- DOE Loans Holtec $57M to Restart Palisades
- NextEra Energy Follows Constellation; Files with Regulators to Restart Duane Arnold
- Santee Cooper Seeks Proposals to Complete Abandoned V C Summer plant
- Small Modular Reactors Considered for Site of Kewaunee Nuclear Plant
- Urenco to Supply HALEU Fuel for Westinghouse eVinci Microreactor
- EDF in Line for State Loan to Build Six New Reactors
- France Names New CEO at EDF to Execute Bailout Loans
- World Bank Mulls Ending Long Standing Ban on Funding Nuclear Power
- Rolls-Royce Seeks Space Partnerships for Moon / Mars Missions
DOE Loans Holtec $57M to Restart Palisades
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright announced the release of the second loan disbursement to Holtec for the Palisades Nuclear Plant. The action releases $56,787,300 of the up to $1.52 billion in loan guarantees to Holtec for the Palisades project, which will provide 800MW of affordable and reliable baseload power in Michigan.
“Unleashing American energy dominance will require leveraging all energy sources that are affordable, reliable and secure – including nuclear energy,” said Secretary Wright.”
The Palisades Nuclear Plant will be America’s first restart of a commercial nuclear reactor that ceased operations, subject to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing approvals. The project is projected to support or retain up to 600 high-quality jobs in Michigan, and many of them will be filled by workers who had previously been at the plant for over 20 years. The firm’s timeline for restart is within the next one to two years depending on NRC licensing.
The action by DOE is Holtec’s second disbursement of funds from the Loan Programs Office (LPO) since the announcement of its financial loan in September 2024. LPO funds go toward the plant restart and ensuring the plant is able to be licensed.
World Nuclear News reported that the 800 MWe single unit pressurized water reactor plant ceased operations in May 2022. Holtec International completed its acquisition of the plant from Entergy shortly afterwards. Initially, the path forward had been for Holtec to decommission it, but the company subsequently announced plans to apply for federal funding to support a restart of operations. It would be the first nuclear reactor in the USA to resume operations after having been retired.
Restarting the plant is anticipated to avoid the emission of 4.47 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year for a total of 111 million tCO2 during the projected 25 years of operations.
Holtec has also said it intends to use the Palisades site as the location for its first two small modular reactor units. These will potentially add an additional 600 MW of generation capacity at the site and take advantage of existing infrastructure.
& & &
NextEra Energy Follows Constellation; Files with Regulators to Restart Duane Arnold
NextEra Energy has filed paperwork with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) indicating its intent to restart the 600 MWe Duane Arnold nuclear power plant. The reactor was shut down in 2020 after 45 years of operation.
The utility has also reportedly communicated with regional grid operators about its plans to be a source of power for new data centers being built in Iowa. However, the utility has not signed power purchase agreements with them. The utility also needs to sign up other customers to sell its power to them.
According to the utility the status of the shutdown plant has been reviewed in terms of engineering review of its condition. According to statements provided to the news media by the utility, the reactor is in good shape to support a restart subject to regulatory approvals. The plant’s cooling towers, which were destroyed in a storm will have to be rebuilt, but do not need nuclear related reviews. Work is needed on the switch yard, including new equipment, which needs to be ordered soon given the long lead times for it. The utility said it believes the plant could be restored to revenue service by 2028.
Constellation’s Restart of TMI-1 is the Model for Duane Arnold
NextEra is following in the footsteps of Constellation Energy’s which is restarting TMI-1, renamed Crane Clean Energy Center, in Pennsylvania, and which inked a power purchase agreement with Microsoft to power its data centers.
Constellation is seeking a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee to help finance its plan to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and sell the electricity to Microsoft to AI power data centers. The firm started the loan process in May 2024. According to news media reports, the initial review for the loan has been cleared and the two parties are now negotiating specific terms of the deal.
NexEra declined to say whether it would approach DOE for a loan to restart Duane Arnold. The company said in February in its regulatory filings, “NextEra is monitoring the progress made by (the other companies) and will make adjustments as appropriate, based on lessons learned from those precedential actions.”
Are SMRs in the Future in Iowa?
In an earnings call in January, John Ketchum, NextEra’s CEO, said the firm is also interested in small modular reactors. According to the statement, the company has a division focused on studying SMRs to figure out whether to get into the business. However, he raised a caution flag characterizing SMRs as a “next decade” solution citing the need for developers to prove they can develop their SMRs in fleet mode with resulting competitive costs for production and operation.
