Santee Cooper Selects Brookfield to Complete Two AP1000s at V C Summer
OPG Secures Government $2B Equity Financing For SMR Project
Last Energy Lands in Texas
South Africa Reimagines the Pebble Bed Reactor
Duke Sets Plans for New Light Water Reactors and SMRs
GLE Hits Technology Maturity Milestone for Laser Enrichment
American Fuel Resources Plans Re-Start of Uranium Deconversion Project
Urenco Announces Plans To Double New Uranium Enrichment Capacity At Netherlands Site
Santee Cooper Selects Brookfield to Complete Two AP1000s at V C Summer
Brookfield, the Canadian private equity firm that holds a majority share of the ownership of Westinghouse, has been selected by South Carolina utility Santee Cooper to complete two partially built Westinghouse 1,150 MW AP1000 PWR type nuclear reactors.
Brookfield won the VC Summer development contract with the main factor being a commitment to paying down $2.7 billion of an existing $3.6 billion obligation Santee Cooper has on the site and sharing ownership and power. Ratepayers have been stuck with the debt since the project collapsed in 2017. Until now there were no prospects to complete the twin reactors.
The unfinished Unit 2 nuclear reactor pictured Sept. 12, 2024, at V.C. Summer nuclear site in Fairfield County, S.C. (Courtesy of the S.C. Nuclear Advisory Council)
Three other bidders reached the best and final stage out of a reported field of 15 interested firms. The other bidders were reported to be the Nuclear Company, Elementl, and the Oppenheimer Project.
Brookfield’s proposal was the only one which put $2.7 billion in cash on the table to address ratepayer obligations tied to the project. None of the other bidders had the financial capabilities to make a commitment to pay off the debt as part of the deal.
Brookfield also agreed to allow Santee Cooper to retain a 25% equity stake in the final project and receive 25% of the power it provided (at a below market cost).
The utility launched a competitive bidding process in January 2025, receiving initial expressions of interest from over 70 potential bidders and 15 formal proposals. Working with industry experts, Santee Cooper developed key financial, risk mitigation and execution criteria by which the final proposals were measured.
Centerview Partners LLC served as financial advisor to Santee Cooper on the competitive process to sell its interest in the two partially built AP1000 nuclear units. J.P. Morgan also served as financial advisor to Santee Cooper.
What’s Next for the V C Summer Project?
Where things stand now is that the Santee Cooper Board of Directors approved on 10/24/25 a letter of intent with Brookfield Asset Management. The letter of intent establishes a six-week initial project feasibility period.
In that period, the parties will jointly select a project manager and evaluate construction providers that would be used in resuming construction of the two nuclear units. The six week feasibility review will also would allow for advanced discussions with entities interested in buying nuclear power generated by the units and facilitate additional due diligence leading to execution of a Memorandum of Understanding.
In terms of regulatory status, the NRC terminated the combined licenses for the two reactors in March 2019. Santee Cooper and Brookfield will have to submit new applications for construction and operating licenses under the NRC's Part 50 process. The documentation from the previous COLs for both reactors should, to some extent, make life easier in terms of relicensing the the two units.
What Will It Cost this Time to Cross the Finish Line?
Eventually, a final investment decision (FID) by Santee Cooper will be the starting gun for Brookfield's EPC to begin work. The FID will include the contracted cost for completion and all other terms and conditions. Neither Santee Cooper nor Brookfield have said publicly what it will cost to complete the twin reactors.
Hypothetically, if this was a new, greenfield project, at $6,500/kw, each reactor would cost about $7.5 billion with two of them coming in at around $15 billion. If the hypothetical cost of a greenfield new reactor at 1,150 MW is pegged at $9,000/kw, which is what KHNP is estimating it will cost to build a new 1,000 MW PWR at CEZ's nuclear site at Dukovany, then the cost per reactor rises to $10.4 billion each or approximately $21 billion for the pair.
In a much that the twin reactors were already under construction, and that major long lead systems and components had been ordered when V C Summer project shut down in 2017, the completion costs will be considerably less than the greeenfield cost of a new plant. However, since 2017, the costs of steel, concrete, and labor, among other things, have all gone up due to inflation.
Neither reactor is even 50% complete. As a result of the uncertainty associated with the cost to complete the two reactors, Westinghouse and its EPC will be expected to make project management and controls for costs and schedules job number one.
One opportunituy for the EPC will be that compared to 2017, now eight years later, the booming artificial intelligence field may offer tools to get a better grip on costs and schedules to prevent the delays and cost overruns that occured in the construction of twin AP1000s at Georgia Power's Vogtle plant.
