{"id":692948,"date":"2026-10-26T03:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=692948"},"modified":"2026-10-26T03:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:30:00","slug":"kentucky-could-go-from-zero-reactors-to-americas-biggest-nuclear-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=692948","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Could Go From Zero Reactors To America’s Biggest Nuclear Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky Could Go From Zero Reactors To America’s Biggest Nuclear Plant<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Nuclear Company (TNC) unveiled<\/a> plans on October 21st for Prosperity One<\/strong>, a campus on the Ohio River in Lewis County, Kentucky, with room for up to six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At roughly 6.6 GW, a fully built Prosperity One would top Georgia’s four-unit Plant Vogtle as the largest nuclear plant in the country. That’s more than a third of the roughly 18 GW of generating capacity Kentucky currently has.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It would also be Kentucky’s first commercial reactor. The state only lifted<\/a> its decades-old restrictions on new nuclear construction in 2017.<\/p>\n

The first phase calls for two units, and TNC wants federal approvals in hand to start construction in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That’s ambitious for a project that hasn’t filed anything with the NRC or PJM yet<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

Power generation comps: nat gas still cheapest but grid queue now up to 5 years. Restart and uprates of nuclear more expensive but wait time much less. https:\/\/t.co\/EI9F9GbrLE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 6, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Carrs Bottom site near Vanceburg was once assembled for a coal plant that was later abandoned, and it sits half a mile from a 765 kV line feeding PJM. The land belongs to lifelong Lewis County resident Sam Howard, who is partnering on the project.<\/p>\n

“I have nine grandchildren, and all of them live in Lewis County,” Howard said. “I want them to have the opportunity to stay.”<\/p>\n

We’ve been tracking TNC for a while. In April, we reported<\/a> the startup was preparing to propose an AP1000 at one of three South Carolina sites, noting that the $80 billion Westinghouse deal struck with Washington six months earlier had produced zero<\/strong> visible shovels in the dirt.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, TNC and Brookfield, which owns 51% of Westinghouse, teamed up<\/a> on a new company to develop Westinghouse reactor projects. Its first job is the possible completion of VC Summer Units 2 and 3, the two half-built AP1000s abandoned in 2017<\/strong> after South Carolina utilities sank about $9 billion into them.<\/p>\n

Cost overruns at the miserably managed<\/a> Vogtle and Summer projects drove Westinghouse into bankruptcy<\/strong> that same year. Fast forward almost 10 years, and now the company is looking to IPO at almost $50 billion.<\/p>\n

In May, we noted Brookfield was working toward a final investment decision by 2027, which would mean paying state-owned Santee Cooper $2.7 billion for the unfinished units. Brookfield has since told Santee Cooper’s board it will make that call by March 31, 2028.<\/p>\n

Kentucky is a bigger undertaking. Prosperity One is a greenfield site rather than an expansion of an existing plant, and TNC is betting that building the same reactor over and over will bring costs down.<\/p>\n

Vogtle Unit 4 came online roughly 30% cheaper and faster than Unit 3<\/strong>, according to Heatmap<\/a>. Joe Klecha, TNC’s chief nuclear officer and a Vogtle construction veteran, expects at least that much at Prosperity One: “The 30%, I would say, is the floor on the savings from the first unit to the second unit.”<\/p>\n

That squares with the McKinsey work we covered<\/a> in July, which credited identical units at the UAE’s Barakah plant with cutting costs “from construction of the first unit to the fourth by roughly 40 percent<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

The NRC has done some of the work already. On October 14th, it renewed<\/a> the AP1000’s design certification through 2066, folding in lessons from the nearly 200 license amendments approved during Vogtle’s construction and startup.<\/p>\n

Chairman Ho Nieh said the update “provides the regulatory foundation for America to move from building individual reactors to deploying them at scale.”<\/p>\n

Now find a buyer<\/h3>\n

What TNC doesn’t have yet is a customer<\/strong>. It hasn’t disclosed a cost estimate, a financing plan, or who will own the plant, though it says it\u2019s negotiating offtake agreements and expects deals by next year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In June, the DOE offered<\/a> a $17.5 billion conditional commitment for long-lead AP1000 equipment, built around up to five two-reactor sites. Prosperity One’s two-unit first phase would match that structure.<\/p>\n

Then there’s Korea. When Seoul’s $120 billion reactor pledge was announced last month, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said<\/a> the units were “going in Kentucky,” among other states.<\/p>\n

Brookfield says those AP1000s will go on federal land, but TNC hasn’t said whether Prosperity One is connected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 10\/25\/2026 – 23:30<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kentucky Could Go From Zero Reactors To America’s Biggest Nuclear Plant The Nuclear Company (TNC) unveiled plans on October 21st for Prosperity One, a campus on the Ohio River in Lewis County, Kentucky, with room for up to six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. At roughly 6.6 GW, a fully built Prosperity One would top Georgia’s four-unit… Continue reading Kentucky Could Go From Zero Reactors To America’s Biggest Nuclear Plant<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-692948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=692948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=692948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=692948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=692948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}