So what you're telling us is that instead of Nuclear expansion being a case of Free Market choice, let the best, most economical tech win, it's all being decided due to political market interference and lawfare.
With the two worst designed, most impractical large reactors, the EPR and APR1000 being foisted on Western nations, and the two best reactors, the APR1400 and the VVER1100 are being blockaded by nefarious means. And I would also add the BWRX300 SMR is being pushed by political corruption. With the much more economical CANDU being suppressed by political sanction.
A good article on that here:
Nuclear Plants should be Industrial Cathedrals, by Jack Devanney
So much for "Global Boiling" and "Climate Change is an existential threat" claims of the same bunch who are stifling the growth of the only feasible replacement for fossil fuels. Hypocrites and charlatans.
With Central Banker Carney doubling down by funneling $2B in federal dollars to the BWRX300 at Darlington, as a replacement for the much more economical, indigenous CANDU reactors. Same with Ontario premier Ford, the same guy who claims to be all against US imports, threatening to cut off electricity exports to the US, but buys an unproven, FOAK American reactor over an proven indigenous Canadian designed & built reactor. While the NRC blockades the CANDU over some invented nonsense over safety. Clearly there is some behind-the-scenes corruption going on in that deal.
Internationally, in Western nations, again the expensive BWRX300 or the Rolls Royce 470 MWe version of the same, is being pushed rather than far more practical SMRs like the Copenhagen Atomics thorium Molten Salt reactor and the Thorcon MSR. Obvious to me, we are seeing more efforts from the Financial Oligarchy to prevent a large scale nuclear resurgence in the West. Instead continuing to push the impractical, intermittent Wind & Solar scam. And to the extent they allow Nuclear power, it must be the most expensive and slow to build designs. Energy Scarcity, high energy prices and supply volatility is their objective.
Nice job. You got the appalling terms of the "deal" right but not the legalities. The issue was not the System 80 IP. Kepco had bought full rights to the design in 1997 in a Complete Technology Transfer Agreement, which the US government explicitly approved. Combustion Engineering was going bankrupt due to an asbestos suit and had not choice. Under the agreement Kepco could use the System 80 IP anyway they wanted. Besides in 2021 any patents had long since run out. Over the next 25 years, the Koreans improved and enlarged the design culminating in the APR1400.
The issue was whether Part 810 of the AEA, aimed at controlling export of IP from the USA by Americans applied to Koreans exporting IP from Korea. At Barakah Westinghouse told the Koreans that it did. But no problem. Since both Korea and the UAE had 123 Agreements all the Koreans had to do was keep DOE fully informed of the IP transfer by sending DOE a letter which Westinghouse would sign and forward to the DOE. The Koreans complied.
In 2021?, when the Koreans were talking to the Poles about an APR1400, Westinghouse and DOE sprung the trap. The Koreans sent the 810 letter to Westinghouse but Westinghouse declined to forward it to the DOE. When the Koreans attempted to send the letter direct to DOE, DOE refused is saying only the American owners of the technology can sign such a letter.
In 2022, Westinghouse sued Kepco for exporting American IP without its permission. In September, 2023, the Court tossed Westinghouse's case out, but the Court's ruling could be read to say that while Westinghouse could not use Part 810 to prevent Koreans exporting Korean (ex-American) IP from Korea, the US government could.
The AP1000 is a cramped, vibration-prone, nearly unmaintainable design which will cost you at least 3 times what the solid APR1400 will. With this deal, the best hope for Western nuclear has been expunged.
Hi, I was on the Barakah project with ENEC for 10 years and at WEC/CE before that. It is a bit misleading to say KEPCO/KHNP has full IP rights to CE technology. Yes, the Koreans have essentially unlimited rights in their *domestic* market, but internationally things are more complicated. The APR1400 NSSS shares about 80-90% of its design with the Palo Verde plant build by CE in the 1980s. The same goes for the Korean Standard Plant (KSP/OPR1000), which is basically identical to ANO-2.
The historical agreement between CE/WEC and Korea was that Korea could not compete against CE/WEC in CE/WEC’s home market, and CE/WEC would not compete in Korea. International markets would be considered open, but Korea would need to license various parts of the tech from CE/WEC (eg design, software, COLSS/CPCS, Optin/Zirlo cladding, etc.) for export use. This is how WEC got in so much on the UAE project and was expecting to get future portions of other ARP1400 exports. WEC complained that Korea was improperly exporting its technology and it should be obtaining a license from WEC. The settlement for Barakah meant WEC had a significant portion of the I&C, RCPs, and fuel.
