Last Energy's South Wales nuclear project gets US export bank boost
Microreactor developer Last Energy says it has received a letter of intent from the Export-Import Bank of the United States for USD103.7 million debt financing relating to its project in South Wales in the UK.
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The company says that the letter, from the bank's structured and project finance division, confirms its "willingness to diligence" the financing and follows an in-depth review of Last Energy's "technology, business model, manufacturing plan and access to nuclear fuel. Upon final commitment, the Bank’s facility would cover Last Energy’s entire costs for a single power plant installation".
US-based Last Energy is a spin-off of the Energy Impact Center, a research institute devoted to accelerating the clean energy transition through innovation. Its reactor technology is based on a pressurised water reactor with a capacity of 20 MWe or 80 MWt. Power plant modules would be built off-site and assembled in modules.
A Last Energy plant, referred to as the PWR-20, is comprised of a few dozen modules that, it says, "snap together like a Lego kit". The PWR-20 is designed to be fabricated, transported, and assembled within 24 months, and is sized to serve private industrial customers, including data centres. Under its development model, Last Energy owns and operates its plug-and-play power plant on the customer's site, bypassing the decade-long development timelines of electric transmission grid upgrade requirements.
The company has been advancing plans to develop four PWR-20 units on the vacant site of the Llynfi coal-fired power station. It said the new plant would "provide energy security to local manufacturers, create jobs, and unleash a long-term economic investment in the region". The Llynfi power station - a 120 MW coal plant - operated between 1951 and 1977. Following decommissioning in 1977, the 14-acre site has remained vacant.
Bret Kugelmass, Founder and CEO of Last Energy, said: "Receiving this Letter of Interest from EXIM is the latest in a series of recent milestones that further validates Last Energy’s unique approach to accelerating nuclear deployment by focusing on design for manufacturability. They put us through the wringer - interrogating our physics, technology, supply chain, business model, partnerships, and timelines to delivery - and, after 18 months of rigorous review, have determined that we’re ready for the next step."
Last Energy said it has been actively engaging with the UK's Office for Nuclear Regulation, Natural Resources Wales, Planning and Environment Decisions Wales, the Environmental Agency, and with local and national Welsh and UK officials, and will continue to do so throughout the project. The company said in October it was targeting 2027 to commission the first plant, "following a successful planning and licensing process".
Last Energy estimates the entire project represents a capital investment of GBP300 million (USD393 million), which will not require public funding. Contracts with local suppliers would amount to more than GBP30 million, while more than 100 full-time local jobs would also be created.
Last Energy announced agreements for 34 units in 2023 and began 2024 with agreements for 50 units. Of the agreements, 39 of the 80 units are slated to be built to serve data centre developers. The company says its goal is to build 10,000 units in the next 15 years.
The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) is the country's official export credit agency "with the mission of supporting American jobs by facilitating US exports. To advance American competitiveness and assist US businesses as they compete for global sales, EXIM offers financing including export credit insurance, working capital guarantees, loan guarantees, and direct loans".
US regulator authorises Urenco plant to increase enrichment
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved Urenco USA's licence amendment request to increase uranium enrichment levels up to 10% at its facility in New Mexico.
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The Urenco USA centrifuge enrichment plant is the only operating commercial uranium enrichment facility in North America - and increasing its enrichment limit to 10% uranium-235 is a significant step forward for the US civil nuclear industry, the company said.
According to an entry in the US Federal Register, the NRC staff is issuing an environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact - also known as a FONSI - for the application to amend the plant's licence to increase allowed enrichment from the current limit of 5.5 weight percent U-235 (low-enriched uranium or LEU) to less than 10 weight percent U-235 (known as LEU+). The next step will be an NRC review of Urenco USA's implementation of requirements in the amendment, which is anticipated in late Spring 2025. Urenco USA (UUSA) will be authorised to produce enrichment levels up to 10% U-235 in all cascades at the facility.
