Small Nuclear Reactors Will Not Save The Day

By Leon Stille – Sep 23, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Small-Nuclear-Reactors-Will-Not-Save-The-Day.html

• SMR’s are being hailed as the perfect solution for large industrial power consumers.
• SMRs are currently being marketed like they’re the iPhone of nuclear energy: smarter, smaller, cheaper, scalable.
• Despite the hype, there are currently no SMR’s operating on a commercial scale.

You can feel the buzz: nuclear is back. Or so we’re told.

From Brussels to Washington, a new wave of enthusiasm for so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) is sweeping through policy circles, think tanks, and energy startups. These compact, supposedly plug-and-play nuclear units are being hailed as the perfect solution to power data centers, feed artificial intelligence’s growing hunger, and backstop our energy transition with clean, stable electricity.

There’s just one problem. Actually, there are many. None of them small.

The hype cycle is in full spin

SMRs are currently being marketed like they’re the iPhone of nuclear energy: smarter, smaller, cheaper, scalable. A miracle solution for everything from remote grids to decarbonizing heavy industry and AI’s server farms. Countries like the U.S., Canada, and the UK have announced ambitious deployment plans. Major developers, including NuScale, Rolls-Royce SMR, GE Hitachi, and TerraPower, have painted glossy timelines with glowing promises.

Except the fine print tells a different story.

There are currently no operational commercial SMRs anywhere in the world. Not one. NuScale, the U.S. frontrunner, recently cancelled its flagship Utah project after costs ballooned to over $9,000 per kilowatt and no investors could be found. Even their CEO admitted no deployment would happen before 2030. Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce’s much-hyped SMR factory hasn’t produced a single bolt of steel yet.

So, we’re betting on a technology that doesn’t yet exist at commercial scale, won’t arrive in meaningful numbers before the 2030s, and would require thousands of units to significantly contribute to global energy demand. That’s not a strategy. That’s science fiction.

Big nuclear hasn’t exactly inspired confidence either

Even the large-scale projects that SMRs claim to “improve upon” are struggling. Take the UK’s Hinkley Point C, once heralded as the future of nuclear energy in Europe. It’s now twice as expensive as originally planned (over £46 billion), at least five years late, and facing ongoing construction delays. The French-backed EPR reactor design it’s based on has already been plagued with similar issues in Flamanville (France) and Olkiluoto (Finland), where completion took over a decade longer than promised and costs ballooned dramatically.

Let’s be honest: if any other energy technology was this unreliable on delivery, we’d laugh it out of the room.

Price floors for nuclear, and price ceilings for reason

In France and Finland, authorities have now agreed to guaranteed minimum prices for new nuclear power, effectively writing blank checks to ensure profitability for operators. In Finland, the recent deal sets the floor above €90/MWh for 20 years. Meanwhile, solar and wind regularly clear wholesale power auctions across Europe at €30–50/MWh, with even lower marginal costs.

Why, exactly, are we locking in decades of higher prices for a supposedly “market-based” energy future? It’s hard to see how this helps consumers, industries, or climate targets. Especially when these same nuclear plants will also require major grid upgrades, just like renewables, because any large-scale generator needs robust transmission capacity. So no efficiency win there either.

The SMR promise: too small, too late

Back to SMRs. Let’s suppose the best-case scenario plays out. A couple of designs clear regulatory approval by 2027–2028, construction starts in the early 2030s, and the first commercial units are online before 2035. Even then, the world would need to build and connect thousands of these small reactors within 10–15 years to displace a meaningful share of fossil generation. That’s a logistics nightmare, and we haven’t even discussed public acceptance, licensing bottlenecks, uranium supply, or waste management.

For perspective: in the time it takes to build a single SMR, solar, wind, and battery storage could be deployed 10 to 20 times over, for less money, with shorter lead times, and with no radioactive legacy.

And unlike nuclear, these technologies are modular today. They’re scalable now. They’ve proven themselves everywhere from the Australian outback to German rooftops and Californian substations.

The elephant in the reactor room: waste and risk

Nuclear fans love to stress how “safe” modern designs are. And yes, statistically speaking, nuclear energy is relatively safe per kilowatt-hour. But it’s also the only energy source with a non-zero risk of catastrophic failure and waste that stays toxic for thousands of years.

Why, exactly, would we take that risk when we have multiple clean energy options with zero risk of explosion and waste streams that are either recyclable or inert?