Part 10 CFR 810 is a daisy-chain issue since anything of US origin (a large part of the plant design meets this req). WEC did use this to leverage the US government to put pressure on the Koreans even though it was largely a commercial matter. The Jan 2025 agreement just supercharged it, which had been bubbling on and off for decades.
The Koreans are also still pretty heavily dependent on WEC for tech support. They’ve gotten better, but whenever KEPCO has a technical problem, often their first call is to Westinghouse.
The Koreans _have_ been addressing the WEC dependency one piece at a time (developing their own software, methods, materials, etc), but it’s slow.
Thanks valuable info. I for one wouldlike to see the text of the 1997 agreement, which to my knowledge put no restrictions on Korean exports of the CE technology,
which is now 50 years + old. And while the OPR1000 may have been a near copy of the Palo Verdes reactors, the APR1400 certainly is not.
In my dealings with Korea, I have never seen a hint of dependence on WEC technology or expertise.
Here's another article that describes how our corrupt political apparatus is being used to stifle the best Western large PWR, the Korean APR1400 and forcing every country in the West to instead buy either of the badly designed PWRs, the Westinghouse AP1000 or the EPR1600 @ over 3X the cost:
The Most Dismal News Possible, The KEPCO Cave, Jack Devanney
And in Canada the corrupt Carney/Ford regimes forcing the BWRX300 over the domestically designed and produced CANDU series of PHWRs, also at ~3X the cost.
Saudi ambitions for civilian nuclear reactors has received a new impetus in the past two years with the rise of Saudi ambitions to become a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The reason there is this linkage is that the data centers that will support AI programs, products, and customers will require enormous amounts of electricity.
Saudi energy planners have no intention of allocating revenue producing oil and gas products destined for export to support domestic data centers.
I've written about this linkage which so far seems to have been ignored by the mainstream press.
Very nicely done Chris. I have not surveyed the Internet to see for myself, but nonetheless I'd wager this is the best writing on the subject available.
So what you're telling us is that instead of Nuclear expansion being a case of Free Market choice, let the best, most economical tech win, it's all being decided due to political market interference and lawfare.
With the two worst designed, most impractical large reactors, the EPR and APR1000 being foisted on Western nations, and the two best reactors, the APR1400 and the VVER1100 are being blockaded by nefarious means. And I would also add the BWRX300 SMR is being pushed by political corruption. With the much more economical CANDU being suppressed by political sanction.
A good article on that here:
Nuclear Plants should be Industrial Cathedrals, by Jack Devanney
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/nuclear-plants-should-be-industrial
So much for "Global Boiling" and "Climate Change is an existential threat" claims of the same bunch who are stifling the growth of the only feasible replacement for fossil fuels. Hypocrites and charlatans.
With Central Banker Carney doubling down by funneling $2B in federal dollars to the BWRX300 at Darlington, as a replacement for the much more economical, indigenous CANDU reactors. Same with Ontario premier Ford, the same guy who claims to be all against US imports, threatening to cut off electricity exports to the US, but buys an unproven, FOAK American reactor over an proven indigenous Canadian designed & built reactor. While the NRC blockades the CANDU over some invented nonsense over safety. Clearly there is some behind-the-scenes corruption going on in that deal.
Internationally, in Western nations, again the expensive BWRX300 or the Rolls Royce 470 MWe version of the same, is being pushed rather than far more practical SMRs like the Copenhagen Atomics thorium Molten Salt reactor and the Thorcon MSR. Obvious to me, we are seeing more efforts from the Financial Oligarchy to prevent a large scale nuclear resurgence in the West. Instead continuing to push the impractical, intermittent Wind & Solar scam. And to the extent they allow Nuclear power, it must be the most expensive and slow to build designs. Energy Scarcity, high energy prices and supply volatility is their objective.
Chris,
Nice job. You got the appalling terms of the "deal" right but not the legalities. The issue was not the System 80 IP. Kepco had bought full rights to the design in 1997 in a Complete Technology Transfer Agreement, which the US government explicitly approved. Combustion Engineering was going bankrupt due to an asbestos suit and had not choice. Under the agreement Kepco could use the System 80 IP anyway they wanted. Besides in 2021 any patents had long since run out. Over the next 25 years, the Koreans improved and enlarged the design culminating in the APR1400.
