It’s part of a long-term, calculated effort to steal the nuclear export market from the United States.

From the 1960s through the 1990s, the United States had a booming nuclear export business. It financed and provided the technology for dozens of reactors around the world.

But the market has changed. And the two countries capable of massive government-to-government deals—Russia and China—have skillfully taken over.

Though the nuclear export market has primarily been dominated by Russia in the past decade, China is starting to step up in a big way. 67 percent of all reactors to be completed worldwide by 2030 will be from one of the two countries.

Russia’s state-owned Rosatom has $133 billion in reactor export orders—more than fifty reactors in nineteen countries.

China is planning to export thirty of its Hualong One reactors by 2030, netting it $390 billion.

The U.S.? Zero.

Yet the U.S. Department of Commerce predicts the market will be worth between $500 billion and $740 billion over the next decade.

• By 2050, the total nuclear energy export opportunity is expected to be as high as $1.9 trillion.

But for Russia and China, this isn’t just about money…

It’s about the century-long, unbreakable geopolitical bond created by building a nuclear plant in another country.

That’s why Russia is strategically exporting to surrounding countries.

The death of American nuclear expertise and the associated exports is having other terrifying consequences, too:

• It’s losing its influence on foreign policy…
• It’s losing its access to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines…
• And it’s losing the ability to set safety standards for nuclear around the world.

In other words, the war for global nuclear reactor dominance has nothing to do with energy security.

It’s about national and global security.

And that’s something the entire U.S. government takes seriously.

Nuclear Comes Home

Restoring the United States to a position of nuclear supremacy is one of the strongest bipartisan issues in the government today.

In fact, for the first time since Richard Nixon was president, both Democrats and Republicans have nuclear energy development in their platform.

And in the past four years, a flurry of laws have been quietly passed to support American and global nuclear energy development.

The legislation is intended to promote four primary areas:

• Existing Infrastructure
• Innovation
• Exports
• Fuel

Redeveloping American capacity for each of those will rapidly bring it back as a massive force on the world stage.

In April 2022, the Department of Energy implemented a $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit Program to prevent reactors from shutting down prematurely.

It’s a deliberate move to force the U.S. to restore its nuclear infrastructure and rebuild its nuclear supply chain and workforce.

Four months later, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) included several key provisions that made it clear that the United States is throwing its full weight behind nuclear energy.

There’s $150 million for the Office of Nuclear Energy to build out R&D.

And there’s $250 billion that can be used to update, repurpose, and revitalize nuclear infrastructure.

But the most significant is a first-ever production tax credit of up to $15 per MWh.

Not only does the credit make nuclear energy far more attractive to investors…

• It makes the cost of nuclear $33/kWh lower than offshore wind.

As the subsidies enjoyed by wind and solar are winding down, they’re ramping up for nuclear.

Next, Congress is turning toward developing the next generation of reactors—and the generation after that.

A Different Kind of 5G

Every year, new laws are granting significant funding to nuclear:

• Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017 – Authorized the creation of the National Reactor Innovation Center.
• Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 – More than $2.1 billion for Department of Energy and NRC nuclear programs, plus tax credits for new reactors.
• Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act of 2019 – Forced the NRC to streamline the licensing process for advanced reactors.
• Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 – Funding for the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

These laws are all designed to stimulate billions in investment to “help domestic private industry demonstrate advanced nuclear reactors in the United States.”

They even created an “Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations” for that purpose.

The office has already funded an advanced nuclear research group that is building a direct competitor to China’s Fourth-Generation nuclear reactor.

All of this is the exact same template as the ‘60s: quietly fund lots of different types of experimental reactors to see what works.

Then, move full-bore ahead on the ones that do.

Bill Gates says that it’s the only way to optimize new nuclear technology and get “Green Premiums” down.

And it’s working.

More than fifty companies in the U.S. are working to bring advanced nuclear reactor technologies to market.