For its part, Santee Cooper is expressing confidence that this time the project will be a success. Santee Cooper President and CEO Jimmy Staton said, “As we move closer to a final deal, our goal remains the same: to enable completion of these two units and thus provide 2,200 MW of carbon-free, reliable nuclear power that delivers energy security for South Carolina and specific benefits to Santee Cooper customers who are paying our initial investment.”
Staton noted that Santee Cooper’s strategic decision to maintain the equipment over the past eight years positions the V C Summer units for a quicker and less costly path to completion.
“The state of the units, and the fact that they use the same Westinghouse AP1000 technology that is now operating in Georgia and overseas, make these assets very attractive to the nuclear power industry.”
Benefits of Bringing Westinghouse Back to the Project
One key element of resuming construction is the continued involvement of Westinghouse Electric Co., which designed and owns the AP 1000 technology. “Brookfield is a majority owner of Westinghouse, which added to their proposal,” Staton said.
Although Stanton didn't mention it, the additon of two more AP1000 reactors in the U.S. fleet will mean at least 60 years of nuclear fuel orders for the Westinghouse nuclear fuel fabrication plant located in Hopkins, SC.
The AP1000 reactor core holds 157 fuel assemblies. Each fuel assembly consists of 264 fuel rods in a 17x17 square array. The V C Summer reactors will use the same fuel assemblies as the twin AP1000s at Georgia Power's Vogle Site. Therein lies an opportunity for economies of scale for Westinghouse and its customers.
Unhappy Losing Bidder Writes a Strong Letter of Protest
According to a letter written by the CEO of the Nuclear Company, the firms withdrew its proposal. The firm had raised $100 million and hired a cadre of top level nuclear executive talent. Based on Lexington, KY, it opened a field office in Columbia, SC, and was widely seen as positioning itself win the business of completing the two reactors. The letter is a no holds barred broadside.
The letter challenged the utility on its assumptions tied to the cost of the restart and completion of the two reactors. The company’s CEO, Jonathan Webb, writtng from the company HQ in Lexington, KY, accused Santee Cooper of rigging the bidding process. (FITS News in South Carolina published the complete text of the letter on its website. The Nuclear Company did not respond to a media inquiry from Neutron Bytes. ( Full text of the letter - PDF file)
Webb wrote in his letter to the Santee Cooper board, “We are further concerned that the RFP process itself may have been fundamentally compromised by the evaluation of bids outside the established framework, by parties previously involved in the V.C. Summer project, and with access to information that the other parties did not have. Sadly, this creates an uneven playing field and undermines the transparency and fairness essential to a project of this importance.”
Webb wrote in the letter that completing the two reactors would likely cost $20 billion. He noted that before a final investment decision is to be made that a six month period of technical and financial due diligence would be required to validate the design, assess site infrastructure, and build a project management organization.
Santee-Cooper Focus Going Forward is on Benefits of its Decision
The utility did not address the concerns raised by CEO Webb. Instead it issued a statement on the benefits of its decision.
“Brookfield came to Santee Cooper with a proposal that set out the path to turn our prior nuclear investment into lasting value for our customers and all South Carolinians,” Santee Cooper board chairman Peter McCoy said in a statement.
“Our goals include completing these reactors with private money and no ratepayer or taxpayer expense, delivering financial relief to our customers and gaining significant additional power capacity for South Carolina. Brookfield’s proposal would do just that, and the company has the financial capability to stand behind its proposal.”
Completion of the two units could:
Generate thousands of temporary construction jobs.
Generate hundreds of highly skilled, permanent operational jobs.
Strengthen and diversify South Carolina’s energy portfolio.
Enhance grid reliability. There are two other nuclear reactors in South Carolina.
Help attract new industries, bringing more jobs and other economic benefits.
Eventually, Santee Cooper and Westinghouse are expected to release estimates of job creation and associated payroll boosts to local economies related to completion of the twin reactors. These estimates will include construction jobs, permannt jobs (500 to 800 people per reactor), and jobs associated with supply chain firms in South Carolina. Located in Jenkinsville, SC, the V C Summer plant is about 40 miles northwest of Columbia, SC.
A History Lesson - How V C Summer Went Wrong in 2017
It was the failure of one of the largest capital construction projects in the U.S. Every time another newspaper headline appeared about what went wrong at the V C Summer project, the dark implications of what it all meant for the future of the nuclear energy industry got all the more foreboding.
