Power plant race heats up in Europe

Westinghouse, Bechtel, GE among companies that could be involved.

The former Cold War frontier of Eastern Europe is becoming a battleground in the $ 500 billion business of building nuclear power plants.

Four months after lifting a prohibition on financing nuclear- energy deals overseas, the U. S. is finding an opening for companies such as General Electric Co., Westinghouse Electric Co. and Bechtel Group Inc.

In the span of a fewweeks, the U. S. signed a memorandum with Romania for the financing of a new reactor and other accords with Poland as well as Bulgaria, which plans to revive an older reactor project.

The plan to win business for U. S. companies in this geopolitically key market was started under President Donald Trump and is poised to survive the transition to a new U. S. administration under President- elect Joe Biden. That may nudge Eastern European partners to move forward with stalled nuclear projects.

Greater access to financing may be the chief advantage on the American side as it pushes back against Russian and Chinese interests in the region.

“The projects in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Poland could be accelerated if the U. S. helps them come up with funding sources at competitive costs and, eventually, without the need for state aid or guarantees,” said Razvan Nicolescu, a Bucharest- based partner at Deloitte specializing in the energy industry.

Eastern European nations, which are dependent on fossil fuels from Russia and their own

global financial crisis with the 2010 Dodd- Frank Act.

At the least, Biden is expected by economists who follow the Fed to replace Randal Quarles, the vice chair in charge of banking supervision.

His term expires in October 2021.

The other vice chair belongs to Richard Clarida, the Fed’s highest ranking Ph. D., whose term runs through September 2022.

Biden is already being lobbied by some groups to use appointments to improve diversity at the Fed, which has traditionally been dominated by white men, notwithstanding Janet Yellen’s four- year term as chair.

There are also currently two vacant Fed board seats, and possibly a third if Biden, as some expect, makes Fed Governor Lael Brainard his

Treasury secretary.

Trump failed multiple times to fill those vacant Fed seat swhen he couldn’t convince enough Republican senators to back his nominees.

His most recent selections — Judy Shelton and Christopher Waller — are unlikely to be approved in the lameduck session following the election, and their nominations will expire when the current Congress adjourns at the end of the year.