“This positive progress is important to support the nuclear industry to create fuels that will reduce outage cycles for current reactors, provide fuels for some advanced reactor types, and assist our current and future customers”, said UUSA Managing Director John Kirkpatrick.
UUSA's current capacity of 4.4 million separative work units (SWU) supplies one-third of the USA's domestic enrichment demand, and is licensed to produce up to 10 million SWU, Kirkpatrick said. "Our strong infrastructure, deep expertise, and market longevity put us in a unique position to continue supporting the existing US nuclear fleet," he added.”
France supports financing of Polish nuclear power plant
France's Bpifrance Assurance Export and Sfil have joined the growing list of overseas financial institutions expressing interest in helping to finance Poland's first nuclear power plant project. Meanwhile, a poll shows record public support for nuclear energy in Poland.
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Export credit agency Bpifrance Assurance Export and public development bank Sfil have submitted letters of intent to Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) regarding financing of the Pomeranian power plant for the equivalent of more than PLN15 billion (USD3.75 billion).
"The letters of intent from two French institutions are yet more proof of the growing interest in Polish nuclear investment," said PEJ Vice-President Piotr Piela. "We are pleased to have acquired such experienced and reliable partners. We are consistently implementing our strategy of obtaining financing for the project and are expanding the group of leading entities cooperating with us, financing the nuclear sector."
The announcement came just days after PEJ received a letter of intent from Export Development Canada, for up to CAD2.02 billion (USD1.45 billion) to potentially support the project.
Last month, the US International Development Finance Corporation - the USA's development bank - signed a letter of interest with PEJ to provide more than USD980 million in financing for Poland's first nuclear power plant. A similar declaration, for the equivalent of about PLN70 billion, was made earlier by the US Export-Import Bank.
"Close cooperation with foreign credit entities is an important element of PEJ's strategy, which ensures financing of the company's investments and assumes building relationships with suppliers from countries with an extensive supply chain in the nuclear industry," PEJ said. "The aim is to maximise the share of export credit agencies in the project's debt financing structure."
Based on the letters of intent received so far, PEJ has collected declarations of financial commitment totalling more than PLN95 billion.
In November 2022, the then Polish government selected Westinghouse AP1000 reactor technology for construction at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site in the Choczewo municipality in Pomerania in northern Poland. An agreement setting a plan for the delivery of the plant was signed in May last year by Westinghouse, Bechtel and PEJ - a special-purpose vehicle 100% owned by Poland's State Treasury. The Ministry of Climate and Environment in July issued a decision-in-principle for PEJ to construct the plant. The aim is for Poland's first AP1000 reactor to enter commercial operation in 2033.
Under an engineering services agreement signed in September last year, in cooperation with PEJ, Westinghouse and Bechtel will finalise a site-specific design for a plant featuring three AP1000 reactors. The design/engineering documentation includes the main components of the power plant: the nuclear island, the turbine island and the associated installations and auxiliary equipment, as well as administrative buildings and infrastructure related to the safety of the facility. The contract also involves supporting the investment process and bringing it in line with current legal regulations in cooperation with the National Atomic Energy Agency and the Office of Technical Inspection.
In September, the Polish government announced its intention to allocate PLN60 billion to fund the country's first nuclear power plant.
High public support for nuclear
A survey conducted last month on behalf of the Ministry of Industry shows that 92.5% of respondents support the construction of a nuclear power plant in Poland, with 67.9% strongly in support. Just 5.9% of respondents oppose the construction of a plant, with 2.8% being strongly opposed.
The ministry noted that the survey results show support for nuclear at its highest level since the annual poll began in 2012.
In addition, 79.6% of respondents said they would approve of a plant being built in the area in which they live, while 18.8% are opposed. The number of supporters of building a nuclear power plant in their neighbourhood increased by 3 percentage points compared with a year ago.