The first small modular reactor (SMR)—ostensibly the future of nuclear—is targeted to be operational in 2030.

The company running it expects a cost of $58/MWh (compared to ~$70MWh+ for natural gas). And that’s before the new production incentives.

These new reactors will be unlike anything any other country can offer:

The Alternative Is Darkness

In April 2022, it was time for step three: financing exports.

You see, the most unassailable edge that China and Russia have isn’t nuclear technology.

It’s state money.

China knows how powerful it can be to force a country into debt.

When the U.S. exported four AP1000 reactors to China—the only U.S. reactor export since 2000—it offered $5 billion in financial assistance. China refused.

And China doesn’t just extend debt financing at favorable terms; it actively takes equity investment in international nuclear projects.

• Eventually, China will be able to fund global nuclear solely from its profits from offshore nuclear energy… enabling it to offer better financing terms than any other country in the world.

In addition to financing, Russia offers turnkey nuclear plant packages—construction, training, and even operations.

It’s a proposition that the United States is completely unequipped to match.

And it’s why, in early 2022, two senators brought back a secret U.S. weapon in the bipartisan International Nuclear Energy Act.

The Act establishes an Executive Office for Nuclear Energy Policy to develop a civil nuclear export strategy.

More importantly, it reopens the floodgates of U.S. nuclear financing.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is designed to make exports financially available to other countries. Between 1955 and 1965, the bank enabled the U.S. to capture 100 percent of global nuclear exports.

During the ‘70s, EXIM gave out $4.2 billion in grants and $2 billion in guarantees for international nuclear (1975 dollars).

• In 1974 alone, the U.S. EXIM bank financed thirty-seven reactors in eleven countries.

And the bank has a sizeable war chest—$135 billion—completely available for spending.

EXIM has already begun funding nuclear exports.

It agreed to finance up to $7 billion for nuclear projects in Romania, including SMRs, after Romania cancelled a reactor order from Russia… and it has signed an agreement with Poland to provide financing for their nuclear program.

It’s all part of a master plan toward renewing American supremacy in nuclear energy, and ensuring no one else catches up.

Now that the infrastructure is being restored, innovation is being accelerated, and financing is available, it’s time for the United States to dominate the final chokepoint of nuclear:

Uranium.

China claims it’s “homegrown,” and more than 90 percent of the equipment is sourced from China.

In reality, the technology was purchased from Germany when they abandoned nuclear a decade ago.

Still, China hopes to use it to demonstrate mastery over Fourth-Generation nuclear—and its evolution from nuclear amateur to pioneer on the world stage.

The reactor is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), which means it doesn’t need to be built near water or the coast.

And since there’s no need for a containment dome, it’s far more cheaper to build HTGR than ERPs.

In other words, it’s the ideal reactor for exporting globally.

But it’s not the only nuclear reactor China has developed.

China is now the proud owner of four advanced nuclear power plant designs that can be built at scale—all “obtained” from other countries: the EPR (France), the CAP1000 (U.S.), the HTR-PM (Germany), and the VVER-1000 (Russia).

So why is China building every model of reactor it can get its hands on? That’s been proven to be the least cost-efficient and time-efficient way to build nuclear.

It’s because China doesn’t care if these nuclear reactors are over time or over budget. They only want to see what works. They’ll replicate the best, and throw out the rest.

They also want to slowly iterate away from other countries’ intellectual property, ensuring everything is “Made in China”.

• China has already integrated everything it’s learned [stolen] from other countries into its own advanced design, the Hualong One.

The Hualong One, which has been called China’s nuclear “calling card,” is fully owned by China—so they can sell it freely around the world.

It’s already built two of the reactors in China, two in Pakistan… signed a contract to build one in Argentina… and is seeking approval to build one in the UK.

Of the reactors under construction in China, fully 50 percent are Hualong Ones.

The average construction time is just six years, and construction is $2,600 per kilowatt—less than half of the time and price of France’s EPRs.

