DOE closes $1.9B Duane Arnold loan as Hokkaido Electric faces fresh Tomari-3 review
A US federal loan to restart a 615-MW Iowa reactor on Tuesday (2026-09-08) sharpens the contrast with Japan's stalled nuclear program, where Tomari-3 now faces additional regulatory scrutiny.
The U.S. Department of Energy closed on a $1.9 billion loan to NextEra Energy on Tuesday (2026-09-08) to restart the 615-MW Duane Arnold nuclear facility in Iowa, with Google contracted to take the plant's output. DOE said its loan program has now financed three nuclear plant restarts under the current administration, "moving capital quickly to bring more American energy online."3
For Hokkaido Electric Power, the timing is uncomfortable. The utility's 912-MW Tomari Unit 3 — its sole nuclear reactor — is moving into an additional regulatory review phase under Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority, adding another layer of delay to a restart process already stretching well past a decade.2
The contrast in restart mechanics is stark. Duane Arnold has an anchor customer in Google and a federal lender behind it. Tomari-3 has neither. Hokkaido Electric must justify the unit's economics against a regulatory calendar it does not control, with no announced offtake agreement and no public timeline from the NRA on when the additional review will conclude.3
Constellation Energy is pursuing a parallel US restart, working to bring back the 835-MW Crane plant, formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1, at an expected cost of around $1.6 billion. DOE's active financing role in both projects marks a deliberate shift in how American nuclear restarts are being structured — equity risk shared with federal capital, demand underwritten before the switch is flipped.3
Japan offers no equivalent mechanism. The NRA has shown no willingness to compress its timetable for political convenience, and the additional review Tomari-3 now faces suggests regulators are not accelerating the unit's path despite the government's stated goal of maximising nuclear output.2
Japan's nuclear utilisation picture has worsened even at operational plants. Kansai Electric Power said its nuclear capacity utilisation rate for FY2026 will be 70.5%, down 10.4 percentage points year-on-year, citing extended regular inspections at Takahama NPP in preparation for internal structure replacements in Units 1 and 2 and steam generator replacement work in Units 3 and 4. If Japan's most nuclear-reliant utility is running below prior-year levels, the case for rapid new restarts looks thin.1
GlobalData power analyst Attaurrahman Ojindaram Saibasan noted that existing nuclear plants from Japan's pre-2011 fleet are being requalified alongside safety upgrades, but community mistrust remains a persistent constraint on progress. In Hokkaido, public opposition has stayed organised, shaped in part by the island's experience of seismic risk. Tomari sits in a seismically active region, and the NRA's requirements for earthquake fault assessments have proven contentious at multiple Japanese sites.2
Every month Tomari-3 stays offline is a month Hokkaido Electric burns more coal and gas. Asian LNG delivered into Japan trades at $24.02 per MMBtu on the JKM benchmark as of Tuesday (2026-09-08), keeping the utility's fuel bill elevated. The URA uranium ETF gained 4.41% to $48.03 as of Monday (2026-09-07), reflecting broader market interest in nuclear capacity that Hokkaido Electric cannot currently monetise.3
Waste storage and licensing backlogs compound the picture. Japan has no finalised disposal route for spent nuclear fuel, and that unresolved question hangs over every restart application. Lengthy approval cycles, as asian-power.com reported in August (2026-08-18), threaten to stretch timelines further regardless of a utility's willingness to invest.2
What the additional Tomari-3 review does not yet reveal is whether regulators have identified specific technical deficiencies requiring design changes, or whether this is procedural scrutiny that extends the timeline without altering the engineering case for restart. The former would push any restart out by years; the latter leaves the unit in a queue with no confirmed exit date. Hokkaido Electric has not said which it is — and the NRA has not said either.2