Reference News Network, November 9 report: The French newspaper "Les Échos" website published an article titled "How the United States Regains Global Nuclear Power Leadership" on October 31, written by Cécile Maisonneuve, with the following translation:
Of the reactors exported globally, 70% are built by Russia; China connects three to five new reactors to the grid each year, and the cost is only one fifth of that in Europe and the US. Faced with this situation, can Western nuclear power return to the track?
The United States has responded with a series of countermeasures and has announced consecutively: a $10 billion agreement with Japan to build Westinghouse's AP1000 nuclear reactors in the US; Fermi American Company and Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd. of South Korea have joined forces to build four more AP1000 nuclear reactors in Texas; and the restart of the V.C. Summer project in South Carolina (the nuclear power project was put on hold in 2017 due to budget overruns and the bankruptcy of Toshiba-Westinghouse at that time). These measures outline a coherent strategy centered around four essential conditions to build a competitive nuclear power industry capable of competing with China and Russia: large-scale financial support, a sound industrial supply chain, effective solutions for labor shortages, and ambitious construction plans.
The first move of the United States: public-private partnership in financing. The government definitely does not want to bear the financial burden of nuclear power alone. The V.C. Summer project is a model: the Canadian infrastructure giant Brookfield Asset Management (with assets of $1 trillion) has committed to putting in $2.7 billion in cash to relieve the operator of debt and continue the two units that were stalled in 2017, without taxpayers having to pay extra. The cooperation with Japan also follows this logic: Tokyo will provide up to $10 billion to support the Westinghouse project, the funds will be channeled through Washington, and then integrated and operated by Brookfield Asset Management and the Canadian mining company, the shareholder of Westinghouse. Similarly, Google signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with New Era Energy Company to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, which had been shut down in 2020 due to competition from natural gas.
The second move: building a global supply chain among "like-minded countries." Ironical as it may seem, President Trump, who once advocated "America First" and "energy dominance," now seeks to form alliances on all sides within the OECD framework. Cooperation with Japan, through Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Toshiba, locks in key components and subsystems; signing a contract with Hyundai Engineering Company of South Korea brings the South Korean expertise of building nuclear power plants on schedule and within budget into the US. These are "luxuries" long absent from the West.
The third focus, no less important: standardization. The US has rediscovered a lesson France mastered in the 1970s: to build quickly and cheaply, it must adopt a unified model and mass production. Washington has decided to make the AP1000 the sole design for large reactors, aiming to complete the construction at a cost of $60 per megawatt-hour within six years. The replication machine has already started. This standardization is especially helpful in compensating for the structural disadvantages of the West.
The fourth move: strategic alliance with technology. Currently, nuclear power has encountered a major ally: digital technology. It is not an exaggeration to call it a "strategic alliance with technology." Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle—all of them need nuclear power to supply electricity for data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure. They require massive, 100% available power around the clock. In turn, Western nuclear power must use digital tools (digital twin technology, cloud computing, algorithm optimization, etc.) to compensate for the shortage of working hours. Those who advocate limiting the digital industry should be alert: don't see technology as an opponent of traditional "manufacturing," nor as a bubble of American manufacturing. Artificial intelligence is a tool that can completely transform the model of traditional industries stuck in productivity problems. Nuclear power empowers artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence reciprocates by supporting nuclear power. This is a winning combination.
In the next decade, countries around the world will compete in the nuclear power industry, and this competition will take place whether or not Europe is involved. Therefore, Europe must integrate into the strategy being built by the US starting today. In the energy field, nuclear power is Europe's "comfort zone" (it is the largest source of electricity in continental Europe), and it is a low-carbon technology alongside hydropower. The international ecosystem strategy that the US is building within the OECD clearly shows: nuclear power has never been a zero-sum game where one wins and the other loses. It is an industry too complex for even a powerful country like the US to control entirely alone. (Translated by Zhao Ke Xin)
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7570694319489696297/
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