& & &
Santee Cooper Seeks Proposals to Complete Abandoned V C Summer Nuclear Power Project
South Carolina’s state-owned utility Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s largest electricity utility, has launched a process seeking proposals that could lead to the revival of the abandoned V C Summer nuclear power station project.
Santee Cooper is, in effect. taking on revival of one of the most significant failures to complete a reactor project in the history of the US nuclear industry. In short, metaphorically speaking, it is trying to bring a $10 billion fiasco back from the dead.
The company said in a statement that it is looking for proposals to acquire and complete, or propose alternatives, for two partially constructed nuclear units at the site. The utility said it has no plans to own the units.
Santee Cooper cited significant interest in repowering closed or cancelled nuclear units to shorten project timelines, as well as federal incentives for these projects. Santee Cooper has engaged US investment banking firm Centerview Partners to conduct a request for proposal (RFP) seeking parties interested in acquiring the project and related assets, and potentially completing one or both units or pursuing alternative uses of the assets. The banking firm lists its expertise as being in M&A, independent board committees, shareholder activism, debt and equity financing and restructuring.
Factors contributing to the utility’s decision to launch an RFP process include a need for new generating capacity, driven by rapid growth of data centers, the onshoring of manufacturing, and the retirement of fossil-fired plants.
Utility president and chief executive officer Jimmy Staton said, “Considering the long timelines required to bring new nuclear units online, Santee Cooper has a unique opportunity to explore options for Summer Units 2 and 3 and their related assets that could allow someone to generate reliable, carbon emissions-free electricity on a meaningfully shortened timeline. We are seeing renewed interest in nuclear energy, fueled by advanced manufacturing investments, AI-driven data center demand, and the tech industry’s zero-carbon targets.”
& & &
Small Modular Reactors Considered for Site of Kewaunee Nuclear Plant
Although the main reactor at the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant is being decommissioned, the site, with its grid access and switch yard, is being considered for development of small nuclear reactors (SMRs). In December 2024 December, EnergySolutions, which owns the site, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Terrestrial Energy, to collaborate on building Integral Molten Salt Reactor plants.
Local economic development officials say the reactors could be used to supply electricity to data centers, but so far this idea is still in the talking stage. EnergySolutions told a local TV station the Kewaunee plant is in consideration for one or more SMRs but no decision has yet been made.
The Kewaunee Power Station sits on the shores of Lake Michigan in the town of Carlton, between Kewaunee and Two Rivers. It first began operations in 1974 and the plant was formally closed in May 2013. Decommissioning is expected to be complete in 2031
& & &
Urenco to Supply HALEU Fuel for Westinghouse eVinci Microreactor
- Partnership for High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium Key Step in Development of Next-Generation Technology
Westinghouse Electric Company and Urenco have signed a first agreement for long-term fuel enrichment. Under the agreement, Urenco will provide enrichment of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to Westinghouse for five years of deployment for the company’s next-generation, eVinci microreactor.
Uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel process. Image: Urenco
In 2023, Urenco was awarded $12.4 million by the UK government from its Nuclear Fuel Fund to help develop low enriched uranium and HALEU enrichment capability at its Capenhurst site in Cheshire, England. Westinghouse has a nuclear fuel fabrication plant in the UK at its UK Springfields site.
High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is uranium enriched to between 5% and 20% U-235, is needed to fuel many types of advanced reactors including the eVinci. The fuel in the form of UF6 destined to be fabricated into solid fuel assemblies, is in short supply. For instance, TerraPower postponed the startup of its 345MW sodium cooled Natrium advanced reactor from 2028 to 2030 due to anticipated delays in being able to obtain sufficient quantities for first fuel loading and subsequent fuel outages.
The eVinci microreactor intended to support a variety of applications, including providing reliable electricity and heating for data centers, the oil and gas industry, mining operations, remote communities, universities, industrial centers, and defense facilities, and soon the lunar surface and beyond.
The eVinci microreactor has very few moving parts, working essentially as a battery, providing the versatility for power systems ranging from several kilowatts to 5 MW of electricity, delivered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for eight-plus years without refueling. The technology will be factory-built and assembled before it is shipped in a container.
In September 2024 Westinghouse Electric Company completed the front-end engineering and experiment design (FEEED) phase to test a prototype of its eVinci microreactor at Idaho National Laboratory. The FEEED process is intended to support developers in design and planning for the fabrication, construction, and potential testing of fueled reactor experiments at the DOME test bed operated by the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC).