China’s “Go Out” Nuclear Strategy

China recently announced an upgraded, simplified version, the Hualong Two. The first one is expected to begin construction in 2024.

Costs are around $2,000 per kilowatt, and the construction time to be an unprecedented four years.

After thirty years of “development”—squirreling intellectual property from other countries— nuclear in China is finally ready to face the world.

“‘Going out’ with nuclear power has already become a state strategy.”
– Former CNNC chairman Wang Shoujun

China plans to exert the full weight of its economic and diplomatic influence to go global with nuclear, bringing carbon-free energy to the world.

And their offer will be irresistible.

State-backed banks are loaning about 70 percent of the cost of Chinese reactors—at far lower rates than are available to other nations.

“With nuclear, China is stepping up to the plate with financing.”
– BloombergNEF analyst Chris Gadomski

Other developed countries, like the United States and France, will be unable to compete with ultra-cheap, state-backed funding.

Additionally, the policy of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is to export nuclear technology backed by full fuel cycle capability: China will provide the uranium, and they’ll take the waste.

So buyers won’t even have to worry about the biggest problem with nuclear.

Customers are lining up. The CNNC says that it has already sold reactors to seven countries, and is working on deals with forty more.

China already has a stranglehold on the international nuclear export market.

In 2019, the former chairman of China National Nuclear Corporation told a meeting of China’s political advisory body that China could build thirty overseas reactors that would earn Chinese firms $145 billion by 2030.

“Our goal is for China to lead the global nuclear energy industry by the middle of this century.”
– CNNC President Gu Jun

That’s just a small taste of what’s to come… except suddenly, the other large nuclear powers are realizing China’s master plan.

And they’re not happy.

The Power in Nuclear Power

China General Nuclear Power (CGNP) has been on a U.S. government blacklist for three years for attempting to steal nuclear technology.

CGNP is also a partner with EDF, the world’s largest operator of nuclear power stations. But it’s quickly becoming its fiercest rival.

EDF once had plans to build a Hualong One in eastern England—not any more.

And British finance minister George Osborne said that China could build and own a nuclear power plant in Britain—also no longer an option.

The UK has begun to look for ways to squeeze CGNP entirely out of its reactor development.

Even Romania cancelled an order for two CGNP reactors—opting to work with the U.S. instead.

But there’s a much bigger concern for the United States and other developed countries than stolen state secrets.

It’s called “the hundred-year marriage.”

Nuclear energy deals create nearly unbreakable ties between the seller and the host—ties that must last as long as the nuclear plant does.

• From first discussions to first operations: ten years.
• Unit operation: sixty years.
• Decommissioning: thirty years.

That’s a century, start to finish, of strategic operations between countries.

The license for that marriage has been signed once the plant begins operations.

All the fuel, maintenance, waste disposal, training, and even staff are provided by China. So breaking relations with them is to lose power for your country—both political and electrical.

And since China’s providing financing, they’ll have extreme leverage even if countries want to get out.

They’ve already used that kind of debt trap to coerce African nations into giving up strategic properties.

And now, China is intent on using nuclear reactor exports to “marry” United States allies.

• In other words, China’s nuclear reactor exports will lead to a guaranteed century of Chinese global dominance.

That’s why other nations are scrambling to boost their own domestic nuclear programs…

… starting with the United States of America.

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Those are the names of nuclear reactors under construction in Finland, France, and the United Kingdom. On the surface, they look like utter failures.

They’ve been subject to repeated delays. Olkiluoto 3 began construction in 2005, and is finally being wrapped up seventeen years later.

The reactors’ total price tag has exploded from $26.5 billion to $55.9 billion over the course of their construction.

All of the reactors are EPRs, which were designed by France, and they’re being built by a French-owned company EDF (Électricité de France).

But eight years ago, France decided to cap energy power from nuclear at 50 percent of electricity generation by 2025. That’s down from its current 70 percent.

