Westinghouse Electric Company is reportedly engaging in high-level discussions with U.S. government officials regarding the ambitious deployment of ten new nuclear reactors, a move aimed at fulfilling the objectives of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on energy expansion.
This potential collaboration could mark a significant revitalization of nuclear power generation in the United States, a sector that has seen limited growth in recent decades.
According to the Financial Times, Westinghouse, one of the few domestic companies with the expertise to design and construct large-scale reactors, is “eager” to develop several large nuclear plants across the U.S. in the coming years.
This aligns directly with President Trump’s May 23 executive orders, which called for a “nuclear renaissance” – specifically, quadrupling the capacity of nuclear technology by 2050, launching the development of ten large reactors by 2030, and streamlining regulatory processes. These directives have already generated considerable interest among developers and utilities.
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Dan Sumner, interim chief executive of Westinghouse, told the Financial Times, “There are ten large nuclear reactors in the executive order, and we believe that we can do them all with AP1000 reactors… Our customers, the hyperscalers, the tech firms, the suppliers are all coming together to try to figure out exactly how to deploy.”
Sumner further emphasized the ongoing engagement with the administration, highlighting “key points of interface with the loan programs office, recognizing the importance of financing to the deployment of the model.”
The push for new nuclear capacity comes at a time when nearly all of the U.S.’s current nuclear power is generated by reactors built between 1967 and 1990. The nation’s nuclear power generation has been in decline since the 1990s, with only two large nuclear reactors constructed in the past two decades.
However, recent bipartisan efforts, such as the ADVANCE Act signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2024, aim to lower nuclear licensing costs, create new opportunities for reactor sites, and allocate additional resources to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Westinghouse appears “uniquely positioned” to help realize President Trump’s goals. The company already boasts an approved reactor design, an operational supply chain, and recent experience constructing two AP1000s in Georgia. These large, pressurized water reactors are capable of generating enough electricity to power approximately 750,000 homes.
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Sumner noted that the company has gained valuable insights from navigating AP1000 construction challenges in both the U.S. and China.
“The design is frozen… We are the only firm in the world that has done modular nuclear construction, and we have all real-life learning now embedded in our go-forward delivery models,” he told the Financial Times.
Beyond large reactors, discussions are also reportedly underway with government officials regarding small modular reactor (SMR) developers. These developers are exploring the possibility of building multiple SMRs at a single site to minimize construction risks and achieve generation capacity equivalent to a large reactor.
The potential deployment of ten new nuclear reactors by Westinghouse signifies a potentially transformative period for the U.S. energy landscape, aiming to bolster domestic energy production and meet future demands with a significant increase in nuclear power.
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