The US has become “serious” about supporting efforts to build new commercial nuclear power plants and trying to find a way to offer competitive finance packages so allies can choose reactors that are not from “authoritarian governments” that will use energy as a geopolitical tool, the head of a US-based climate think tank has said.

Lindsey Walter, director of international policy for Third Way’s climate and energy programme, said the Biden administration is not shying away from financing nuclear export projects and especially new nuclear projects overseas.

Walter, who is also co-founder of the Carbon-Free Europe think tank, said Europe is also recognising the need to build reactors from “more reliable partners than China and Russia”, who are the “biggest players in nuclear exports and provide holistic finance packages”.

She said the US administration understands the 100-year strategic relationship that arises from building a nuclear power plant in another country including everything from construction to operation to decommissioning.

She highlighted US government efforts to partner with reactor vendors like Westinghouse and NuScale. She said while it is hard to tell how many agreements, such as memorandums of understanding, will result in actual projects, there has been “some real money” put behind this from the US government that shows it is “very serious about it”.