Got war? Buy more nuclear power plants!

The Ukraine energy ministry (pictured in a recent meeting) has announced, as war has thrust its nuclear power plants into the jaws of radiological disaster, that it has ordered two new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors for the Khmelnytskyi nuclear site. The announcement absurdly suggested that the reactors could be completed and running by 2030-2032 and would cost $5 billion each. But Westinghouse has a very different track record for new nuclear construction. In the US, two reactors were canceled part-built, bankrupting the company, and two more are limping along to vastly delayed completion and will likely cost at least $30 billion. Almost as an afterthought, the Ukraine ministry noted that “the timing may be affected by the course of military operations.”