed in 2016 and 2017, but didn’t come online until 2023 and 2024. A similar reactor project in South Carolina was abandoned in 2017 after costs spiraled past $9 billion…

Outside of the U.S., Westinghouse has built four AP1000 nuclear reactors in China, which then licensed the design, modified it and now builds the “CAP1000.” Another 11 are under construction in China, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency database. …

The AP1000 reactor produces about 1,100 megawatts of electricity—enough to power a midsize city or a major AI data center…[end quote]

China doesn’t have to deal with the permitting issues that delay reactors in the U.S. where each location is different. Also, China has the industrial capacity to build machine parts quickly to keep projects moving.

I support nuclear power but I don’t have confidence that these Westinghouse reactors will come on line in my lifetime. The AI heavy hitters are investing in small modular reactors and restarting mothballed reactors. That probably has a better chance of actually getting power flowing sooner.

Wendy

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I think the bigger thing the Chinese government is mandating standardization of design. This means fewer delays and cost overruns. Our utilities went in blind with a new designs for almost each project.

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I think the tech companies are making a mistake. One of the things that killed large scale nuclear in the US is that each facility was more or less bespoke design. That means the permitting and review was different for each reactor, and of course the construction lessons didn’t neccessarily carry over either. The AP1000 is a pre-approved, standardized design. Because it is pre-approved, in theory that speeds up the construction process. But as we saw with Vogtle, it didn’t help very much, due in part to eye-popping levels of corruption. The Europeans aren’t having much luck building new large scale nuclear either.

That said, it is possible to build new large scale nuclear in a cost-effective manner. Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) is building reactors globally. They generate economies of scale by co-locating multiple reactors at each site, and maintaining a pipeline of reactors in progress. I really wonder if we want new large scale nuclear in the US, then we should just have the South Koreans build it. It will never happen, but they know how to do it, and we don’t.

The various tech companies are pursuing at least three different SMR designs from Oklo, X-Energy, Kairos, and maybe more than that. One of those designs is better than the others and we don’t know which one yet, but I really think the tech companies should just pick one. That way we really might achieve the economy of scale, with the design and construction lessons carrying over from one reactor to the next.

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The Modular designs are only one or two designs. Your observation is being honored already. The Modular designs are more useful for major factory plants and Data Centers. The investors want the returns in those areas.

Into 1979, the entire enterprise of building nuclear power plants was relatively new. We are beyond that.

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The Kairos, X-Energy, and Oklo SMR designs are all very different. I asked Gemini to create a table summarizing the differences:

Feature Kairos Power X-energy Oklo
Reactor Type Molten-Salt Cooled High-Temp Gas Cooled Liquid-Metal Fast Reactor
Coolant Used Liquid Fluoride Salt Helium Gas Liquid Sodium / Heat pipes
Fuel Form Floating TRISO Pebbles Flowing TRISO Pebbles Solid Metal Fuel Alloy
Can Use Waste? No No Yes (Recycled nuclear waste)
Module Size 75 MWe 80 MWe 15 – 75 MWe
Tech Backer Google Amazon Sam Altman, Equinix, Switch
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Yes but we have 106 nuclear sites with about 100 designs.

This is just 6 major designs. The industrialists are watching to keep it that way.

I imagine if there are three designs for every catagory it would get towards 18 designs. A far cry from prior to 1979. Plus fewer utility companies involved.

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Meanwhile, Elementl Power recently announced their intention of building up to five General Electric-Hitachi SMRs at a greenfield location in southern Ohio.

Since the low-interest loans mentioned in the OP are presumably available only for the Westinghouse AP1000 design, I wonder if Elementl Power will go back and look at Westinghouse more closely, rather than keeping with the GE Vernova commitment?

From the link:

Elementl said the company has signed an Early Works Agreement with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy to utilize that company’s BWRX-300 SMRs. The company said it would be among the first SMR-based nuclear projects.

And:

Elemental said it plans to finance the cost of the proposed plant because it is a private development project. The company said the project would not be funded by electricity ratepayers. Construction on the first unit is expected to begin in 2030,

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At 300 MW-electric, the BWRX-300 is on the larger size for most SMRs. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is currently building a BWRX-300 on the northern shore of lake Ontario at the Darlington site. As of last year, they were targeting a start-up date of 2030, with more reactors following in the 2030s.

This project will be quite unique for Canada. All of their other plants use unenriched natural uranium and heavy water moderation. The BWRX-300 will use ~5% enriched fuel (presumably enriched and manufactured in the US) and will use standard light water for cooling and moderation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As mentioned on another board, but in case you didn’t see it…

A small microreactor recently achieved initial criticality in Utah. This is part of the Department of Energy’s Pilot Reactor program. Criticality means the reactor core is undergoing a sustained nuclear chain reaction.

_ Pete

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Interesting that if you go to the Westinghouse Electric website, nuclear power is hardly mentioned. (Westinghouse did make the power plant for the Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine.) This is not the air brake company. (That’s Wabtec that bought GE’s locomotive business.) Wikipedia does summarize its history. Still near Pittsburgh.

The company was initially formed as CBS Corporation spun off the remaining pieces of Westinghouse’s industrial concerns, as part of Westinghouse’s re-creation as a media company. Portions of their nuclear business were initially purchased by Siemens in 1998 before the remaining parts were purchased by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) in 1999 and formed up as Westinghouse Electric. In 2005, BNFL sold the company to Toshiba.

The company went bankrupt in 2017 primarily due to ongoing cost overruns at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant and Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station expansions, the first US builds of the company’s AP1000 design. It emerged from bankruptcy after being purchased by Brookfield Business Partners, a Canadian private equity fund. They sold it to a consortium of Brookfield Renewable Partners and Cameco, a Canadian nuclear fuel and services company. Renewable Partners is the current majority owner of Westinghouse.

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  1. The $17.5 billion spread over 10 reactors would only provide $1.75 billion per reactor. That is chicken feed for the $15 billion current cost of each reactor. No utility in their right mined wants to get into this loser game.
  2. Potentially on line more likely by 2040 or later.
  3. The Vogtle 3&4 were also fixed-price contracts, but that did not stop them from from going 250% over the fixed-price.

Permitting is not what delayed Westinghouse reactors in Georgia. It was total mismanagement that delayed Vogtle 3&4. China has better construction management than Westinghouse and their lousy subcontractors until Westinghouse finally hired Bechtel to finish the project on a cost plus basis. Any new Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power project is going to face the same problems. Bechtel will not sign a fixed-price contract for a new Westinghouse AP1000.

China does have the construction and manufacturing capacity to build all the reactor systems, structures and components for the large nuclear plants like the AP1000. The US does not have the construction and manufacturing capacity to do the same.

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Wrong - We had 3 major large reactor designs

  1. Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering PWRs
  2. General Electric - BWRs
  3. Babcock and Wilcox PWRs
    These 3 reactor types are still operating today. Each type varied in size small, medium and large. However, they also had to meet specific local conditions for seismic, tornado, wind, storms, flooding, volcanic ash, fires, temperatures, reactor cooling and terrorists. Cost considerations prohibited all reactor to the worst conditions. For example, California seismic requirements were to costly for states east of the Rocky Mountains.
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@Wendy - There is another board for Nuclear Power. Why don’t you use that board? It has many more articles on nuclear power.

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Thank you for the correction. But it still leaves us with plenty of cost overruns.

I am not interested in having much of a horse in this race.