Westinghouse Rolls the Dice With Plan to Build 10 AP1000s

• Westinghouse Rolls the Dice With Plan to Build 10 AP1000s

• Westinghouse, Google Partner to Use AI to Build Reactors

• INL Collaborates with Microsoft to Streamline Nuclear Licensing

• Oklo Selects Kiewit as EPC for First Aurora Powerhouse in Idaho

• NANO Nuclear Selects AECOM to Build 1st Reactor at U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Westinghouse Rolls the Dice With Plan to Build 10 AP1000s

Among nuclear energy reactor developers, and their utility customers, the prospect of building a single new or multiple new reactors can be an all consuming enterprise, in terms of risks, for the EPC, the vendor, and the utility.

So, imagine what the risks must look like in the “C” suite at Westinghouse as interim CEO Dan Sumner told a conference on energy and artificial intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh last week that the company plans to build 10 nuclear reactors with the first one slated to be under construction by 2030.

Westinghouse made a big impression on the conference, but its pitch was short on key details. Among them are the locations of the reactors, the customers for them, financing including loans from DOE, and most importantly, how an EPC could would manage supply chains and workforces across a 10 reactor “fleet?” It is likely that there would be a separate utility customer, financial package and EPC for each of the ten reactors or pairs of them, which is a likely configuration.

Sumner told the conference the economic impact of the 10 reactors would be about $75 billion at multiple locations across the US with $6 billion of economic activity taking place in Pennsylvania.

It is plausible that Westinghouse is thinking about utility owned sites that have COLs specifying AP1000s but which are not expected to be developed by their respective utilities in the near term. The NRC tags these licenses with 20 year shelf lives assuming there are no major changes to them over time. This policy allows utilities to postpone development of new reactors, given prevailing economic conditions and demand for electricity, until markets are ready for them.

Taking into account that building a new reactor or two is a six-to-eight year proposition, utilities have to roll the dice that favorable markets that prevail at the time projects break ground will still be the case when the reactors are ready to enter revenue service.

The “banked” projects include four COLs held by Duke (two each at Williams States Lee in SC, and Levy County, FL), and two COL held by Florida Power & Light (FP&L)  (Turkey Point 6 & 7 in FL). The COLs for Duke two Shearon Harris reactors in NC were suspended. Note that Westinghouse did not mention any of these locations in its press statement. 

Hypothetically, this short list covers eight of the ten reactors in the Westinghouse announcement. Given that Westinghouse said that $6 billion is the economic impact in Pennsylvania, that virtually guarantees that none of the 10 AP1000s will be built in that state.

However, Westinghouse is developing a microcomputer, branded as the eVinci reactor, and at 5 MW of power, would come in at between $25 to $30 million for a first of a kind unit if built in volume in a factory for multiple customers and sites. Westinghouse also is building a factory in Pennsylvania to manufacture the eVinci reactor which could be counted as part of the firm’s over all positive economic influence.

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eVinci

Westinghouse is also developing a downsized version of the AP1000 which, branded as the AP300, is a 300 MW PWR. The firm has said in previous press statements that it expects the design to be complete and ready for an NRC safety review no later than the end of this decade. This design could come in at $1.5 billion each if built in “fleet mode.”

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AP300 Westinghouse

Note – by comparison a single 77 MW SMR from NuScale would come in at $385 million with a six-pack at 462 MW, NuScale’s preferred offering, would come in at $2.3 billion.

Big Nuclear Projects Bring Big Problems

This isn’t the first time a nuclear reactor vendor has offer an ambitious plan to build multiple nuclear reactors in the US. During the so-called “nuclear renaissance” in the period 2007-2012, Areva, a French state owned enterprise, aired plans to build four 1,650 MW EPRs at four separate sites in the US.

None of the projects ever broke ground due to market conditions in terms of electricity demand in the US, Due to the crash of 2008. the ‘Great Recession’ triggered a 17-month, 5.1% drop in electricity demand across the United States. The evaporation of Areva’s grand plan also resulted in the pauses for plans by Duke and FP&L to build their licensed reactors

Time to Market v. Time to Build

Building multiple nuclear reactors is a huge challenge and the time to complete them is never a case of “add water and microwave” in terms of the time it takes to complete them. When politicians say they will build “X” number of reactors producing “Y” megawatts of power by an fantastically ambitious date, it is time to take the “Missouri pledge” which is “show me.” Otherwise, it is just “chicken in every pot” talk designed to garner votes.

For example, in terms of realistic timelines, in the UAE the first of four 1,400 MW South Korean PWR type reactors broke ground in 2012 and the fourth unit entered revenue service 12 years later in 2024. In Turkey Rosatom, which has vast domestic and global experience building its VVER reactors, has stalled out in its effort to build four 1,200 MW units in Turkey due to financing and supply chain issues. The average build time for the first two units was eight years each.

In the UK the government has hired France’s EDF to build four 1,650 MW EPRs, two at Hinkley Point C and two at Sizewell C. Both projects are budget busters with the expected costs for each project expected to exceed $30 billion. These cost increases and schedule delays come even after EDF previously built two EPRs, once in Finland and the other in France. EDF’s experience clearly shows that it takes more that the first two units to get lessons learned, supply chains, and workforce experience in gear to repeatedly hit cost and schedule milestones.

