Key insights
- The US Energy Department is likely to provide loans for the first 5-10 new nuclear reactors, potentially boosting the energy sector. While this signals government support for nuclear infrastructure, past projects like Vogtle faced significant delays and cost overruns, suggesting cautious optimism for the sector's near-term impact on US equities.
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - The first five or 10 new planned U.S. nuclear reactors will "almost certainly" receive loans from the U.S. Energy Department’s lending office, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told lawmakers in a hearing on Thursday.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last year calling for 10 new large nuclear reactors to be under construction by 2030 and for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed reactor approvals.
There are currently no approved plans to build new large reactors.
But the U.S. government struck a partnership in October with the Canadian owners of Westinghouse Electric, Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management, that aims to build at least $80 billion in reactors.
That plan was announced after Trump said during a trip to Asia that Japan will provide up to $332 billion to support infrastructure in the U.S., including construction of Westinghouse AP1000 reactors and small modular reactors.
The last U.S. reactors that came online in 2023 and 2024, built at Georgia’s Vogtle site, were delayed by about seven years and cost about $17 billion more than budgeted, despite securing billions in loans from the energy department’s loan office during Trump’s first administration.
The energy department’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing has nearly $290 billion to loan and Wright said last year that "by far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear power plants."