A number of the principals at Westinghouse, SCE&G and Santee Cooper knew about the project’s problems and documented them to greater or lesser degrees as long as three years prior that the project was a train wreck in the making that was racing towards a derailment of epic proportions. Eventually, four key executives from the project were convicted of fraud in cases brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, and sentenced to jail terms. Two of the executives were from SCANA and two were from Westinghouse.
Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 and was subsequently acquired by Brookfield, a Canadian private equity firm, in 2022.
In January 2018 SCANA was sold to Dominion in a stock-for-stock deal valued at $14.6 billion. SCANA stockholders received 0.669 shares of Dominion stock for every share of SCANA indicating the scope of the discount on its value. Dominion stock was trading at the time at $55.35/share.
Separately, a SCANA shareholder lawsuit resulted this month in Deloitte agreeing to pay $34 million to former SCANA investors who blamed the auditor for losses stemming from the collapse of the V C Summer project in 2017.
Former shareholders in the South Carolina utility SCANA said Deloitte failed to spot red flags and allowed management to hide mounting problems with the construction of two nuclear reactors. Lawyers for Scana’s shareholders claimed Deloitte should pay a portion of losses because the firm repeatedly signed off on financial statements in which the company indicated the project would be finished on time.
Issues Beyond the Financial Fallout
Instead of looking forward to a triumph for completion of two massive nuclear reactors generating 2,300 MW of CO2 emission free electricity, the South Carolina got endless political fallout, and lawsuits, plus billions in debt, which since 2017 have dominated the the complex contractual debris left behind like storm damage from a hurricane.
The failure of the V C Summer nuclear reactor effort had global implications for Westinghouse and for every country that planned to build nuclear reactors as CO2 emission free source of electrical power. Opponents of these projects at the policy level in government had a ready made anti-nuclear boogey man.
The surprise is that there are no surprises. All of the faults that caused the project in South Carolina to come to an early halt are with failures to follow project management schedule and cost control standard practices that have been known since Admiral Rickover supervised the construction of the first nuclear submarines in the 1950s. Note that Gantt charts were developed as a project management innovation in 1910.
In addition, there were major supply chain woes ,including litigation, plus problems with compliance with nuclear quality standards and NRC regulations resulted in expensive rework.
Prior Coverage on this Blog
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OPG Secures Government $2B Equity Financing For SMR Project
(WNN) Canada Growth Fund Inc, a CAD15 billion arm's-length investment vehicle designed to attract private capital to build Canada's clean economy, has committed to invest up to CAD2 billion in the SMR project at OPG's Darlington site. Building Ontario Fund, a Crown agency with a mandate to catalyse investment in revenue-generating infrastructure projects across Ontario, backed by CAD8 billion in funding from the province, will invest CAD1 billion. Canada Growth Fund will acquire 15% ownership in the project, and Building Ontario Fund 7.5%. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will continue to be the majority owner and operator.
The Province of Ontario on 05/08/25 announced its final investment decision to give the green light to OPG for construction of what is expected to be the first operating commercial small modular reactor (SMR) in any G7 country.
The plan is to eventually have four of GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 SMRs at the site, delivering up to 1,200 MW of reliable, affordable, and low-carbon electricity, with a total projected cost of CAD20.9 billion or CAD5.2 billion per unit,
As these are first-of-a-kind units, the high prices are not predictors of costs once "fleet mode" production is achieved. OPG has a collaboration arrangement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the US which plans to build at least four of the BWRX300 SMRs. The two utilities will share supply chains as well as construction and operational efficiencies based on lessons learned from the first units.
Canada Growth Fund and Building Ontario Fund said they are leveraging their unique investment mandates and "bringing forward innovative financial arrangements to temporarily share certain risks that currently limit private sector interest today." The added that this will pave the way to spur private sector and Indigenous investment in the project over time.
Provided conditions are satisfied, Canada Growth Fund (CGF) and Building Ontario Fund's capital will be made available to OPG in two tranches. The first tranche will comprise initial capital funding for the first unit, referred to as SMR 1; the second tranche of additional capital to fund the next three SMRs will be made available once certain project milestones have been met.
OPG has said it expects to complete construction of SMR 1 by the end of the decade and connect it to the grid by the end of 2030. Construction on SMRs 2-4 are expected to be completed in the mid-2030s.
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Last Energy Lands in Texas
Microreactor Company Announces Plans For Pilot Project At Texas University
Last Energy will use scaled-down version of its commercial PWR-20 plantÂ
(NucNet) Microreactor developer Last Energy and the Texas A&M University System have announced plans for a microreactor pilot project at Texas A&M-Rellis, an applied research and advanced technology campus.
