US and South Korea Advance $120 Billion Nuclear Power Investment Plan: First Batch of 8 Large Units' Sites Locked in Ohio and Three Other States

The joint US-South Korea strategic investment nuclear power project in the United States has achieved a key breakthrough. According to the latest disclosed information, the site selection for 8 large nuclear power units planned to be built on US soil has begun to take shape, with the project to be located in Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Kentucky. This is the first official disclosure of the proposed states since the announcement of this hundred-billion-dollar-scale nuclear energy investment plan.

US Secretary of Commerce Howard·Lutnick, during a recent US-South Korea strategic investment announcement event, systematically presented this massive nuclear power engineering blueprint to the public. Lutnick pointed out that the total investment ceiling for this strategic project is set at $120 billion, including approximately $100 billion in basic engineering construction investment, plus an additional $20 billion reserved as contingency and cost overrun buffer funds. The entire project aims to reshape US domestic clean baseload power through the construction of 8 million-kilowatt-class Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs).

In terms of technology pathway and unit configuration, the currently proposed plan consists of 6 Westinghouse Electric Company AP1000 units and 2 South Korean independently designed APR1400 units. Lutnick emphasized that by deploying nuclear power projects at scale across the aforementioned four states, the United States hopes to fully rebuild an end-to-end domestic nuclear power supply chain and, in the future, work with allies to consolidate export dominance in the global civilian nuclear power market.

Although the direction of site selection across the four states has been clarified, the US government has not yet publicly disclosed the specific allocation plan for the 8 units among the states, and in particular, the deployment locations of the 2 APR1400 reactors remain confidential. If the project ultimately materializes, it will mark the first reverse export of South Korea's independently developed APR1400 nuclear power technology to the US domestic market. In addition to complete reactor exports, major South Korean engineering, procurement, and construction contractors and main piping equipment manufacturers are also seeking deep entry into the equipment supply and construction subcontracting chains for the remaining 6 AP1000 units.

Regarding the subsequent implementation pace of the project, South Korean official stance is cautious. South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeonggwan stated that the current framework memorandum does not equate to the project immediately entering the substantive construction phase. In the future, in-depth demonstration will still be needed regarding specific site suitability, commercial investment and financing structure, and the full-cycle engineering schedule, and it must undergo strict commercial rationality assessment and relevant statutory review procedures by the South Korean National Assembly before the investment decision for each individual nuclear power project can be finalized.