So why is a country that wants to reduce its reliance on nuclear… wasting tens of billions of dollars and multiple decades to build more reactors?

• It’s not to lower carbon emissions. France already has one of the lowest emissions-per-capita rates in the EU.
• And it’s not for energy security. In 2020, France was the largest exporter of electricity in the EU.

No, the real reason is much, much bigger than either of those.

The French government knows that demand for nuclear energy is about to spike. And the first country that can build inexpensive, safe, replicable nuclear reactors will have the most valuable company on earth in short order.

So the reason why France is desperate bid to build nuclear power is simple.

France wants to sell the solution to the greatest danger the planet has ever faced.

Vive La French Nuclear

The reactors being built are prototypes for full-scale, French-style nuclear reactor production.

When France built out its nuclear fleet in the ‘80s, its strategy was to achieve a “series effect”—decreasing timelines and lowering costs by building many of the same thing.

It worked. France saw major construction timeline and price reductions for each successive reactor.

And they’re doing it again. The objective with the current buildout is to reduce the costs and construction timeline for future EPRs by 30 percent.

According to the French Nuclear Energy Society, the buildout could go even further, reducing construction and financing costs by up to 50 percent.

It will also serve to revitalize France’s competency in building nuclear reactors.

In building the Flamanville reactor, France has rebuilt an entire European supply chain that is qualified to build nuclear-quality parts for nuclear power reactors.

France already has what it needs to go global with nuclear.

It’s long been a large exporter of nuclear technology, including fuel products and services. And it has experience across the entire market, from uranium mining to reactor design and construction.

According to France’s Atomic Energy Commission, there will be “a real market for EPRs” beginning in 2030.

But France might not have to wait that long. In 2021, the VP of EDF hand-delivered an offer to build the most powerful nuclear energy site in the world—9.6 GWe of EPRs on a single site. 

According to leaked communications, India is paying a “high price” for these French reactors.

Which means that every country with the finances, state backing, and nuclear programs to pull this off—China, Russia, the United States, and South Korea—wants to get in on the action.

The payoff for the first country to export nuclear technology at an international scale will be oil-industry huge.

Which is why those countries are already buying… bribing… stealing… doing whatever it takes to win the most valuable market on earth.

The Real China Syndrome

That’s how Maureen Kearney found herself hooded, tied to a chair, gagged, and brutally attacked with a knife in her Paris home.

Maureen was a major union leader at Areva, a French nuclear company.

And in 2012, she had discovered that EDF was preparing to sell French nuclear secrets to a Chinese consortium.

Fearful that cutting-edge technology would be handed over to the Chinese, she decided to become a whistleblower. And she paid the price for it.

But it didn’t matter, because China found another way in.

In 2016, EDF suddenly had a new partner in Hinkley Point C: China General Nuclear Power (CGNP). CGNP now owns 34 percent of the project.

Not quite.

Because at the same time as it purchased a stake in Hinkley Point C, CGNP quietly began building two EPR reactors in China.

It’s obvious where this is going…

The first European Pressurized Reactor (EPR)—the most advanced commercial reactor design on the continent—didn’t start up in Europe.

It started up in China, six years after Maureen was attacked.

Decades of engineering and planning, construction delays, and cost overruns, all borne by France, paid huge dividends for China.

China even poached project managers from Olkiluoto and Flamanville for work on the new reactor. Experience in France meant that engineering teams worked 60 percent fewer hours on the Chinese EPR than on Olkiluoto 3, reducing costs.

A day after the first EPR launched, the most advanced commercial reactor design from the United States, the AP1000, started up for the first time… also in China.

In 2009, American company Westinghouse had agreed to work with China to develop a larger version of their AP1000 model, creatively named the CAP1400.

The agreement gave China full IP rights for all co-developed plants greater than 1350MWe.

So China is only building plants greater than 1350Mwe.

