A major power provider in South Carolina started accepting bids from buyers on Wednesday to finish two nuclear reactors, hoping to take advantage of the recent interest in the energy source from technology companies.
The utility, Santee Cooper, wants to sell the reactors that were mothballed in 2017 before they were half complete. Its decision comes as the tech industry, which is rapidly building power-hungry data centers, has begun looking to nuclear plants for their ability to provide lots of electricity around the clock without releasing emissions responsible for climate change.
But delays and cost overruns have dogged nuclear power in recent decades in the United States. When Santee Cooper halted construction of the two reactors, at the V.C. Summer power plant, it left them less than 40 percent built and stalled a project once billed as a notable step forward for nuclear power generation in the United States. The company and a partner, South Carolina Electric & Gas, spent about $9 billion on the incomplete reactors.
Santee Cooper said it was working with the investment firm Centerview Partners to field proposals from potential buyers until May 5. The company added that it did not intend to own or operate the reactors once they are complete.
“We are seeing renewed interest in nuclear energy, fueled by advanced manufacturing investments, AI-driven data center demand, and the tech industry’s zero-carbon targets,” Jimmy Staton, Santee Cooper’s chief executive, said in a statement.
Initially proposed in 2007 — at a time when industry officials were predicting a resurgence in nuclear power — the South Carolina project grappled with a shifting energy landscape before it stalled a decade later. Improvements in energy efficiency caused demand for electricity to plateau nationwide during those years, while a hydraulic fracturing boom flooded the country with cheap natural gas, a lot of which is burned in power plants to generate electricity.
V.C. Summer has one large operating nuclear reactor that was built in 1982 and is run by Dominion Energy, a utility company in Richmond, Va., that bought South Carolina Electric & Gas in 2019. That reactor is not part of the sale of the two incomplete reactors owned by Santee Cooper.
The energy landscape has shifted again in recent years. Several tech giants, including Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, have said they would help fund nuclear reactor construction to support their artificial intelligence expansion.
The federal government also stepped in to support the resurgence of interest in nuclear power. In September, the Energy Department said it had finalized a $1.52 billion loan guarantee to help a company restart a shuttered nuclear plant in Michigan. Congress and the Biden administration offered billions of dollars in subsidies to keep older nuclear plants running and to build new reactors. While President Trump has opposed and sought to repeal many of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s energy and climate policies, he has said he supports nuclear energy.
Globally, demand for nuclear power has been growing in recent years alongside mounting concern about climate change. Nuclear reactors can generate electricity without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. But environmentalists and some other critics note that building reactors can be very expensive and that the United States still has not settled on a strategy for long-term storage of the radioactive waste produced by reactors. Some other countries have developed places for such storage.
