Ambitious nuclear campus plans show a way forward for the US industry

I once spoke to an energy executive who was aiming to build nuclear power plants in Europe, and had visited China to see how projects were developed there. In one company’s offices, he said, there were “before” and “after” pictures showing site preparation. The “before” picture showed a beautiful mountaintop. The “after” picture showed the same location after a few months’ work by engineers from the People’s Liberation Army, with enough ground levelled off for four large reactors. The executive said he just laughed to think of the reaction if he had tried to propose a similar site-clearing in Europe. 

Now the Nuclear Company of America, a venture capital-backed business that was announced publicly in 2024, has launched a plan to build that type of large-scale reactor site in the US. 

The company last week announced its Prosperity One project: a proposed campus in eastern Kentucky that would hold up to six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, with a total capacity of about 6.6 gigawatts. The site would be developed in stages, with two reactors in the first phase. 

The project aims to begin construction in 2028. No date has been given for the start of commercial operations. 

Also last week, there were two other announcements of proposed nuclear investments in the neighbouring state of Indiana. AtkinsRéalis, the engineering group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the state government and the Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, to explore the potential development of a campus for up to eight Canadian Candu reactors with a total capacity of 6GW.  

And X-energy, the advanced reactor company, said it was working with Amazon and American Electric Power to develop a 960 megawatt project in Indiana. The site would hold 12 of X-energy’s new Xe-100 small modular reactors (SMRs). 

Amazon said the project would help it meet the needs of its customers for data centre capacity while making progress towards its goal of having net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040. It also pledged to pay the full cost of the project, and not pass them on to other ratepayers. 

The announcements align closely with the Trump administration’s goal of encouraging new nuclear development to meet rising demand for power. President Donald Trump said last year that his goal was to have ten new large reactors under construction in the US by 2030. 

The administration has taken a series of steps to support that goal. A year ago, it launched an US$80 billion partnership to build new AP1000s in the US, with backing from Westinghouse, Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, the nuclear fuel group. In June of this year, it made a commitment to provide loans to finance the purchase of US$17.5 billion worth of components for up to ten new large-scale reactors, to help build up the nuclear supply chain. The administration estimated that those loans could accelerate the development of new nuclear plants by up to three years. 

Investment in nuclear power has been held back by concerns over high costs and execution risk. The last new reactors to be built in the US, Units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle plant in Georgia, were completed seven years behind schedule, with cost overruns of well over 100%. 

Building multiple units at one site is seen as a way to reduce costs and minimize overruns, because the lessons learned and capabilities developed on each reactor can be transferred to the next. The cost of the Vogtle 4 reactor has been estimated to be about 30% less than the cost of Vogtle 3. 

Prosperity One still has a lot to do before construction can begin. The project’s website shows a long list of issues that have yet to be resolved, including ownership and investment, buyers for the power, and a grid connection. 

It has not yet applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the licences it needs, entered the interconnection queue for its local grid operator PJM, or secured financing support from the federal government. 

But if the US is to achieve a material increase in its nuclear generation capacity, it will have to get some of these large-scale projects to succeed. 

The Wood Mackenzie view 

Nuclear power in the US is a more expensive source of electricity than gas, solar and wind, which will dominate capacity additions for the next ten years at least. The time taken to develop projects means that new reactors cannot play a significant role in meeting the expected surge in US electricity demand between now and the mid-2030s. 

But for customers that want 24/7 baseload power with zero carbon emissions, there are few viable alternatives to nuclear, and even fewer with a proven track record. That means the US is likely to add new nuclear capacity, including both large-scale reactors such as the AP1000 and SMRs. 

The strategy of building multiple units at a single site makes sense, maximising opportunities for “learning by doing” and reducing the risks of cost and schedule overruns that are always higher with first-of-a-kind projects.

However, Zoé Sulmont, a Wood Mackenzie research analyst, says there are critical questions hanging over Prosperity One and other ambitious nuclear projects, relating to the ability of the nuclear workforce and supply chain to keep up. 

The US is in the middle of an extraordinary energy construction boom. Over the next ten years, it is expected to add about 160 million tons per year (mmtpa) of LNG export capacity, 50% more than was added over the past ten years. Investment in gas-fired power generation is showing a similar acceleration. On Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts, the US will add 127GW of gas-fired generation capacity between 2026 and 2036, compared to about 70GW added from 2016 to 2026. 