They plan to follow the CAP1400 with a CAP1700… then a CAP2100 design—the largest nuclear reactor in the world by far.

The first two units of the CAP1400, the first “fully native” Chinese nuclear reactor, are currently under construction and expected to come online in 2025.

China has openly bragged that the CAP1400 broke a number of “technological monopolies”. And that all the key materials are designed by and manufactured in China.

The design is being developed for deployment in high numbers across China, as well as for export around the world.

Neither the EPR or the AP1000 is yet online in its home country—the AP1000s in the U.S. were cancelled—but China could care less.

They leeched their technology from France, and now France is actually worse off in its ability to build nuclear power plants.

Meanwhile, China is actively building high numbers of what is possibly the safest production-level reactor there is.

More importantly, they’re rapidly preparing to bring it to the global market at the largest scale in human history.

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A year earlier, Japan had been the world’s third-largest producer of nuclear energy. Nuclear supplied more than a quarter of the nation’s electricity.

Then… nothing. Zero reactors in operation, and not a single kilowatt of energy from nuclear.

It was a knee-jerk reaction to the Fukushima disaster, fully supported by a vast majority of Japanese citizens. And it shot Japan in the foot.

Because it quickly discovered that shutting down nuclear required paying an extra $37 billion a year for imported fossil fuels…

… which led to spiraling electricity prices, extreme government debt, and rising emissions.

In fact, emissions increased 30 percent from 2011 to 2012. And in 2013, Japanese emissions hit an all-time high.

Japan’s climate change goal had been to reduce emissions from electricity production by 25 percent by 2020.

But without nuclear, Japan’s Minister of the Environment was forced to revise that figure… to a 3.1 percent increase.

In early 2021, amidst historic power shortages, Japan’s Energy Minister finally reversed course on the nuclear-free policy. “Nuclear power will be indispensable,” he said.

A new future, indeed.

A year later, the Prime Minister of Japan called for the “maximum use” of nuclear. And he ordered the government to restart idled nuclear plants at an accelerated rate.

Out of Japan’s thirty-three operable nuclear reactors, ten have already been restarted. Sixteen more are slated to be restarted by the end of 2023, and two new reactors will be brought online.

• Not only that, but Japan has begun developing next-generation nuclear reactors.

It’s a momentous policy shift for a country that swore off of nuclear energy just a decade ago.

And it’s a common theme in every country with a major nuclear energy program.

From Japan to Germany to the UK to the U.S., closed nuclear plants are being recommissioned —and those scheduled for closure are remaining open.

But many countries are going even further…

They are transforming from hell-bent on shutting down nuclear to accelerating and even incentivizing the development of new nuclear programs.

Sweden Drinks the Radioactive Kool-Aid

For the last thirty years, Sweden has deliberately created the worst possible environment for nuclear.

In the ‘80s, it made plans to phase out nuclear power generation by 2010.

Then it outright banned nuclear research.

Then it banned restarting closed reactors.

And then it imposed a $0.30/kWh tax on nuclear energy.

In 2006, that tax was doubled… and increased another 25 percent in 2008.

One study put the tax at 60 percent of the operating cost of nuclear reactors in Sweden.

The tax forced two reactors, Ringhals 1 and 2, to close in 2019–2020.

And it was on track to close all three nuclear power plants in Sweden, which provide 30 percent of its electricity.

Vattenfall, a state-owned energy company, said abolishing the tax would decrease its generating costs to $20/MWh by 2021.

In 2022, the average wholesale electricity price in Sweden was $112/MWh.

That’s why 2022 polls showed that 60 percent of the population didn’t just want nuclear to stay—they wanted new reactors to be built.

But the political risk and uncertainty surrounding nuclear investments prevented any company from ever wanting to touch it again.

So when the new government came into power, it released a policy called the “Tidö Agreement.”

The agreement says that nuclear plants must be guaranteed the right to produce carbon-free electricity.

• And if Sweden forces a plant to close, “the owners must be entitled to compensation.”

