nuclear-news

Greentech Media , 5 Jan 20,   “………..Despite the encouraging noises emerging from government agencies, it is still far from clear how SMRs will overcome many of the challenges that are causing mainstream nuclear to suffer in markets such as the U.S. and the U.K.

“No new nuclear power plant is viable in the U.S. now,” said Edward Kee, CEO and principal consultant at the Nuclear Economics Consulting Group, in an email.

“Existing merchant nuclear power plants are closing early because they cannot cover cash-generating costs with sales into the electricity markets. [It’s] hard to see how a new nuclear power plant of any design could recover investment in this market.”

As it stands today, the only country in the world that can claim to have a viable SMR industry is Russia. The country’s first SMR, deployed as a floating power station aboard the Akademik Lomonosov barge, was commissioned in 2020.

In November the World Nuclear Association reported that Russian state corporation Rosatom is planning to build another SMR in Yakutia, in the far eastern part of the country.

Spurning the advanced designs favored by Western developers such as NuScale and Rolls-Royce, Rosatom is building its SMRs with reactors that it has been using in nuclear icebreakers for years, the association said.