SS: a government audit, released last spring, of 183 million in DOE grants to a potential NuScale power plant in Utah, consisting of six, first of a kind (FOAK) small modular reactors (SMRs). Ultimately the plan was canceled, leaving nothing to show for the spending. The audit highlights several instances of mismanagement of the grant.
Relevant to neoliberalism, because we desperately need as much new energy generation as possible.
(Here my opinion is more speculative.) This focus on SMRs is not because they deliver more power, or because they have lower cost of energy than large reactors, or because they better fit a niche value proposition in the US energy landscape: the focus on SMRs largely results from the fact that no US entities, public or private, have balance sheets capable of taking on the financing risk of traditional scale nuclear reactors. Thus the US has settled on building out a marginally worse product to fit our low risk appetite.
Overall, I’m extremely skeptical of the recent enthusiasm for SMRs and think our time and money would be better spent on thinking about more intelligent ways to entice and de-risk large scale traditional plans.
spongoboi on
Was that ever gonna be enough to build six small modular reactors?, idk much about nuclear power, but i do know it’s expensive as fuck to build.
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SS: a government audit, released last spring, of 183 million in DOE grants to a potential NuScale power plant in Utah, consisting of six, first of a kind (FOAK) small modular reactors (SMRs). Ultimately the plan was canceled, leaving nothing to show for the spending. The audit highlights several instances of mismanagement of the grant.
Relevant to neoliberalism, because we desperately need as much new energy generation as possible.
Opinion: In China I count 35 nuclear plants under construction, none of them are SMRs. [(1)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#China) They will soon surpass our installed capacity. [(2)](https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?fuel=nuclear&metric=absolute&multi=true&tab=main&chart=trend&temporal_res=yearly&date=2025-01-01&date_from=2000-01-01&entity=China&entity=United+States&data=capacity) Additionally, the cost declines we see in places like China and Korea are largely due to nth of a kind(NOAK): repeatedly building the same plant over and over to achieve learning curves. [(3)](https://sai.inl.gov/report/potential-cost-reduction-in-new-nuclear-deployments/)
Meanwhile, we’ve created an environment focused on giving a lot of money for potentially dozens of FOAK SMRs, which helps demonstrates new tech but rarely delivers sustained buildouts of nuclear. [(4)](https://open.substack.com/pub/energysecurityfreedom/p/lots-of-smrs-being-designed-may-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=phed7)
(Here my opinion is more speculative.) This focus on SMRs is not because they deliver more power, or because they have lower cost of energy than large reactors, or because they better fit a niche value proposition in the US energy landscape: the focus on SMRs largely results from the fact that no US entities, public or private, have balance sheets capable of taking on the financing risk of traditional scale nuclear reactors. Thus the US has settled on building out a marginally worse product to fit our low risk appetite.
Overall, I’m extremely skeptical of the recent enthusiasm for SMRs and think our time and money would be better spent on thinking about more intelligent ways to entice and de-risk large scale traditional plans.
Was that ever gonna be enough to build six small modular reactors?, idk much about nuclear power, but i do know it’s expensive as fuck to build.