Westinghouse is claiming a nuclear deal would see $80B of new reactors:
On Tuesday, Westinghouse announced that it had reached an agreement with the Trump administration that would purportedly see $80 billion of new nuclear reactors built in the US. And the government indicated that it had finalized plans for a collaboration of GE Vernova and Hitachi to build additional reactors. Unfortunately, there are roughly zero details about the deal at the moment.
The agreements were apparently negotiated during President Trump's trip to Japan. An announcement of those agreements indicates that "Japan and various Japanese companies" would invest "up to" $332 billion for energy infrastructure. This specifically mentioned Westinghouse, GE Vernova, and Hitachi. This promises the construction of both large AP1000 reactors and small modular nuclear reactors. The announcement then goes on to indicate that many other companies would also get a slice of that "up to $332 billion," many for basic grid infrastructure.
So the total amount devoted to nuclear reactors is not specified in the announcement or anywhere else. As of the publication time, the Department of Energy has no information on the deal; Hitachi, GE Vernova, and the Hitachi/GE Vernova collaboration websites are also silent on it.
Meanwhile, Westinghouse claims that it will be involved in the construction of "at least $80 billion of new reactors," a mix of AP1000 and AP300 (each named for the MW of capacity of the reactor/generator combination). The company claims that doing so will "reinvigorate the nuclear power industrial base."
That's going to take some work. As of now, there are zero nuclear reactors under construction, and the last two that were completed were enough to bankrupt Westinghouse. (It's now co-owned by Cameco, a nuclear fuel supplier, and Brookfield Asset Management.) The Financial Times reports that one of Westinghouse's owners thinks that the $80 billion should be enough for eight reactors, but would only finance five if they cost as much as the AP1000s previously built in the US. The FT also reports that the US government would share in any profits and a stake in the company if the deal goes forward.
One of the big challenges these deals will face, however, is achieving profitability. According to the Department of Energy's latest evaluation, nuclear power is the second-most expensive source of electricity in the US, behind offshore wind, and the cost of offshore wind has fallen in recent years. Finances aren't the only risk to this deal. None of the designs for small modular reactors developed by any of these companies has currently been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday October 30, @02:42PM (2 children)
There's a thing that Donald Trump keeps demanding. And getting.
And that's vague promises of future "investment" by private interests within foreign nations in exchange for tariff reductions with no meaningful way for the governments in question to enforce it.
My feeling has been that 90% of this will come in the form of accounting trickery and counting all existing operations as "investment".
We'll see.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Thursday October 30, @05:01PM (1 child)
I think the problem is in congress, where they keep spending more money every year, and constantly raise the debt ceiling because they assume the population will always grow exponentially, and the future tax payers can afford it. If they were to reduce spending Trump wouldn't need the money from tariffs or shares in companies to try and counter the insane amount of debt they create.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 31, @02:50PM
My take is that those tariffs cost more in taxes than they gain. much-trump-tariffs-are-costing-small-businesses.html">blowing up because of those tariffs. A key thing is that most of these businesses heavily depend on foreign supply chains because those foreign suppliers will do small lots. Even if they grow enough to US-sized lots, their supply chain is still out there. While this may be in part due to the greater desperation of those foreign suppliers and vendors, remember also that it's a matter of stirring future business - small lots today can mean big lots tomorrow.
So bottom line is that tariffs force small businesses away from one of their key ways to compete with large businesses - by forcing them to use, if they can and it becomes available, inferior US production. And that will cost tax revenue in the long run.
As to shares in companies? That's nuts. I think it'll result in the generation of a bunch of corruption and long term liability. We have plenty of examples of public-private corporations that suck: for example, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and ArianeGroup which both have failed in notable ways in the recent past (creating the real estate crisis and failing to adapt to SpaceX, for example). Sorry, the US won't see tax revenue generated from this.