Penn State and Westinghouse Electric Co. are partnering to unlock the potential of the industry-leading eVinci microreactor by engaging with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to develop a new nuclear research facility at the University Park campus.
Penn State submitted a letter of intent to the NRC on 02/28/25 which is the first step in the application process to install an eVinci microreactor at the new research facility.
The firm is reportedly looking at several locations in Pennsylvania to manufacture its eVinci microreactor.
& & &
EDF in Line for State Loan to Build Six New Reactors
(WNN) France’s Nuclear Policy Council, headed by President Emmanuel Macron,has agreed that a subsidized government loan should be issued to state-owned power utility EDF to cover at least half the construction costs of six EPR2 reactors.
In February 2022, Macron announced that the time was right for a nuclear renaissance in France, saying the operation of all existing reactors should be extended without compromising safety and unveiling a proposed program for six new EPR2 reactors, with an option for a further eight EPR2 reactors to follow. The first three pairs of EPR2 reactors are proposed to be built, in order, at the Penly, Gravelines and Bugey sites. Construction is expected to start in 2027.
The cost was originally estimated at EUR51.7 billion (USD56.4 billion), but this was revised to EUR67.4 billion (USD70 millikon) in 2023. The six reactors, coming in at 1.650 MW each, at a hypothetical cost of $6,500/kw comes out to 9.9 GWe at an estimated cost of about $$64.4 billion. A subsidy of half the cost would be USD32.2 billion.
The additional eight reactors, also using the hypothetical cost of $6,500/Kw, come in at 13.2 GWe or USD86 billion.
The costs will undoubtedly be higher in the out years of the construction cycle for all eight plants. EDF’s construction of two EPRs in the UK at the Hinkley C site are already behind schedule and over budget. The UK is still facing an investment decision, all but certain, to go all in to invest in and build two more 1,650 MW EPRs at the Sizewell C site.
In France the construction of the 1,620 MW EPR at Flamanville 3 was initiated in 2007 but the plant was not connected to the grid until December 2024. The original estimate was $4 billion but final cost was $13.2 billion or $8,150/kw. This was the second EPR built by EDF. The first unit built in Finland also suffered from significant schedule delays and cost overruns.
The EPR2 reactor, which is a redesign of the 1,650 MW original design, is supposed to benefit from the lessons learned in Finland and France. It is a pressurized water reactor project developed by EDF and Framatome. It meets the general safety objectives of the third generation of reactors.
At a 03/17/25 meeting, the French Nuclear Policy Council (CPN) “examined the main principles of the financing and regulatory framework” for the construction of the six EPR2s, the Elysee Palace (the official residence of the French president) said in a statement. EDF is heavily in debt and needs the money.
“This framework is based on a subsidized government loan covering at least half of the construction costs and a Contract for Difference on nuclear production at a maximum price of EUR100 (USD109) per MWh in 2024 value.”
A Contract for Difference is essentially where there is a future fixed price guaranteed for electricity generated, with the government either paying the difference between the market price and the agreed sale price, or receiving payment if the market price is higher.
Elysee said: “This important milestone will allow discussions between the government and EDF to be finalized in the coming weeks and allow for rapid initiation of discussions with the European Commission, with a view to EDF making a final investment decision in 2026.”
The Council requested EDF “step up its cost and schedule control efforts” and to present a binding cost and time frame estimate by the end of the year.
The CPN also validated the action plan aimed at securing the upstream part of the nuclear fuel cycle and “in particular the support that the State will provide to Orano for France’s uranium supply in the medium and long term”.
Regarding used fuel processing, the Council confirmed continued investment in Orano’s program of upgrades in downstream activities at its La Hague site.
In addition, the Council mandated the General Secretariat for Investment to continue supporting the development of small modular reactors by “prioritizing the projects most likely to lead to the commissioning of a demonstrator at the beginning of the 2030s.”
& & &
France Names New CEO to Execute Bailout Loans
The French government is changing horses in terms of the leadership of EDF which is a state-owned enterprise. The decision comes as French President Macron moves to order six new 1,650 MW EPRs plus an follow-on contract to build eight more as the French nuclear fleet ages out.
France is overhauling the leadership at state-owned utility EDF, as the heavily indebted company gears up to build six new nuclear reactors for the country while struggling to sign up long-term customers for its power.
