In the same assembly, Nucleoeléctrica declared 12 hectares of the Atucha site available for private enterprise and authorized preparation of a public tender for a modular reactor between 300 and 400 megawatts. The leading proposal comes from Meitner Energy, a company formed in 2024 with 60 percent ownership by U.S.-Iranian entrepreneur Hamid Ansari and 40 percent by INVAP, the Argentine state technology firm. Meitner’s ACR-300 reactor carries an estimated investment of 1.2 billion dollars, to be financed without public funds or guarantees. The company deposited a 60 million dollar bond, equivalent to 0.5 percent of the proposed investment, to guarantee participation in the tender.
Nucleoeléctrica modified its procurement rules earlier this year to allow tenders based on unsolicited private proposals. Under the new framework, Meitner as project promoter can match the best competing offer if the difference does not exceed 15 percent. The state operator expects to retain operation and maintenance of any reactor built on its land through a surface rights arrangement. The company created a separate services division in May to formalize this model.
Industry sources questioned the feasibility of the timeline, with Nucleoeléctrica aiming to award land rights before year-end. The actual cost of a first-of-a-kind small modular reactor typically exceeds preliminary estimates. Ontario Power Generation’s BWRX-300 project in Canada, a comparable design, carries an approved budget of 6.1 billion Canadian dollars, more than triple Meitner’s projected figure. Meitner employs approximately 300 people in Argentina, many recruited from Nucleoeléctrica and the national atomic energy commission, including engineers who worked on the CAREM domestic reactor program.
This article was curated and published as part of our South American energy market coverage.
