The DOE has held talks with leaders from GE Hitachi and the South Korean government to explore alternatives to the AP1000, according to analysis by Alexander C Kaufman in Canary Media. While the Trump administration is pushing to revive the US nuclear industry, slow-moving talks with Westinghouse have prompted officials to explore alternatives to the AP1000.
In May 2025, Executive Order 14302, Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base, sought to “expedite and promote to the fullest possible extent the production and operation of nuclear energy” to ensure energy independence, national security, and global industrial dominance. The order mandated several key actions including directing the Department of Energy (DOE) to initiate construction of 10 new large reactors by 2030.
In October 2025 the US government signed a strategic partnership with the owners of Westinghouse Electric Company – Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco Corporation – to deploy at least $80bn in new nuclear reactors across the US utilising the AP1000 and the AP300 small modular reactor (SMR). The US government will facilitate financing, permitting, and regulatory approvals. Key projects under this framework include:
- Project Matador (Texas): A 17GWe “Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus” near Amarillo targeting four AP1000 reactors.
- VC Summer (South Carolina): A partnership to explore restarting two unfinished AP1000 units, cancelled in 2017 after Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to billions in losses from cost overruns at VC Summer and Plant Vogtle in Georgia.
- A memorandum of understanding establishing a formal framework to explore deploying an AP1000 reactor in the Peace River area of Northern Alberta, Canada.
The US government’s partnership with Westinghouse establishes a profit-sharing mechanism, granting the Treasury 20% of cash distributions once private owners recover $17.5bn. Furthermore, the deal allows the government to convert its interest into a 20% equity stake should an Initial Public Offering (IPO) occur before January 2029 at a valuation of $30bn or more. The government’s ability to “require” an IPO by 2029 is intended to ensure Westinghouse and its owners move quickly to meet construction milestones. If the company is not performing or growing fast enough to reach $30bn valuation, the government’s lever for a public listing remains a point of pressure.
According to Canary Media, the Trump administration is now considering at least two rivals to the AP1000. “The DOE has held talks in recent weeks with executives from GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) and South Korean diplomats representing the state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp (Kepco) to discuss potential financing if either company decides to compete with Westinghouse to build new large reactors, according to nine industry and administration sources who talked to Canary Media on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to speak publicly.” Both companies have gigawatt-scale reactors certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
The DOE declined to comment on the talks but said in a statement that the Office of Energy Dominance Financing (formerly the Loan Programs Office) “plays a pivotal role in deploying high impact capital, which meets the goals for more large-scale nuclear deployment”.
Canary Media said: “The talks developed as the Trump administration struggles to reach a deal with Westinghouse’s majority owner, the private equity giant Brookfield Asset Management, the sources said. To the DOE, Westinghouse and Brookfield are moving too slowly. To the utilities that the developers would likely work with, the federal government’s generous financing options for new reactors still don’t include the one thing they want most: cost-overrun insurance. ‘Westinghouse is not easy to negotiate with,’ one industry source said. ‘But the bigger problem is the cost overruns’.”
As to the AP1000’s competition, GVH expressed little interest in bringing back its advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR), three of the sources said, and the company did not respond to Canary Media’s email. The company built four 1,300 MWe ABWRs in Japan between 1996 and 2006 with two under construction at Taiwan’s cancelled Lungmen NPP. The company’s partner in the early 2000s, Japan’s Toshiba, had planned a first US ABWR in Texas before abandoning the proposal in 2018. The intellectual property for the ABWR is shared between GE, Hitachi, and Toshiba. However, GVH is currently more focused on its small modular reactor (SMR) projects under construction in Tennessee and Canada (Darlington).
South Korea, on the other hand, has long wanted to work with the US on nuclear power, despite opposition from Westinghouse. NRC certified Kepco’s APR-1400 for use in the US in 2019. Westinghouse was part of the Kepco consortium that won the tender to construct the UAE’s Barakah NPP in 2009. The project for four APR-1400s, completed in 2024 was considered a success because its average delivery time per unit and cost per kilowatt were far lower than the Westinghouse Vogtle project in the US.
While Kepco was the prime contractor, Westinghouse was essential to the bid. The APR-1400 reactor is an evolutionary design based on the System 80+ design Westinghouse acquired when it bought Combustion Engineering. Because Westinghouse held the original intellectual property (IP) for several core components, Kepco needed them as a partner to legally export the technology to the UAE.
The relationship became contentious when Westinghouse sued Kepco in 2022 to prevent export of the APR-1400 to other countries without Westinghouse’s permission.
A settlement reached in January 2025 cleared the way for South Korea to export its reactors more freely while ensuring Westinghouse remains a preferred partner for specialised equipment and services in future international projects. However, apart from Kepco’s already signed contract for the NPP expansion project in the Czech Republic, it reportedly prohibited Kepco from bidding on any other projects in the US and Europe.
In August 2025, Korean media reported that Kepco was considering creating a joint venture to work on projects with Westinghouse. Three industry sources familiar with the settlement confirmed to Canary Media that the agreement bars Kepco from developing an APR-1400 in the US. It is unclear whether the Trump administration is prepared to press Westinghouse to reopen discussions. Under the settlement, Kepco can partner with Westinghouse to build AP1000s in the US as in Project Matador. However, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks told Canary Media that high-ranking DOE officials had met with top Korean diplomats to discuss building an APR-1400 in the US.
Nick Touran, a veteran nuclear engineer who spent 15 years at TerraPower, who now works as an independent industry consultant and runs the website What Is Nuclear said working with South Korea is “the best way to get big reactors done for cheap”. He told Canary Media: “They can deliver megaprojects, as they just demonstrated in the UAE. For years I have said that if we could do anything in the US, we should just hire the Koreans to build a few APR-1400s and train the American construction managers and craft labour in their process.”
He added: “We taught the Koreans how to do nuclear when we sold them Combustion Engineering technology. Korea maintained the knowledge, made it better, perfected it. Now, we want it back. So let’s pull ourselves out of the dark ages by bringing that Korean construction management, design expertise, and supply chain back. Let’s forget about geopolitics – forget about Westinghouse’s cartel – and get the Koreans to come help America.”
Meanwhile, Westinghouse has released a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) detailing the significant economic impact of deploying a fleet of 10 AP1000 reactors in the US. The study found that the construction phase of a 10-unit AP1000 fleet can generate more than $92.8bn of gross domestic product (GDP) for the US and support 44,300 high-paying jobs annually for 13 years. Once operational, the 10-unit fleet would create an additional $1,030bn of GDP over its 80-year lifetime while supporting 22,500 jobs annually.
According to Westinghouse: “There are six AP1000 reactors currently setting operational performance and availability records worldwide with 14 additional reactors under construction and five more under contract.” However, the six operational AP1000s were all delayed and significantly overbudget. Units 3&4 at the Vogtle NPP in Georgia, originally expected online in 2016/2017, were delayed by 7–8 years. Budgeted at $14bn, final costs soared to over $35bn.
The other four units are in China – two each at the Sanmen and Haiyang NPPs. These units were also approximately five years behind schedule and around $1.5bn over budget. Critical delays were caused by defects in the reactor coolant pumps (RCPs) manufactured by Curtiss-Wright in the US, which failed Chinese tests and had to be redesigned and shipped back.
Completion of the Chinese units required a massive technology transfer and localisation effort. China’s state-owned SNPTC (State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation) signed deals in 2007 to receive a complete transfer of AP1000 technology, including main pumps and steam generators.
China used the AP1000 as a blueprint to develop its own larger version, the CAP1400 (Guohe One), and the CAP1000, which it is now building in a second series with a 48% reduction in construction duration. These are the 14 other units Westinghouse says are under construction.