The challenge facing the global nuclear industry is to consistently deliver these huge undertakings with the predictable and verifiable costs and completion schedules. If Westinghouse is up to the challenges inherent in its commitment for 10 AP1000s, it might be able to set to rest the ghosts of the past that haunt proposals to build in “fleet mode,” which implies multiple reactors at multiple sites.

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Westinghouse, Google Partner to Use AI to Build Reactors

  (WNN) Westinghouse announced it will collaborate with Google’s ‘Cloud’ enterprise programs to use artificial intelligence tools to streamline construction of new nuclear plants and enhance the operations of existing nuclear power plants.

In September last year, Westinghouse introduced the HiVE System – a generative artificial intelligence system built on more than 75 years of nuclear engineering proprietary data, knowledge and expertise. The system features a Nuclear Large Language Model (LLM) AI system. According to Westinghouse, these nuclear-specific AI solutions will optimize new nuclear deployment of its AP1000 reactor, AP300 small modular reactors, and eVinci microreactor technologies.

The LLM is coded named BERTA after Bertha Lamme who was the first woman in the US to receive a mechanical engineering degree from Ohio State in 1893, and then became the first female engineer hired by Westinghouse.

Under its agreement with Google, the two companies will pair Westinghouse’s HiVE and bertha nuclear AI solutions with Google Cloud technologies and expertise to “transform the construction of advanced Westinghouse nuclear reactors into an efficient, repeatable process and enhance the operations of existing nuclear power plants using data-driven insights.”

As part of this collaboration, Westinghouse and Google Cloud say they have successfully achieved a first-of-a-kind proof of concept leveraging Westinghouse’s WNEXUS digital plant design platform and HiVE artificial intelligence enhanced by Google Cloud technologies, including Vertex AI, Gemini and BigQuery, to autonomously generate and optimize AP1000 modular construction work packages.

Westinghouse Interim Chief Executive Officer Dan Sumner said, “Artificial intelligence is not merely a tool; it can give companies a critical competitive advantage. Westinghouse is demonstrating what’s possible.”

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Idaho National Laboratory Collaborates with Microsoft to Streamline Nuclear Licensing

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Microsoft Corporation announced a collaboration to use Microsoft’s Azure cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to streamline the nuclear permitting and licensing application process.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy through the National Reactor Innovation Center is  funding the project.

INL will leverage a Microsoft-developed solution built with Azure AI services to generate engineering and safety analysis reports, which are standard reports submitted as a part of applications for construction permits and operating licenses for nuclear power plants.

For reactor developers, generating these large, detailed reports is typically a time-consuming and expensive process that requires compiling safety data and language from multiple sources. The Azure AI-powered solution will help streamline and accelerate the review process.

The technology is designed to analyze nuclear engineering and safety documents, and generate documentation required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and DOE for nuclear licensing.

The tool does not perform analyses on the documents but rather automates the process of constructing licensing documents for subsequent human verification. 

The tool has wide applicability for nuclear energy-related licensing, including new light water reactors and upgrades to existing light water reactors. The Azure AI-powered solution could be especially useful for licensing advanced reactors, which often have different designs, fuels, coolants and materials than the conventional reactors typically reviewed by the NRC. The technology can generate reports for any nuclear facility licensed through NRC or DOE authorization, including nuclear energy test facilities.

The latest AI tool is not the first collaboration between INL and Microsoft. In 2023, INL and Idaho State University (ISU) nuclear engineering students developed the world’s first nuclear reactor digital twin — a virtual replica of ISU’s AGN-201 reactor — using the company’s Azure cloud computing platform.

Prior coverage on this blog – Challenges and Opportunities for Digital Twins

“This is a big deal for the nuclear licensing process,” said Jess Gehin, associate laboratory director for Nuclear Science and Technology at Idaho National Laboratory.

“Introducing AI technologies will enhance efficiency and accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.”

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Oklo Selects Kiewit as EPC for First Aurora Powerhouse in Idaho

Oklo Inc. (NYSE: OKLO), an advanced nuclear technology company, announced that it selected Kiewit Nuclear Solutions Co. as the lead constructor for its first commercial Aurora powerhouse in Idaho, at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).

Under a newly executed Master Services Agreement, Kiewit Nuclear Solutions Co. a subsidiary of Kiewit Corporation, one of North America’s largest construction and engineering organizations, will begin to support the design, procurement, and construction of the Aurora-INL, with pre-construction expected to begin in 2025 and with commercial operations targeted for late 2027 to early 2028. Oklo says it expects to submit the license application for the Aurora Powerhouse to the NRC in late 2025.

Oklo selected Kiewit through a competitive process that evaluated both technical capabilities and construction expertise. Because a significant portion of the Aurora powerhouse’s construction scope is non-nuclear, Oklo can leverage Kiewit’s extensive experience in delivering large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects. This approach is designed to accelerate delivery timelines, reduce costs, and uphold standards of safety and quality.

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NANO Nuclear Selects AECOM to Build 1st Reactor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

NANO Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NNE) announced significant progress in its KRONOS MMR microreactor construction program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The company has engaged AECOM under a master services agreement to provide critical engineering and environmental services for the planned deployment.

The scope includes detailed environmental reviews, regulatory pathway planning, and site drilling to gather geological data necessary for submitting a construction permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The project at UIUC, a leading nuclear research institution, will involve technical feasibility studies, site assessment, and regulatory interface coordination. The firm, says the initiative aims to establish one of the first licensed microreactors on a US university campus.

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