The Future Of Nuclear Power Might Be A Non-Starter
SMRs aren't the holy grail we thought they would be.
In theory, nuclear power is incredible. It is by far the safest form of energy we have ever created and has one of the lowest carbon footprints of any energy source. No wonder, there is a huge international effort for us to rapidly adopt nuclear power to fight climate change. However, nuclear power plants take literal decades to deploy. What’s more, it costs an insane amount to build these plants, and these costs are passed on to the consumer, making nuclear energy the most expensive on the market. However, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) promise to solve this by making the technology far more flexible, scalable and affordable. As such, many see SMRs as the future of nuclear power. But, a recent study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found that the promise of SMRs is hollow. Let me explain.
Let’s start with what an SMR actually is. The idea is to miniaturise a nuclear reactor so that it can be built in a factory off-site and shipped to the eventual power plant. All a power plant has to do is order the number of reactors they need, typically around 5–10, and within a year or two of ordering, the site can be fully deployed and provide power. Even better, if energy demand grows or wanes, they can either give back or ship in reactors. Building reactors at scale in a controlled setting like a factory like this can dramatically decrease the reactor’s cost. The faster deployment can also dramatically decrease build costs.
As such, many SMR companies claim their reactors can be deployed in a matter of a few years, and the energy they produce costs around half that of typical nuclear reactors. This has generated a huge amount of hype around the technology, as it could spark a nuclear renaissance!
This is where the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) comes in. Over the years, there have been rampant rumours that SMRs aren’t what they are cracked up to be. As the IEEFA acts almost as a consultant to governments and energy companies over their energy plans and policies, they needed to figure out if the hype around SMRs was warranted. What they found was disappointing, to say the least.
Firstly, they found that SMRs are too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning from fossil fuels in the coming 10–15 years. You see, there are already a few SMR power plants in operation in Russia and China, and one is currently being built in Argentina. The Chinese SMR plant was meant to take 4 years to deploy, but it took 12! Likewise, the Russian SMR plant was meant to be operational after 3 years but took 13. The ongoing project in Argentina was originally meant to take only 4 years, but it has taken 13 years so far and isn’t finished yet. As the speed of deployment was one of the crucial ways SMRs reduced costs, these huge delays pushed costs up massively. This is reflected in Western SMR projects such as NuScale, which has yet to build its SMRs, but its projected construction costs have doubled over the years, and its estimated cost of energy has gone up by at least 52%. As such, NuScale’s reactors are set to cost the same, both in terms of construction and energy costs, as current standard nuclear reactors.
You might expect that as SMRs are developed, these costs will come down, and deployment time will decrease. However, the IEEFA found that the reactors will continue to cost far more and take much longer to build than promised for the foreseeable future. Basically, SMRs won’t be any better than current nuclear reactors for at least the next decade, if not the next two decades.
Their second finding is a little worrying. They found that the hype around SMRs and their false promises are taking resources away from more certain, already mature carbon-free and lower-cost renewable technologies such as solar, wind and geothermal.
As such, going forward, the IEEFA will advise Regulators, utilities, investors and government officials to embrace the reality that renewables, not SMRs, are the near-term solution to the energy transition as they are “still too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
But it’s not just IEEFA that has found flaws in SMRs. A few years ago, Dr. Krall analysed a tonne of papers, studies, and patents around SMRs to see if their promises align with scientific reality. He found that SMRs are so inefficient that they produce 5 times the nuclear waste of typical nuclear reactors! Needless to say, managing this waste will add extra costs, and ensuring we manage this extra volume of waste safely has other huge negative implications.
I am a massive advocate for nuclear power. If you look at the figures, it’s hard not to be. But right now, SMRs are not the answer to our climate and energy issues. They are too risky, too expensive, and too slow. We are already running out of time to decarbonise and save the planet. Once we have slowed climate change, we can develop and use SMRs. But for now, we should be doubling down on more developed technologies such as typical nuclear power, solar power, and wind power, and we should not waste our time and money on false promises.
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Sources: IEEFA, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, Will Lockett