nuclear-news

Flagship US nuclear reactor project collapses owing taxpayers $600m

Ben Potter, Australian Financial Review, 9 Nov 23

A flagship US small modular nuclear reactor project has collapsed, taking with it $US600 million ($930 million) of American taxpayers’ money.

Develop NuScale said the Portland, Oregon-based company and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) had agreed to terminate their Carbon Free Power Project after cost blowouts scared off potential customers.

“It appears unlikely that the project will have enough subscription to continue toward deployment,” NuScale said in a statement.

Its shares fell 30 per cent in after-market trade, on top of a 70 per cent decline for the year to date.

The Utah project to build a 462-megawatt small modular reactor was one of a handful aimed at demonstrating the commercial viability of SMRs.

The nuclear industry is pinning its hopes on the ambitious technology as a zero-carbon option for firming variable renewable energy after massive cost blowouts in conventional large-scale nuclear reactors in the US and UK.

It has been enthusiastically promoted by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his energy spokesman Ted O’Brien. However, Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and local experts such as The Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood have dismissed the technology as too costly and too far away in terms of implementation to be of use to Australia’s faltering grid decarbonisation.

A small modular reactor project being pursued by Ontario Power Generation remains on foot.

……………………………………………………..Reuters reported the US Department of Energy had agreed to provide $US1.35 billion to the collapsed project over 10 years, of which about $US600 million had been disbursed since 2014.

Municipal participants in the project were unnerved when the indicative wholesale cost of power from the Utah project jumped to $US89 per megawatt hour ($A137/MWh) from $US58/ MWh last January.

Mr Bowen said: “The opposition’s only energy policy is small modular reactors. Today, the most advanced prototype in the US has been cancelled. The LNP’s plan for energy security is just more hot air from Peter Dutton.” ……………………………………. https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/flagship-us-nuclear-reactor-project-collapses-owing-taxpayers-930m-20231109-p5eit0 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

November 9, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA