The American company trying to keep Ukraine’s nuclear reactors online
RIVNE, Ukraine—After Russia’s full-scale military invasion, Ukraine abruptly stopped buying nuclear fuel from Moscow, its top supplier in an industry that accounted for more than half of the country’s electricity generation. Now, a storied name in American industry is stepping in to keep reactors running, and offering other countries reliant on Soviet-designed power plants an alternative supplier. Westinghouse Electric, which for two decades struggled to challenge Russia’s dominant position in Ukraine, now makes fuel bundles that are compatible with all of the country’s reactors and is working on a plan that could allow Ukraine to start making some of that fuel itself.
Ukraine also plans to build nine Westinghouse-designed reactors. Ukraine’s rapid shift marks a big international win for the West, which has long sought to erode Russia’s dominance in the industry and the political influence that comes with it. Russia’s invasion in 2022 pushed Ukraine and Westinghouse to accelerate work that was already under way, cementing Ukraine’s break from Russia and carving a path for European countries with similar, Soviet-designed reactors to follow.
“Russia lost 15 reactors…for loading of their fuel because of their aggression," said Petro Kotin, who leads Ukraine’s state nuclear company, Energoatom. Russia is a globally dominant supplier of uranium conversion and enrichment services, two crucial steps in the nuclear-energy supply chain. It is less dominant in producing fuel bundles, which package enriched uranium into a container that can be loaded in a reactor.
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