The project will feature Last Energy’s PWR-5, a microreactor design physically identical to the company’s commercial product, the PWR-20, scaled to 5 MW of electrical output. Last Energy said the PWR-5 will demonstrate low-power criticality and the ability to generate electricity for commercial output.
The PWR-20 is designed to be mass manufactured so production can be scaled to user demand. It is designed for flexible siting and “plug-and-play” installation.
Last Energy, which moved its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas in May, has secured a lease agreement at Texas A&M-Rellis, procured a full-core load of fuel, signed an “other transaction agreement” (OTA) with the US Department of Energy (DOE)m and begun formal licensing submissions with the NRC.
In February the Texas A&M University System selected four companies to explore developing advanced nuclear power reactors on the Rellis campus. Last Energy is the fifth firm to join the party.
Each of the four companies, Kairos Power, Natura Resources, Aalo Atomics and Terrestrial Energy, could potentially build at least one commercial nuclear power plant at Rellis.
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South Africa Reimagines the Pebble Bed Reactor
As part of a new Integrated Resource Plan, South Africa plans to invest in new effort to commercialize the pebble bed reactor. According to wire service reports, South Africa expects to lift the care and maintenance status of its Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) by the first quarter of next year.
The pebble-bed reactor (PBR) is a design for a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled nuclear reactor. It is a type of high-temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR), one of the six classes of nuclear reactors in the Generation IV initiative.
South Africa shelved its PBMR research and development effort in 2010 after spending $980 million and before building a planned demonstration model. The R&D work indicated the design was good as source process heat for industry but not as efficient as needed to be a used solely as a source for electrical power generation.
Several of the key technical leaders of the effort subsequently left South Africa going to work for US SMR developer X-Energy which has been working to develop a commercial 80 MW HTGR nuclear reactor. X-Energy has plans to deliver four of its units to DOW for use in providing combined heat and power to a chemical plant in Texas. Recently, X-Energy announced a deal with Amazon and the Columbia Generating Station in Richland, WA, to deliver 12 units to provide power for Amazon's data centers and other customers.
Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, the electricity and energy minister, told a media briefing the work on the pebble bed project is part of a long range Integrated Resource Plan that will raise the use of gas and nuclear power to 16% of total energy generation. Dependence on coal will drop from 58% to 27% by 2042. South Africa relies on coal to generate the bulk of its electricity.
New nuclear generation capacity of 10 GW from conventional LWR type SMRs, as well as full size nuclear reactors, is foreseen, with gas at 16 GW, wind at 34 GW and solar PV at 25 GW by 2039. All of these numbers are for now aspirational as the country must still figure out how to finance the IRP's objectives.
The energy minister told Reuters, "We are seeing huge opportunities around the world, with major players on data centers the biggest investors on SMRs (small modular reactors)."
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Duke Sets Plans for New Light Water Reactors and SMRs
(NucNet) Duke Energy has filed its 2025 long term energy plan outlining supply and infrastructure investments for North and South Carolina, including expanded plans for new nuclear generation to meet rapidly rising electricity demand.
The Carolinas Resource Plan is Duke Energy’s biennial roadmap for how the company is to meet future electricity needs across in the two southern states. The plan is reviewed by regulators in both North Carolina and South Carolina and updated every two years.
Duke said in a statement that the updated 2025 plan includes evaluation of both small modular reactors (SMRs) and large light-water reactors, targeting potential new nuclear capacity in service by 2037.
The statement said the company will expand licensing activities to preserve the option of developing either an SMR at its Belews Creek coal-fired site in North Carolina or a large-scale reactor unit at the William States site in South Carolina, which includes a new 750-MW combined-cycle natural gas plant, a 180-MW natural gas boiler and two dual-fuel 42-MW simple-cycle units.
The Lee site was previously selected by Duke more than a decade ago but the utility never broke ground to build twin AP1000s on the site. It cancelled the project in 2017. Since then electricity demand in the Carolinas is growing at eight times the rate of the past 15 years, driven by strong manufacturing and data center investments.
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GLE Hits Technology Maturity Milestone for Laser Enrichment
(WNN) GLE, the exclusive licensee of the SILEX laser enrichment technology invented by Australian company Silex Sytems Ltd, began large-scale demonstration testing of the uranium enrichment process at its Test Loop facility in Wilmington, NC, in May. By mid-September, it had collected extensive performance data which the company said gave it the confidence that the process can be commercially deployed.
