Perhaps no reactor design has rattled U.S. nuclear policy as dramatically as Westinghouse’s AP1000.
About a year since starting up its second AP1000 at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle — a nuclear expansion project that ran years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget — Westinghouse and its suppliers flew to Washington on Wednesday with a message for lawmakers: Full steam ahead.
“We wear the scars of what happened at Vogtle,” said Dan Lipman, president of energy systems at Westinghouse, in an interview. “But now, it’s operating — and operating really, really well.”
The AP1000 at Vogtle Unit 3 produced maximum power 98 percent of the time during its first year. That reliability exceeds most nuclear plants.
Backed by a battalion of more than 30 supply chain companies, Westinghouse executives held over 80 meetings with lawmakers and staff to champion what they called a “proven, build-ready” technology. The fly-in coincides with broader talk of an imminent nuclear revival to fuel the proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers and advanced manufacturing facilities looking to join the grid in the coming years.
“What I look for from policy, both Capitol Hill and the administration, is a few things,” Lipman said. “The continuation of the investment tax credits and the production tax credits. There’s a lot of discussion about different ways of managing risk through some sort of overrun insurance that protects consumers so that they’re not paying for a project that doesn’t get finished or that gets finished way over budget. I’m looking at favorable tax treatment for nuclear.”
The investment and production tax credits are major clean energy tax cuts extended by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. But their fate remains uncertain as congressional Republicans debate phasing them out.
If they do, that could spell trouble for Westinghouse and other nuclear developers competing with cheaper natural gas.
“In the U.S., we would need a firm commitment to reducing our carbon emissions, an investment tax credit of at least 30%, and low interest loan to build the next AP1000,” MIT nuclear engineering professor Koroush Shirvan wrote in an email.
“However, unlike Solar/Wind, where the subsidy has been in effect for 20 years, AP1000 will likely not need additional government or state subsidy once we have deployed another 4 to 6 reactors in the regulated electricity markets,” he continued.
The learning curve
Indeed, the fly-in characterized the AP1000 not as a cautionary tale but as a maturing product finally ready for mass deployment.
“It’s not a snapshot. It’s a movie,” Lipman said. “The startup [of Vogtle Unit 4] was done in 40 percent of the time of Unit 3. When you do them one right after the other, you get smarter and smarter.”
He acknowledged Vogtle’s problems, saying initial designs Westinghouse gave different manufacturers weren’t sufficiently detailed, and those suppliers had their own learning curve after decades without a domestic nuclear build.
“Those are two massive, massive problems that have gone away,” Lipman said. “I can tell you to the linear-foot how much cable is in an AP1000. Now, I can tell you to the inch how much small-bore pipe there is in the reactor. I mean, it is a completely done design.”
The debacle at Vogtle may actually attract more customers to Westinghouse, MIT’s Shirvan says.
“Any new nuclear technology, regardless of power output, has shown to experience delays in the U.S. and globally during its first deployment. AP1000 has already realized its first-of-a-kind learning in the form of cost overruns and delays,” he said.
Despite Washington’s long frustration with the Vogtle expansion, that message resonates with many lawmakers now that Vogtle 3 and 4 are online.
“Absolutely, I think they should build another one, because I think they’ll get better at it,” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said last June.
Despite the momentum, skepticism remains over whether large-scale reactors can be deployed widely without a stronger federal backstop. Georgia ratepayers are absorbing nearly $8 billion in project costs, and critics warn that without structural changes, new megareactors could again shift financial risk to consumers.
“There needs to be more than happy talk,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Putting one’s faith in such unrealistic scenarios is not going to help the U.S. achieve its carbon reduction goals.”
‘Large or small, we need them all’
Partly due to the risks of bigger projects, much of Washington’s nuclear buzz has shifted focus to small modular reactors that can be assembled in a factory.
With SMR designs from three startups currently before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Lipman said the company is “following the market” with its forthcoming AP300 — a smaller version of the AP1000 aimed at industrial clients and regions with limited grid demand.
SMRs, Lipman says, will be ideal for co-locating with large loads like data centers to avoid costly new grid transmission lines. Moreover, the AP300 specifically could have a smooth path after Vogtle.
“The reactor vessel, the steam generator, the reactor coolant pumps, the nuclear stuff: they’re identical [to the AP1000 in Vogtle],” Lipman said. That means most of the supply chain is ready, and regulators should have a quicker time analyzing the AP300’s safety.
But despite the new celebrity of SMRs, “support for nuclear, politically, is quite broad right now and not particularly conditional on specific technology,” said Rowen Price, senior policy adviser for nuclear energy at the think tank Third Way.
The country’s grid operators are forecasting a significant increase in demand over the next five years after decades of negligible and stagnant growth.
“There’s certainly demand for both [large and small reactors], and I think those options should be available,” Price said.
As Lipman concluded: “Large or small, we need them all.”
Clarification: The top of the story was changed to provide greater clarity about the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design.
This story also appears in E&E Daily.