You don’t need to be a nuclear physicist to ask this: how is betting on high-cost, slow-deploying, risk-bearing, politically toxic infrastructure a better idea than wind, solar, and storage?

A footnote in the transition, not the headline

Let’s be clear: nuclear power will likely continue to play a role in some countries’ energy mixes. France and Sweden have legacy fleets. New projects may go ahead in China or South Korea, where costs are contained and planning is centralized. But for the majority of the world, especially countries trying to decarbonize fast, new nuclear is not the answer.

SMRs, despite their branding, will not save the day. They will be at best a niche, possibly a small contributor in specific applications like remote mines, military bases, or industrial clusters where no other solution works. That’s fine. But let’s stop pretending they’re some kind of energy silver bullet.

Final thoughts

We are in the decisive decade for climate action. Every euro, dollar, and yuan we invest must yield maximum emissions reduction per unit of time and cost. By that standard, SMRs fall flat. Nuclear power, small or large, is simply too expensive, too slow, too risky, and too narrow in its use case to lead the energy transition.

So let’s cool the reactor hype. Let’s focus instead on the technologies that are already winning: wind, solar, batteries, heat pumps, grid flexibility, green hydrogen. These are not dreams. They’re deploying by the gigawatt, today. SMRs are fascinating, yes. But when it comes to decarbonization, we need workhorses, not unicorns.

September 26, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Small Modular Reactors: Déjà Vu All Over Again

Arnie Gundersen, August 1, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/01/small-modular-reactors-deja-vu-all-over-again/

Storm clouds began to form in America’s Atoms for Peace construction program during the late 1950s. Clear-headed analysts identified many pitfalls in constructing commercial atomic power reactors that continue now, 70 years later. This February 10, 1958, opinion piece in Time Magazinewas not just prescient for the failure of the Atoms for Peace program, but also applies to the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) marketing ploy in 2025:

“Industry Asks More Government Help to Speed Program”

… to many U.S. businessmen, a stronger atomic defense is only one side of the coin… they insist that commercial nuclear power must be sped up, or else the U.S. will fall far behind other nations.

The main argument is over how much help the U.S. Government should give private industry. AEC’s [Atomic Energy Commission]position is that nuclear power for peaceful purposes should be largely a private venture, with AEC supplying only limited funds.

Originally, businessmen supported the idea, lest nuclear energy grow into a giant public-power program. Now their position has changed. Even the stoutest private power men feel that the program needs a strong infusion of Government aid because commercial nuclear power is so new, so complex, and so costly that private companies cannot carry the burden alone. …“There isn’t a reactor manufacturer in the U.S. who doesn’t favor Government assistance to get them over the hump.”

The big hump is the fact that conventional U.S. power is so cheap—and nuclear power so expensive—that the U.S. itself has no pressing domestic need for a crash program. … U.S. industry is learning, to its sorrow, that there is a vast gulf between atomic power in the lab and in commercial quantities. Costs have shot up to the point where they discourage even the richest companies… Even the biggest companies find the going rough…. G.E., like the others, thinks that if it could build three big plants in a row, it could learn enough to produce competitive power. But G.E. has no plans at the moment. As one reactor builder says: “Private industry has found that there is no money in atomic energy and no prospect of making any money”… For U.S. consumers, the lag in the commercial nuclear program is no great worry…the U.S. can afford to wait…. There is little doubt among nuclear experts that the U.S. must push ahead much faster than AEC Chairman Strauss is willing to go…. But until nuclear power becomes competitive with present power, he wants the Federal Government to make cash contributions to pay most of the difference between nuclear-and conventional-power construction costs… “The only way our country can achieve competitive nuclear power is through the building of a series of full-scale plants …. Our program must be accelerated.” ^[1][Emphasis Added]

Several themes from the 1958 Time Magazine opinion piece are identical to today’s unfounded marketing ploys announced by SMR manufacturers and supporters.

First, SMR corporations appeal to nationalistic pride by asserting that the U.S. will fall far behind other nations.

Second, the financial demands by today’s SMR investors and manufacturers are almost identical to those made during the 1950s that emphasized the need for Government subsidies. “There isn’t a reactor manufacturer in the U.S. who does not favor Government assistance to get them over the hump.”

Third, there is an unfounded belief that repeatedly building the same design will somehow reduce costs. “G.E., like the others, thinks that if it could build three big plants in a row, it could learn enough to produce competitive power.”

Forth, the Small Modular Reactor vendors are creating a sense of urgency, pushing nuclear regulators faster than necessary.