GLE has now reached TRL-6, as defined by the US Department of Energy's DOE Technology Readiness Assessment Guide (G 413.3-4A), which means the technology has now been demonstrated in a relevant environment at the prototype or pilot scale, and is ready to move forward to full-scale systems.
The nine-point Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale was pioneered by NASA in the 1980s as a measurement system to assess the maturity level of a particular technology, from TRL-1 (basic principles observed) through to TRL-9 (total system used successfully in project operations).
"In plain language, this independent validation means that GLE has demonstrated large-scale, integrated system performance under relevant operational conditions and that our schedule for initial commercial deployment is achievable," GLE CEO Stephen Long said.
"We now turn our attention to full-scale detailed design and disciplined deployment of our Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF) in Paducah, KY. The PLEF would be built from an entirely-US supply chain, maintaining control of this vital new technology in the US and is expected to create first-rate advanced manufacturing jobs not just in Paducah, but around the country."
GLE said its commercial deployment is backed by more than $550 million in privately funded engineering, design, manufacturing, and licensing activities across North Carolina and Kentucky and is one of six companies awarded an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract under the Department of Energy's Low-Enriched Uranium program.
The company completed its full license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility in July. If approved, the facility would represent a multi-billion-dollar investment opportunity in the state, creating more than 300 permanent jobs when the plant is in operation.
If commissioned, the facility is expected to re-enrich more than 200,000 tonnes of high-assay depleted uranium tails acquired from the US Department of Energy and produce up to 6 million separative work units of LEU annually, delivering a domestic, single-site solution for uranium, conversion, and enrichment.
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 American Fuel Resources Plans Re-Start of Uranium Deconversion ProjectÂ
American Fuel Resources (AFR) announced that it has formally submitted an application in conjunction with International Isotopes, Inc. (INIS) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requesting approval for the transfer of Materials License Sub-1011 from INIS’s subsidiary, International Isotopes Fluorine Products, Inc. to AFR’s wholly owned subsidiary Green Salt Products, LLC (GSP). The 40- year license, issued in October 2012, is for a depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) deconversion site in Lea County, NM.
The application marks a key milestone in AFR’s mission to expand America’s DUF6 deconversion capacity. Upon NRC approval and financial close, GSP will assume full operational, regulatory, and safety responsibilities under the license.
Virginia Davies, Chief Financial Officer of AFR. said, “With proven technology, top-tier partners, and an experienced team, we’re advancing an asset that offers infrastructure-like durability and strategic importance to the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle."
About American Fuel Resources
American Fuel Resources (AFR) is developing critical nuclear-fuel-cycle infrastructure to strengthen U.S. energy security and industrial resilience. Through its subsidiary Green Salt Products (GSP), AFR will convert DUF6 into DUF4 and high-purity fluorine, unlocking reliable domestic supply for nuclear conversion and strategic materials. High purity fluorine is used in the pharmaceutical industry and also to produce solar energy panels.
According to a report by the ANS Nuclear Newswire, the 40-year license for the project, which International Isotopes called the Fluorine Extraction Process and Depleted Uranium Deconversion Plant, was issued to Fluorine Products in October 2012.
The plant was to convert DUF6 into fluoride products for commercial resale (the deconversion process) and into uranium oxides for disposal. The facility was expected to process as much as 11 million pounds of DUF6 per year. However, no construction activities were carried out after the license approval.
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Urenco Announces Plans To Double New Uranium Enrichment Capacity At Netherlands Site
The company aims to build reliable supply as West seeks to reduce reliance on Russia
(NuNet) Multinational uranium enrichment company Urenco has announced plans to double the expansion of uranium enrichment capacity at its site in Almelo, the Netherlands. Under the company’s capacity program, the first stage of expansion at Almelo was announced in December 2023, representing approximately 750,000 separative work units (SWU). The plant is scheduled to come online from 2027.
A new second stage of expansion will involve the construction of an additional centrifuge hall, representing another approximately 750,000 SWU, which is expected to come online from 2030. In total, the two expansions represent approximately 1.5M SWU of extra capacity at Almelo. Globally, Urenco has now committed to 2.5M SWU of new enrichment capacity and the first two centrifuge cascades are already online, in Eunice, NM.
Russia holds about 44% of the world's uranium enrichment capacity and is a major global supplier of enriched uranium. Exports to the US are reported to be decreasing due to a 2024 law banning low-enriched uranium imports from Russia. The EU remains heavily dependent on Russian enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants, a reliance that grew in 2023 as countries stockpiled fuel.
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