European nuclear firms look to US for faster growth

By Forrest Crellin

PARIS (Reuters) -Italian small modular reactor startup Newcleo is considering ditching plans to construct 20 reactors in Britain worth an estimated 16 billion euros ($19 billion) and building them in the U.S. instead as European nuclear firms rush to benefit from measures to support the industry.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May to boost domestic nuclear production by cutting down regulations and fast-tracking new licenses.

Hyperscalers, or large data center developers, like Microsoft are meanwhile investing in nuclear power to provide stable supply to the energy-intensive centers.

That contrasts with slow development in Europe, where approvals can sometimes take two to three times longer than in the U.S.

"There are a lot of tools that are encouraging investment into the U.S. now," Newcleo CEO Stefano Buono told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Nuclear Exhibition (WNE) in Paris last week.

The company, which recently moved its headquarters to France from Britain, is considering shifting its deployment programme of 20 reactors from Britain to the U.S. and estimates that each reactor will have an investment cost of around 800 million euros, Buono said.

However, no final investment decision has been made and there are numerous steps left before one is taken, a spokesperson for the company said.

Newcleo is also competing in a tender to develop fuel production in the U.S.

Franco-Dutch start-up and small modular reactor (SMR) maker Thorizon is also looking at setting up in the U.S. where it could get reactors operating faster than in Europe, Chief Technology Officer Sander de Groot told Reuters at WNE.

European SMR companies are falling behind global competitors like China, which has already produced an SMR and is working towards mass production, or Canada which is developing its first prototypes at the Pickering nuclear power plant.

Europe's two nuclear fuel producers, France's Orano and multinational Urenco, both plan to build new enrichment capacity in the U.S. to meet rising demand from a growing industry.

"A lot of customers, especially U.S. customers, are once again supporting us with very long-term contracts for our own capacity programme," said Urenco CEO Boris Schucht.

The company has a plant in New Mexico making about 4.3 million tons of uranium a year, with 700,000 tons of capacity being added incrementally to 2027.

The company can add up to 2 million tons in additional capacity if needed, said Schucht.

Rival Orano plans its first overseas enrichment plant in Tennessee, provided it is granted subsidies towards an expected investment of between $4 billion and $5 billion.

The company would commission the plant in 2031, CEO Nicholas Maes told Reuters at WNE, adding that the U.S. could become the company's largest market, eclipsing France.

($1 = 0.8575 euros)

(Reporting by Forrest Crellin; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Susan Fenton)