Top US CEO to Europe: We can unite on nuclear power

PARIS — Donald Trump is temporary; nuclear energy is forever … or at least for 30 years.

That’s why Patrick Fragman, CEO of Westinghouse, the major American nuclear power company, believes Europe and the United States are still ideal partners to build a European Union atomic network — even as the new U.S. president sends people racing to their own corners.

Europe, he told POLITICO in an interview, must “realize that cooperation can make sense.”

It’s a tough sell. For Europe’s atomic energy supporters — including France, most vocally — nuclear power is inextricably linked to ending reliance on foreign energy sources. And that reasoning has gained momentum as much of the EU tries to ditch Russian fossil fuels.

“It’s good to talk about sovereignty; it can make sense,” Fragman said. “But cooperation also exists, and it’s not incompatible.”

It might seem an improbable proposal that could imperil Europe’s own security. Trump is bludgeoning the transatlantic relationship and loves bending American firms to his whims. But Westinghouse stresses it’s a private company that is now Canadian-owned — and that nuclear projects function on a time scale that extends beyond politicians.

“The nuclear industry is a long-term industry,” Fragman says. “When you’re doing an industrial project, you have to do them for 10, 15, 20, 30 years.”

Nuclear industries from both sides of the Atlantic should “work together and build a fleet” of nuclear reactors in Europe, which he argues would be cheaper and faster, and would create “an energy infrastructure that is competitive.”

Atomic competition

Fragman, who was born in the Paris suburbs and spent most of his career in the French nuclear industry before taking over Westinghouse in 2019, noted his idea has a historical precedent.

When France wanted to scale up its civil nuclear power program in the 1970s amid the oil crisis, it turned to Westinghouse to supply the technology behind most of its current nuclear reactors — all with the blessing of the French government.

“If, at the time, they had said, ‘sovereignty, sovereignty,’ I think that today in France there would still be coal- or gas-fired plants” instead of nuclear, Fragman said.

But France has come a long way since then: It is now the EU’s top atomic heavyweight, with a nuclear champion of its own, EDF.

For Europe’s atomic energy supporters — including France, most vocally — nuclear power is inextricably linked to ending reliance on foreign energy sources. | Alex Martin/Getty Images

And with many European countries mulling a nuclear relaunch, the French energy giant also has its sights on the continent’s burgeoning nuclear market, even if its efforts have so far been unsuccessful.

This puts EDF in direct competition with Westinghouse to build nuclear reactors across the continent, most recently in Slovenia, but also in Sweden, the Czech Republic and Poland.

The French firm can count on powerful support from French officials who frequently promote nuclear energy in Brussels as a tool to assert Europe’s energy independence.

A nuclear revival is “aligned with European sovereignty,” EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné, France’s commissioner, recently told POLITICO after visiting one of EDF’s atomic power plants.

Sitting in a private salon at a plush five-star hotel across the street from EDF’s Parisian headquarters, Fragman, who will be leaving his post at the end of the month for personal reasons, insisted the French firm is “first and foremost a customer, and not necessarily a competitor.”

Westinghouse has had a footprint in France for decades. It took part in the construction of EDF’s latest nuclear reactor in Flamanville and operates a nuclear fuel plant in the United Kingdom that supplies EDF.

The U.S. nuclear boss argues he’s got another asset working in Westinghouse’s favor: His firm’s technology is “tested and proven,” with the firm operating six reactors and building an additional 17, including five in Eastern Europe.

And yet, like the rest of the nuclear industry, which has struggled to deliver reactors on time and on budget over the past three decades, Westinghouse encountered major difficulties developing its last reactor, culminating in the firm’s declaring bankruptcy in 2017.

Meanwhile, EDF’s nuclear project in Flamanville was also plagued by lengthy delays and enormous budget overruns, leading the French firm to rework its reactor design.

“You can’t deliver on time if you keep making changes to your design. You can’t deliver on time if you don’t have an active supply chain backing you,” said Fragman, who argued his firm now had “all the inputs we need to get the right output.”

‘Customer’s law’

With calls for European sovereignty flooding the bloc’s political discourse, Fragman might be talking in a vacuum. Yet the nuclear boss is convinced he isn’t — even as he admitted not everyone in Europe’s nuclear sector shared his view.

Donald Trump is temporary; nuclear energy is forever. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Fragman is particularly bullish on the prospects for cooperation on small modular reactors, a miniature version of classic nuclear reactors that could eventually be built at a fraction of the cost and time that have historically burdened nuclear plants.

“Since these are new technologies, it could be a topic that is less emotional than the big reactors,” he said.

For big and small reactors alike, the race to get a piece of Europe’s nuclear market will come down to one thing, which Fragman dubbed “the customer’s law.”

“In the end, the customer will choose,” he concluded.