“There is little doubt among nuclear experts that the U.S. must push ahead much faster than AEC Chairman Strauss is willing to go…The only way our country can achieve competitive nuclear power is through the building of a series of full-scale plants …Our program must be accelerated.”

Fifth, much less expensive and proven technologies are available to produce electricity, so there is no reason to develop a new, untested, cost-prohibitive SMR nuclear technology. “For U.S. consumers, the lag in the commercial nuclear program is no great worry… the U.S. can afford to wait. …But until nuclear power becomes competitive with present power, he wants the Federal Government to make cash contributions to pay most of the difference between nuclear and conventional-power construction costs”

Following the 1958 Time Magazine Opinion, the business-friendly Forbes Magazine published an excellent one-sentence summary 30 years later pronouncing the utter failure of every single U.S. atomic construction project. By 1985, the economic debacle of building nuclear plants had reached the front cover of Forbes Magazine.

The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.^[2]

Forbes was one of the first major business magazines to identify the adverse economic implications associated with nuclear power. As a financial magazine, it was a nuclear agnostic, conceptually neither in favor of nor against nuclear, it had no dog in the nuclear fight! It was following the money. In the intervening 40 years since the prescient Forbes cover story, nuclear remains much more costly than renewable alternatives.

The financial and schedule collapse of every nuclear project ever proposed in the U.S. during the last 60 years has been well-documented in thousands of mainstream media articles, in academia, assessments by financial analysts, Statehouses, and, of course, in Congress, before Federal Agencies, and in review by Environmental watchdogs and community nonprofits. Yet in 2025, policymakers and politicians remain enthralled with yet another of the nuclear industry’s latest marketing ploy disguised this time as the Small Modular Reactor.

To rephrase Yogi Berra, Building Small Modular Reactors appears to be “Déjà vu all over again”.

NOTES

1. February 10, 1958, Time Magazine ↑

2. Forbes Magazine, Cover Story, February 1985 ↑

Arnie Gundersen is the Chief Engineer, board member, and resident “science guy” at the Fairewinds Energy Education NGO. Since the catastrophe at Fukushima, Arnie focuses his energy worldwide on the migration of radioactive microparticles. During his multiple trips to Japan, Arnie has met and trained community-volunteer citizen-scientists to study the migration of radioactive microparticles from Fukushima in two co-authored peer-reviewed scientific articles.

August 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment

The nuclear mirage: why small modular reactors won’t save nuclear power

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are the nuclear industry’s latest shiny dream. It is more hope than strategy. SMRs only exist in the imagination of the nuclear industry and its supporters. SMRs can only be found on glossy PowerPoint slides. That is why Mycle Schneider dubbed SMRs “power point reactors.” There are no engineering plans, no blueprints, no working prototypes. 

Climate and Capital Media, by Arnie Gundersen | Jun 20, 2025

Don’t believe the hype, says a 50-year industry veteran

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.”

Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy urges a “warp speed” nuclear revival. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors (SMRs) as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for AI data centers. The UK is betting billions on “mini nukes” to fill its looming energy gap.

For those old enough to remember, this should sound familiar. For those who don’t, listen up. I spent over 50 years in the nuclear industry, advancing to Senior Vice President and managing projects at 70 nuclear power plants. I hold a nuclear safety patent and co-authored three peer-reviewed papers on the spread of radiation after meltdowns.

I once believed in the dream. I helped build the dream. And now, watching this third act unfold, I can only shake my head at the déjà vu. Because the nuclear industry’s latest pitch is not a revolution, but a rerun — an expensive distraction from real climate solutions.

The nuclear industry’s latest pitch is not a revolution, but a rerun — an expensive distraction from real climate solutions.

What is an SMR, anyway?

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are the nuclear industry’s latest shiny dream. It is more hope than strategy. SMRs only exist in the imagination of the nuclear industry and its supporters. SMRs can only be found on glossy PowerPoint slides. That is why Mycle Schneider dubbed SMRs “power point reactors.” There are no engineering plans, no blueprints, no working prototypes. 

Still, hope springs eternal, and the idea is to build advanced atomic fission reactors, typically defined as producing up to 300 megawatts of electricity per unit, less than a third the size of a conventional nuclear plant. 

The “small” part refers to their reduced output and physical footprint, while “modular” means they’re designed to be built in factories, shipped to sites, and installed as needed, supposedly making them cheaper and faster to deploy than traditional reactors. In theory, you could add modules over time to scale up output, like snapping together Lego blocks.