Just over 90% of respondents believe that building a nuclear power plant as a low-emission source of energy generation was a good way to combat climate change, while 4.2% believe that constructing a nuclear power plant in Poland will contribute to increasing the country's energy security.
While 65.1% of respondents said they had a good or higher knowledge of nuclear energy, 96.6% said they believe that an information campaign on nuclear energy was needed in Poland. When asked where they got their information about nuclear energy from, 72.3% of respondents said the Internet, 34.7% said television, and 29.1% said conversations with friends.
The nationwide telephone survey commissioned by the Ministry of Industry was carried out by DANAE on 12-28 November on a group of 2060 Polish residents aged 15-75.
U-235 is the main fissile isotope of uranium and occurs at a concentration of about 0.7% in natural uranium. Standard fuel used in today's operating light water reactors uses LEU, with enrichment levels up to about 4.8% U-235. But higher-enriched - or LEU+ - fuel containing up to 10% U-235 can potentially offer improved nuclear fuel cycle economics for currently operating reactors.
Urenco subsidiary Louisiana Energy Services LLC was announced by the US Department of Energy (DOE) earlier this week as one of six companies selected to compete for contracts to supply the department with LEU. In October, it was one of four companies selected by the DOE to provide enrichment services to help establish a US supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium, enriched to between 5% and 20% U-235. Fuels containing this material - known as HALEU - will be required to fuel many of the advanced reactors and small modular reactors that are now being developed.
Russia starts decommissioning plutonium-producing reactor
Decommissioning of the ADE-2 water-cooled uranium-graphite thermal neutron reactor has begun at the Mining and Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk, in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia, Rosatom has announced.
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ADE-2 began operation in December 1963 and was shut down in April 2010. It was a dual-purpose reactor - in addition to producing weapons-grade plutonium it also provided heat and electricity. Since its closure, the reactor has been operated in the final shutdown mode: the nuclear fuel was unloaded and reprocessed, and the facility was brought to a nuclear-safe condition. It will become the third industrial uranium-graphite reactor at the Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC) to be decommissioned.
The decommissioning of the first stage facilities, where the molten salt research reactor (IZhSR) is planned to be built, will last two years.
The IZhSR project plans to use circulating molten salt fuel. It is part of the wider Russian federal project to develop "new materials and technologies for advanced energy systems" and part of the country's goal of closing the fuel cycle.
"While carrying out the tasks of decommissioning two previous uranium-graphite reactors (AD and ADE-1), the company's employees not only gained valuable experience, but also received several patents for inventions," said MCC Director General Dmitry Kolupaev. "Such projects have no analogues in the world. This is something to be proud of, and we cannot stop there.
"In the near future, new areas of the company's activity will be developed on the areas that are freed up during decommissioning, including an environmentally significant project - a research molten salt reactor. This technology, which makes it possible to utilise minor actinides, is being implemented on an industrial scale for the first time."
Daniil Zhirnikov, director of the decommissioning production at YaRO, added: "The peculiarity of the work that has begun is that the decommissioning of ADE-2 also requires the almost complete dismantling of the underground nuclear thermal power plant. This year alone, it is necessary to dismantle and dispose of more than 200 tonnes of thermal insulation and more than 700 tonnes of metal. In addition to dismantling all pipelines, cables, steam generators, and heat exchangers of the 1963 model, it is necessary to dismantle the reinforced concrete boxes and walls, preparing the site for the placement of the IZhSR and related infrastructure."
Once the work is completed, the ADE-2 reactor will become an industry museum. Therefore, during the decommissioning of the second-stage facilities, it is planned to preserve the historical appearance of ADE-2 itself as much as possible.
In the case of ADE-2, Rosatom noted, the scope of work will be significantly greater than with AD and ADE-1, which were single-purpose, performed only defence tasks and were successfully decommissioned in 2023 using the 'in-place burial' option. In-place burial involves the gradual filling of the space and circuits of the reactor itself, some adjacent non-reactor rooms, with barrier material.
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