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Nuclear power start-up pulls out of Britain as Miliband drags feet

Telegraph

30-07-2025

Business
Telegraph

Nuclear power start-up pulls out of Britain as Miliband drags feet

A nuclear start-up is quitting the UK in frustration after ministers, including Ed Miliband, failed to support the project. Newcleo, an Anglo-Italian company, said it was suspending a £4bn proposal to build a fleet of mini nuclear reactors in Britain and planned to scale back its domestic presence dramatically. The company currently employs about 150 people and all those roles are now at risk. Bosses told The Telegraph they were frustrated with a lack of concrete action from ministers, including Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary. They said the company struggled to get support for their proposals to build reactors 'in principle', which had made it impossible to take investment decisions with confidence. In recent months, Newcleo has been close to announcing plans to build up to four of its lead-cooled fast reactors at a site in the East Midlands. The reactors would have been fuelled by reprocessed nuclear waste imported from France and produced enough power for 1.6m homes. Overall, the project would have created 400 jobs over 60 years and generated £4bn of investment. But Andrew Murdoch, Newcleo's UK boss, said that when the company asked the Government to provide assurances it would support the plans, it was left disappointed. He said: 'We've been almost ready to go on a UK site for a little while. That's the point at which you start spending real money on a real project. 'And yet we haven't had the sort of enthusiasm we'd hoped for. 'Once you start, you've got this kind of four to five-year period where you continue shelling out. So we were looking for really strong support at the point we announced it, but that didn't really seem to be there.' He complained that while the Government had recently pushed forward with £2.5bn in funding for small modular reactors (SMR) developed by the likes of Rolls-Royce, work to create 'alternative routes to market' for privately-funded, advanced modular reactors (AMRs) had dragged on for years with little progress to show for it. Mr Miliband recently told private nuclear developers his 'door is open' to such proposals, while ministers again promised to 'explore' and assess potential AMR proposals in June's spending review. Newcleo had previously said it was keen to build a fleet of up to 20 such reactors in Britain. But Mr Murdoch said there were no clear timings for the Government's process and 'no guarantee it would materialise in a timescale that really helps us in the near term, particularly in terms of making the UK a priority compared to other countries. 'It just doesn't give any confidence that anything's going to be in place in the short term,' he said. In contrast, he said France had been an enthusiastic supporter of Newcleo but the UK had refused to throw its weight behind investment. Having failed to secure the Government's backing, Newcleo now plans to build the facility in France. It is also holding separate talks with the governments of Slovakia and Lithuania about building reactors in those countries. Stefano Buono, Newcleo's founder and chief executive, said: 'Newcleo is taking this decision with a heavy heart and I am profoundly disappointed both for our UK team and for what this might mean for the development of new nuclear power in the UK. 'Sadly, despite many attempts to engage with political stakeholders, the UK government has decided to not make its plutonium available for the foreseeable future and to lend its political support and considerable funding to other technologies.

Westinghouse Lays Groundwork to Build 10 New Nuclear Reactors

Yahoo

18-07-2025

Business
Yahoo

Westinghouse Lays Groundwork to Build 10 New Nuclear Reactors

The US energy industry's long nuclear winter may finally be giving way to spring. None other than Westinghouse, the firm responsible for the only two nuclear reactors built in the US in the past three decades, is among those leading the charge. The company has announced plans to begin construction on 10 reactors in the US by 2030. Hopefully, Westinghouse has learned some lessons from its previous projects. READ ALSO: Ethereum Treasuries Boom as Companies Look Beyond Bitcoin and Goldman's 'Midas Touch' During Turbulent Quarter Delivers Record Trading Results Wishin' We Were Fission Westinghouse has changed hands a bit since completing its last nuclear reactors, both at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Georgia. That's because the Georgia project proved something of a disaster. Not 'Three Mile Island' disastrous, mind you, but some seven years and $18 billion over budget. That proved enough to tip the company into bankruptcy in 2017. It re-emerged the following year and was acquired in 2023 by Brookfield Asset Management and Canadian uranium mining company Cameco. This time around, the company is following the lead of the White House, which hopes that a series of executive orders issued earlier this year will kickstart a nuclear rebound. The extra gigawatts would come in handy as extreme weather stresses the US energy grid; on Wednesday, heat advisories issued across the eastern US prompted an emergency alert from major grid operator IJM Interconnection. Worsening the country's energy woes are the massive and power-hungry data centers — especially those powering artificial intelligence — that are increasingly coming online. Fittingly, one of the tech titans building those data centers is helping Westinghouse turn its nuclear dreams into reality, possibly on time and on budget: On Tuesday, Westinghouse announced that it would team with Google, using the tech company's AI tools to turn the construction of its AP1000 reactors into an 'efficient, repeatable process.' Each of those 10 reactors can generate enough electricity to power more than 750,000 homes, creating as much as $75 billion in economic value across the country, interim Westinghouse CEO Dan Sumner said on Tuesday. Alphabet Soup: Helping out Westinghouse is just one part of Google's plans to support the energy demands of its growing AI ambitions. On Tuesday, the company also announced that it would invest $25 billion in data-center and AI infrastructure, including plans to upgrade two hydropower plants in Pennsylvania. Microsoft, too, is getting in on the action, announcing Wednesday a partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory to use its AI tools to speed up licensing and permitting of nuclear projects. The challenge will be not using too much AI while trying to make sure the grid gets upgraded so they can use more AI. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter.

Bloomberg

15-07-2025

Business
Bloomberg

Future of America's Nuclear Renaissance

Jacob DeWitte, CEO of Oklo, says regulatory tailwinds are allowing the company to make progress on innovative nuclear reactors plants. (Source: Bloomberg)

Texas project to build four nuclear plants is in talks with 'hyperscalers'

Reuters

08-07-2025

Business
Reuters

Texas project to build four nuclear plants is in talks with 'hyperscalers'

WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) - Fermi, a Texas company looking to build four nuclear plants next to a U.S. nuclear weapons complex, said in documents revealed on Tuesday that it is talking with large data managers on leasing agreements for the project. Fermi, co-founded by Rick Perry, a former U.S. energy secretary, wants to build four AP1000 reactors at a facility it is calling a "hypergrid." The up to 11 gigawatt (GW) facility in Amarillo powered by nuclear, natural gas, and renewable energy, is planned near the Department of Energy's Pantex nuclear weapons plant and in partnership with Texas Tech University. Fermi said in its application at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which the regulator made public on Tuesday, that it is engaging in talks with many Big Tech companies, known as "hyperscalers," on letters of intent and term sheets, or preliminary documents that are usually non-binding. The application said that the hyperscalers would be tenants, apparently meaning they would not own part of the plants. Fermi did not immediately answer questions about financial arrangements being discussed with Big Tech companies or which or how many hyperscalers it is in talks with. The last two reactors built in the U.S. were AP1000, completed in Vogtle, Georgia. They cost a total of more than $30 billion, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Those plants were delayed by years and came in billions of dollars above projected costs. But nuclear backers say lessons learned should cut construction time and final costs of the next AP1000 reactors. Fermi said in the application that the nuclear complex, which it calls the Donald J. Trump Generating Plant, will be eligible for financing from the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office. The only time the president tapped the LPO in his first term was for the Vogtle plants. The company said other plans to finance construction and operation include equity capital contributions from institutional infrastructure and real estate investors, structured bond offerings, and clean energy tax credits.