Cooling towers and reactors 3 and 4 are seen at the nuclear-powered Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, U.S. Aug. 13, 2024.
Megan Varner | Reuters
Expanding two power plants in Georgia and South Carolina with big, new reactors was supposed to spark a “nuclear renaissance” in the U.S. after a generation-long absence of new construction.
Instead, Westinghouse Electric Co.’s state-of-the-art AP1000 design resulted in long delays and steep cost overruns, culminating in its bankruptcy in 2017. The fall of Westinghouse was a major blow for an industry that the company had helped usher in at the dawn of the nuclear age. It was Westinghouse that designed the first reactor to enter commercial service in the U.S., at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in 1957.
Two new AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia, started operating in 2023 and 2024, turning the plant into the largest energy generation site of any kind in the nation and marking the first new operational nuclear reactor design in 30 years. But the reactors came online seven years behind schedule and $18 billion over budget.
In the wake of Westinghouse’s bankruptcy, utilities in South Carolina stopped construction in 2017 on two reactors at the V.C. Summer plant near Columbia after sinking $9 billion into the project.
But today, interest in new nuclear power is reviving as the tech sector seeks reliable, carbon-free electricity to power its artificial intelligence ambitions, especially against China. Westinghouse emerged from bankruptcy in 2018 and was acquired by Canadian uranium miner Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management in November 2023.
The changed environment means South Carolina sees an opportunity to finish the two reactors left partially built at V.C. Summer eight years ago. The state’s Santee Cooper public utility in January began seeking a buyer for the site to finish reactor construction, citing data center demand as one of the reasons to move ahead.
“We are extraordinarily bullish on the case for V.C. Summer,” Dan Lipman, president of energy systems at Westinghouse, told CNBC in an interview. “We think completing that asset is vital, doable, economic, and we will do everything we can to assist Santee Cooper and the state of South Carolina with implementing a decision that results in the completion of the site.”
Tech as a nuclear catalyst
The United States has tried to revive nuclear power for a quarter century, but the two reactors in Georgia mark the only entirely new construction across that period despite bipartisan support under every president from George W. Bush to Donald Trump.
A fresh start was supposed to have begun more than a decade ago, but was choked off by a wave of closures of older reactors as nuclear struggled to compete against a boom of cheap natural gas created by the shale revolution.
“We went from an environment in the aughts of rising gas imports and rising gas prices to fracking technology unlocking quite a bit of affordable…
Read More: Westinghouse sees path to building big nuclear reactors more cheaply