Then, the government pivoted from taxing nuclear reactors out of existence… to subsidizing them.

The document pledged $40 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power construction—making it far easier for nuclear developers to get commercial funding.

It also called for:

• A removal of the ban on restarting closed reactors.
• Restarting Ringhals 1 and 2.
• A shorter permit process and a fast track for new nuclear power.
• A highly reduced application fee for new nuclear reactors.

None of this is hypothetical. Vattenfall, the previously mentioned major nuclear power company, has already been asked to identify suitable locations for additional nuclear reactors.

China: First in Emissions, First in Nuclear

Sweden is one of only thirty-three countries that currently produce nuclear energy. Thirty more are considering, planning, or starting their own nuclear energy programs.

Belarus, Bangladesh, and Turkey are all building their first nuclear reactors.

A single reactor coming online in Finland will provide 28 percent of its electricity.

But the real demand won’t come from small or developing nations. In fact, nuclear plants produce too much energy for them; if they are taken offline for refueling or maintenance, it could cause blackouts.

That’s why Slovenia and Croatia literally share a nuclear power plant on their border.

• The real demand for nuclear energy will come from rapidly developing countries with high carbon emissions and huge populations.

That makes China, which has the largest and fastest-growing group of energy-consuming humans in history, the perfect candidate for nuclear.

In 2021, China’s electricity demand jumped 10 percent. For context, that’s equal to the total electricity demand of all of Africa.

Which means emissions are exploding. While every other developed country is trying to cut their emissions, China’s have risen by more than 300 percent in the past twenty years.

Right now, more than a third of global CO2 emissions come from China.

They are building out solar and wind, but their real focus is on nuclear.

Thirty years ago, China had zero nuclear power. In 2002, China was 15th in nuclear production in the world.

• 10th in 2007.
• 3rd in 2016.
• 2nd in 2020.

Fitch analysts now predict that China’s nuclear power capacity will overtake the U.S. by 2026.

Nuclear energy capacity in China is precisely following its emissions trajectory—only about a decade later. Which means it won’t stop when it’s #1 in the world.

In just fifteen years, China plans to build 150 nuclear plants, which is more than the U.S. has built—ever.

CNNC, a Chinese nuclear power company, is urging the government to approve a new nuclear project every two months for the next decade.

China plans to get up to 327 GWe by 2050, or more than three times the United States.

China’s population twin, India, is facing the same problem with growing emission—and seeking the same solution.

India Goes Fleet Mode

For its 1.4 billion people—18 percent of the world’s population—India has a measly 6.8 GW of capacity across seven nuclear plants.

It’s an embarrassing 1.7 percent of the country’s total power generation capacity.

Even so, Prime Minister Modi is intent on scaling up nuclear energy as fast as is humanly possible.

In the past fifteen years, nuclear power generation in India has already risen more than 300 percent.

India’s building another 6.6 GW of capacity right now—the most after China.

It has already approved another 8.4 GW of capacity—twelve more reactors—to begin construction in the next three years.

And it has a staggering 31 GW of nuclear builds planned.

Modi plans to triple nuclear capacity again over the next decade. That’s nearly seventy new reactors coming online.

How big could it really get?

• India plans to supply 25 percent of its electricity from nuclear power by 2050.

That would require 100 GW of nuclear—again, more than the U.S.

To facilitate this, India is setting up five massive “Nuclear Energy Parks,” which can handle 10GW at a single location.

By 2032, five of these parks are planned to potentially provide between 40 and 45 GW of carbon-free energy.

Once it gets going, this is hockey-stick growth.

There’s only one problem: India has very little nuclear technology of its own. For that matter, most developed countries don’t—even those with nuclear reactors.

Only five countries on the planet actually have the skills, materials, and supply chain to build nuclear reactors.

And they are all preparing to wage a full-scale war to be able to deliver the world’s most valuable energy to the rest of the planet.

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