Poland has chosen the U.S. government and Westinghouse to build the central European country’s first nuclear power plant, part of an effort to burn less coal and gain greater energy independence.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Twitter that Poland would use the “reliable, safe technology” of the Westinghouse Electric Company for the plant in Pomerania province near the Baltic Sea coast. The exact location remains to be identified.
Poland is planning to spend $40 billion to build two nuclear power plants with three reactors each, the last one to be launched in 2043. The deal with the U.S. and Westinghouse is for the first three reactors of the Pomerania plant, which officials saying should start producing electricity in 2033.
Poland has planned for decades to build a nuclear power plant to replace its aging coal-fired plants in a country with some of the worst air pollution in Europe. Construction of a Soviet-technology nuclear plant began in the early 1980s, when Poland was in the East Bloc.