Bernard Fontana, currently head of nuclear engineering group Framatome, majority owned by EDF, has been proposed as the new CEO. He will replace Luc Remont who has held the role for the past two years. The change still needs to be approved by parliament which is expected to approve the appointment.
Speaking to reporters on a trip in central France, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said Fontana had experience leading teams and “accelerating construction” to steer the company as it embarked on a new phase.
“We are facing new nuclear power plant construction sites, construction sites that are expensive and on which there are a certain number of difficulties,” he said.
Framatome, run by Fontana since 2015, designs the European Pressurized Reactors that EDF plans to build over the coming decades to renew the country’s ageing nuclear fleet.
Reuters reported that Fontana will take over EDF after months of protracted and increasingly tense negotiations between the utility and industry over long-term power supply contracts, with the two sides unable to agree on terms. EDF wants to cover the cost of maintaining its nuclear fleet and investing in new reactors while companies are demanding lower electricity prices to remain competitive. Earlier this month, EDF said it was inviting companies in other countries to bid for its power as it struggled to win business clients at home.
& & &
World Bank Mulls Ending Long Standing Ban on Funding Nuclear Power
- The head of the World Bank said he asked the lender’s board to reverse its long-standing policy against funding nuclear power projects, saying the technology offers a green option for poor countries.
According to a Bloomberg wire service report the head of the World Bank said he asked the lender’s board to reverse its long-standing policy against funding nuclear power projects. He said the technology offers a green option for poor countries.
“The good news is the board has come together and said they’re willing to discuss” the change, World Bank President Ajay Banga said at an event in Washington, adding that he expects the move to be included in a broader energy policy proposal expected in June 2026. It is unclear how long it will take for the bank to reach a final decision, establish criteria for loans, and make the first commitments to funding nuclear power projects.
Among developing nations, those in Southeast Asia that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels like coal have for the first time expressed interest in having nuclear power. The Philippines is aiming to have its first nuclear power plant by 2032 which are most likely to be SMRs. Vietnam is considering reviving parts of a former plan for full size nuclear power plants. Indonesia is progressing with plans for a floating molten salt plant.
“Small nuclear reactors could be transformative,” Banga said in an interview with Bloomberg reporter David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington.
The bank has fund fossil fuel and renewable power projects but has resisted all previous efforts to get it to reconsider its ban on funding nuclear projects.
& & &
Rolls-Royce Seeks Space Partnerships for Moon / Mars Missions
Rolls-Royce is looking for partnerships in the space industry for its micro-nuclear reactor, which says will be ready to support lunar bases in the early 2030s. Key areas for partnerships include supply chain firms for components.
Rolls-Royce Assistant Chief Engineer for Space Katie Jarman told the Bloomberg wire service the firm is in conversations with potential partners for launch and landing services as well as lunar transportation.
“We know that we are not a space company,” she said in an interview with wire services. “We are not going to be able to put a micro-reactor on the moon and operate it by ourselves.”
The micro-reactors are designed to be an energy source on the moon, supporting human habitation and supplying propulsion for further space exploration. Rolls-Royce is working to ensure the reactor fits with NASA’s mass requirements, which Jarman called “challenging.”
Jarman added that Rolls-Royce is speaking with European companies but predominantly US-based businesses following the Atlantic Declaration which the US and the UK signed in 2023 to explore space nuclear power opportunities.
“Having access to both capabilities on both sides of the pond is the best way of making sure that those programs can stick to their timescales and their cost.”
In March 2023, Rolls-Royce received funding of ÂŁ2.9 million ($3.8 million) from the UK Space Agency to explore how nuclear power could be used to support future lunar bases. The company is working on two contracts with the space agency. The first targets concept design and the second involves product development, primarily from the US.
Like other fission and fusion reactor developers, Rolls-Royce is also positioning its microreactor for space-based propulsion to cut transit time time to Mars.
Travel time depends in part on the relative positions of the planets at launch, and propulsion requirement and capabilities depends on where Mars will be when you can get there with it. The same orbital issues exist for the return to Earth.
Also, would it make sense for anyone using something this fast to preposition a lander in Mars orbit to save weight. Mass matters. Similarly, NASA would likely preposition supplies on the surface for any extended stay or at least until planetary positions are favorable for the return. Going fast is good, but also fuel is needed for de-acceleration on arrival at Mars and for slowing down to a safe speed for re entry to Earth.
# # #