Then on top of that there is the wave of data center construction that is driving the investment in power generation, and Elon Musk’s plan to build a new US$100 billion Starbase launch site for SpaceX in Louisiana. Hiring for skilled trades including welders and electricians is already difficult, and getting worse. 

For nuclear engineering skills, in particular, rapid expansion would create enormous strain on labour supply. A US Department of Energy survey this year found that 62% of manufacturers in the nuclear industry were already reporting difficulties in hiring the staff they needed. 

Estimates from the National Center for Energy Analytics found that even in their middle case for an upturn in nuclear activity, employment in the industry would have to jump from about 58,000 today to about 79,000 in 2030.  

The federal government, as well as states and companies across the country, has committed resources to training the nuclear workforce of the future. But it is not clear that these programmes can supply the tens of thousands of workers that will be needed to meet President Trump’s goal of having ten large reactors under construction by 2030. 

Wood Mackenzie thinks that capacity in the workforce and supply chain will be critical factors limiting the growth of the US nuclear industry over the coming decade. But over time, those constraints will ease and the industry’s growth could speed up. We forecast that US nuclear generation capacity on the grid will rise from about 101GW today to 111GW in 2040, and 132GW in 2050. Behind-the-meter plants, particularly for data centres, could also be significant, with an additional 11GW of nuclear generation capacity in 2040 and 19GW in 2050. 

If the US government, under the current administration or another pro-nuclear administration in the future, wants to accelerate the pace of that growth, building capacity in the workforce and supply chain should be an urgent priority. 

In brief 

EQT has agreed to buy Range Resources in a US$13 billion deal that would create the largest gas producer in the US. The combined company will have an enterprise value of about $50 billion, and more than 9 billion cubic feet per day of net production. EQT said the deal positioned it to serve growing demand in the Appalachian region, which includes or is close to some of the most active locations for proposed data centre investment in the US.  

Range is headquartered in Texas, but operates primarily in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania. EQT has its headquarters in a suburb of Pittsburgh, and operates in the Marcellus and Utica shales in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. 

EQT said the combined company would be able to generate positive free cash flow at a gas price below US$2 per million British thermal units (mmBTU). At current futures market prices for gas, it expects to create about US$20 billion in free cash flow over the next five years. 

Officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have visited Iran, in an attempt to prevent further escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. US forces have been preparing to step up attacks on Iran, and President Trump said over the weekend he was still considering an escalation in the conflict. The president said on Fox News on Sunday: “My question is, do I make a deal with them, or do I finish them off?" 

Oil prices last week reached their highest levels since May. On Monday morning Brent crude futures were trading at about US$115 per barrel. 

Other views 

What’s on upstream leaders’ minds? – Simon Flowers 

Geopolitical supply shocks and AI power crunch collide across global base metals 

Asia’s search for long-term, lower-carbon LNG supply puts Canada in focus but competition is intensifying

We served opposing presidents, but we agree on how to fix the data-center mess – Neil Chatterjee and Michael S. Regan 

Quote of the week 

“Our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars because of what’s happened in the Middle East. Because they’re coming to Texas, and they’re coming to Oklahoma, and they’re coming to Louisiana, and they’re taking that oil… My people said ‘please don’t mention that, sir, because people are paying a little higher.’ That number is going to come way down. But what we’ve done for this country, we’re making money like this country has never made before.” 

President Trump said at a rally in Michigan he had debated with his advisers whether to mention the benefits to the US oil industry of elevated prices resulting from the conflict in the Middle East. 

Chart of the week 

This is from a slide I have been using in recent client briefings, showing the Wood Mackenzie view of the market shares for battery electric vehicles for passenger cars in selected countries, and trucks in China. For more details on Wood Mackenzie’s view of the outlook for EVs, take a look at this The Edge column from Simon Flowers, Gavin Thompson and Milan Thakore.

Get The Inside Track

Ed Crooks’ Energy Pulse is featured in our weekly newsletter, alongside more news and views from our global energy and natural resources experts. Sign up today via the form at the top of the page to ensure you don’t miss a thing.