Too small to succeed

But let’s not be fooled by the word “small.” Even a single SMR is a massive, highly radioactive industrial machine, capable of powering a mid-sized city and containing a radioactive inventory far greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

The “small” label is relative only to the behemoths of the last century. In practice, a “small” reactor brings all the big problems of a conventional reactor: dangerous radioactive fuel, complex safety systems, and the risk of catastrophic failure or sabotage. The only thing that’s truly small about SMRs is their inability to benefit from the economies of scale that, in theory, were supposed to make large reactors affordable — but never actually did.

All risk, no advantage

So, the SMR is a lose-lose: all the risks and headaches of traditional nuclear, but with none of the cost or scale advantages that never materialized in the first place.

But that is not stopping nuclear power zealots from championing what will be another failed chapter in the sad legacy of commercial atomic power. Sensing blood, the battered commercial nuclear industry is back with its most audacious pitch yet: SMR lobbying of governments worldwide for taxpayer money. Why? No private investor will touch nukes with a ten-foot uranium rod.

The irony is rich: while Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and Amazon herald SMRs as the solution to everything from AI’s energy hunger to coal’s decline, the nuclear vendors themselves won’t promise atomic power will be cheaper than renewables. Perhaps they recall the Westinghouse executives who were imprisoned for defrauding the public on atomic project costs. They know what I know: it is pure fantasy to think smaller, less powerful SMRs will magically generate cheap power. Power generation doesn’t work that way.

A legacy of failure — and my place in it

I started my career in the early 1970s, a young engineer with a master’s degree and a reactor operator’s license, working on Millstone Unit 1 in Connecticut. We were going to make electricity “too cheap to meter.” Instead, we made it too expensive to afford — and too complex to run reliably…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“The NRC is truly a captured agency… NEI complained that the agency’s proposed language for a new rule to weaken security for new nuclear reactors was too stringent. So, the NRC complied and completely eviscerated the draft. Pathetic,” said Dr. Edwin Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists

Who’s who in SMRs

But none of this has stopped nuclear vendors from pushing their SMR hopefuls:

• Holtec: It has never built a reactor. Its design has changed three times in three years, each version more complex. Larger and expensive than the last. At one point, Holtec claimed its reactor would be as safe as a chocolate factory. Willy Wonka would disagree.
• 
  Natrium: Backed by Bill Gates, it uses liquid sodium coolant and a thermal storage gimmick. The design is so complicated that the only thing it’s likely to generate is more press releases — and perhaps a few more government grants. And here’s the kicker: the only fuel available for Natrium’s first core load was to come from Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the project was immediately delayed by at least two years, exposing the folly of building a new generation of reactors dependent on a single, geopolitically fraught source of fuel.
• NuScale: The first to get NRC approval for an SMR design, but has no customers and just canceled its flagship project due to cost overruns. Its original 50 MW design was quickly upsized to 77 MW after the economics failed to pencil out. After revisiting the drawing board, the new version was just approved in May, but there are no unsubsidized potential buyers.
• Westinghouse: The old hand. Its AP1000 reactors in Georgia nearly bankrupted the company. Now it’s back with an even smaller AP300. Because if at first you don’t succeed, shrink the reactor and try again.

Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK: The new true believers

But never let facts get in the way of a good story. It’s almost touching to see the world’s financial and tech giants lining up behind SMRs, as long as they are subsidized by someone else……………………………………………….

Why nuclear can’t compete with renewables

The dream of the first nuclear plants was that mining uranium was a lot cheaper than mining coal. But while nuclear costs continue to rise, wind, solar, and battery storage are becoming increasingly cheaper and more reliable every year. And the sun and wind give energy for free. Renewables are now the lowest-cost source of new electricity in most markets. Nuclear, by contrast, has never achieved cost reductions through learning or mass production. Every new design is a new experiment, with new risks and new costs……………………………………………….

SMRs will never be built

Here’s the final irony: despite all the headlines and billions in taxpayer subsidies, an SMR will never be built — not in time to matter, and not at a price that makes sense. But that won’t stop the industry from burning through billions more in public money, chasing a fantasy that distracts and diverts resources from real, proven solutions. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” And as someone who’s lived through every act of this atomic opera, I can only add: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time? Well, that’s just nuclear insanity.

Arnie Gundersen is a former nuclear industry executive and Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education. He has testified as an expert on nuclear safety and reliability worldwide.

June 23, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment