Small Modular Reactors: Still Too Expensive, Too Slow, and Too Risky.
Small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) are generally defined as nuclear plants that top out at about 300 megawatts. That’s enough to run about 30,000 US homes. Advocates have been excited and spreading lots of hype. They claim the new designs are safer, cheaper, and faster to build. There are nearly 80 SMR projects currently in various stages of development around the world. SMR advocates have said these new designs are the answer to our future power needs.
The most recent IEEFA report looked at all these projects brought those aspirations back to a crashing reality. In fact, these SMR efforts have been shockingly similar to large, classical big nuclear projects. Many have massive 200-700% cost overruns and experiencing delays of 3-4 times longer than originally planned. Worse, they even have more financial and security risks than classical designs simply due to unknowns. Since these designs contain lots of newer and relatively untested ideas – there’s lots of risk of issues nobody thought of. These risks are especially true for long-term cost of operations/maintenance and end-of-life decommissioning.