New developments in the Department of Energy’s $17.5 billion nuclear supply chain loans could be announced in the next few weeks and months, DOE’s Julie Kozeracki said at a Tuesday industry event.
Kozeracki told an audience at the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council’s New Nuclear Capital event in New York City that DOE has been working with utilities, states and other entities on the supply chain. She said the ideology to address supply chain needs could accelerate the project schedules by three years.
Kozeracki currently serves as the acting chief investment officer at DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing.
President Donald Trump’s administration has a goal of having 10 large reactors to be under construction by 2030. In reaching this ambition, Kozeracki said the $17.5 billion loan will be used to procure items for five two packs of Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors. DOE announced the loan in June.
DOE is still in the process of planning and getting other pieces sorted out prior to project construction. This includes signing engineering, procurement and construction contracts or hyperscalers power purchase agreements, Kozeracki said. However, she said DOE is confident the projects will move forward and will get reactor parts ready for when the time comes.
Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors are the only advanced large-scale reactor that is Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed and in operation in the United States. While DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing is supporting these large-scale reactor projects, Kozeracki said it is less inclined to fund first-of-a-kind small modular reactor projects at the moment.
With several AP1000 reactors in operation today, there is data known around the project’s completion and what it will take to operate it, Kozeracki said. Since there are no SMRs in operation in the U.S. right now, it lacks that data to support a loan, she added.
However, she said the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy has grant programs that support research and development and earlier stage commercialization of SMRs.
“So, you know our office is certainly open for business of reactors of all types and sizes,” Kozeracki said. “I think it’s just that we hear a lot of desire for you know something that looks closer to a project financing, and that’s just much easier to get to with a reactor that’s already been constructed.”