The issue was whether Part 810 of the AEA, aimed at controlling export of IP from the USA by Americans applied to Koreans exporting IP from Korea. At Barakah Westinghouse told the Koreans that it did. But no problem. Since both Korea and the UAE had 123 Agreements all the Koreans had to do was keep DOE fully informed of the IP transfer by sending DOE a letter which Westinghouse would sign and forward to the DOE. The Koreans complied.
In 2021?, when the Koreans were talking to the Poles about an APR1400, Westinghouse and DOE sprung the trap. The Koreans sent the 810 letter to Westinghouse but Westinghouse declined to forward it to the DOE. When the Koreans attempted to send the letter direct to DOE, DOE refused is saying only the American owners of the technology can sign such a letter.
In 2022, Westinghouse sued Kepco for exporting American IP without its permission. In September, 2023, the Court tossed Westinghouse's case out, but the Court's ruling could be read to say that while Westinghouse could not use Part 810 to prevent Koreans exporting Korean (ex-American) IP from Korea, the US government could.
Wright and Trump decided to bring down that hammer and we ended up with this mess. Pls see https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-most-dismal-news-possible
The AP1000 is a cramped, vibration-prone, nearly unmaintainable design which will cost you at least 3 times what the solid APR1400 will. With this deal, the best hope for Western nuclear has been expunged.
Hi, I was on the Barakah project with ENEC for 10 years and at WEC/CE before that. It is a bit misleading to say KEPCO/KHNP has full IP rights to CE technology. Yes, the Koreans have essentially unlimited rights in their *domestic* market, but internationally things are more complicated. The APR1400 NSSS shares about 80-90% of its design with the Palo Verde plant build by CE in the 1980s. The same goes for the Korean Standard Plant (KSP/OPR1000), which is basically identical to ANO-2.
The historical agreement between CE/WEC and Korea was that Korea could not compete against CE/WEC in CE/WEC’s home market, and CE/WEC would not compete in Korea. International markets would be considered open, but Korea would need to license various parts of the tech from CE/WEC (eg design, software, COLSS/CPCS, Optin/Zirlo cladding, etc.) for export use. This is how WEC got in so much on the UAE project and was expecting to get future portions of other ARP1400 exports. WEC complained that Korea was improperly exporting its technology and it should be obtaining a license from WEC. The settlement for Barakah meant WEC had a significant portion of the I&C, RCPs, and fuel.
Part 10 CFR 810 is a daisy-chain issue since anything of US origin (a large part of the plant design meets this req). WEC did use this to leverage the US government to put pressure on the Koreans even though it was largely a commercial matter. The Jan 2025 agreement just supercharged it, which had been bubbling on and off for decades.
The Koreans are also still pretty heavily dependent on WEC for tech support. They’ve gotten better, but whenever KEPCO has a technical problem, often their first call is to Westinghouse.
The Koreans _have_ been addressing the WEC dependency one piece at a time (developing their own software, methods, materials, etc), but it’s slow.
Michael,
Thanks valuable info. I for one wouldlike to see the text of the 1997 agreement, which to my knowledge put no restrictions on Korean exports of the CE technology,
which is now 50 years + old. And while the OPR1000 may have been a near copy of the Palo Verdes reactors, the APR1400 certainly is not.
In my dealings with Korea, I have never seen a hint of dependence on WEC technology or expertise.
Michael,
Were Palo Verdes/ANO2 analogue control?
Here's another article that describes how our corrupt political apparatus is being used to stifle the best Western large PWR, the Korean APR1400 and forcing every country in the West to instead buy either of the badly designed PWRs, the Westinghouse AP1000 or the EPR1600 @ over 3X the cost:
The Most Dismal News Possible, The KEPCO Cave, Jack Devanney
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-most-dismal-news-possible
And in Canada the corrupt Carney/Ford regimes forcing the BWRX300 over the domestically designed and produced CANDU series of PHWRs, also at ~3X the cost.
Saudi ambitions for civilian nuclear reactors has received a new impetus in the past two years with the rise of Saudi ambitions to become a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The reason there is this linkage is that the data centers that will support AI programs, products, and customers will require enormous amounts of electricity.
Saudi energy planners have no intention of allocating revenue producing oil and gas products destined for export to support domestic data centers.
I've written about this linkage which so far seems to have been ignored by the mainstream press.
https://neutronbytes.com/2025/11/19/saudi-nuclear-deal-with-u-s-is-still-a-work-in-progress/
https://neutronbytes.com/2024/09/14/will-saudi-nuclear-reactors-power-its-ai-ambitions-2/
Very nicely done Chris. I have not surveyed the Internet to see for myself, but nonetheless I'd wager this is the best writing on the subject available.