NuScale isn't dead

In January last year, NuScale's contract with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems for the first SMR built in the US, was cancelled because of big cost overruns.  In 2015, the costs of the nuclear power station for UAMPS was estimated at $3 billion.  This was increased to $4.2 billion in 2018, $6.1 billion in 2020, and finally $9.3 billion in 2023, before being cancelled.  

The UAMPS project is no exception, and just adds one more data point to a long history of cost and time overruns for nuclear power projects. A 2014 academic study examined 180 nuclear power projects around the world and found 175 of them exceeded the initial budget by an average of 117% by the time they were completed. They also took, on average, 64% longer than projected.

More recent projects have fared worse. For example, the only reactor being constructed in France — the poster child for nuclear energy — is Flamanville 3 with an estimated cost of 13.2 billion euros (around $15 billion) — four times the forecast when construction started. The time anticipated has gone from 4.5 years initially to over 16 years.

These high costs translate to expensive electricity. In April 2023, Lazard, a financial firm, estimated that the unsubsidized levelized cost of electricity from new nuclear plants in the U.S. will be between $141 and $221 per megawatt hour. By comparison, a newly constructed utility-scale solar facility with some storage to provide power after the sun sets will produce power at an unsubsidized levelized cost of between $46 and $102 per megawatt hour, according to Lazard. Costs for these technologies have been trending in opposite directions: nuclear is going up whereas solar and batteries have become cheaper and are expected to decline further. (Source: Utility Dive)

When NuScale's project was cancelled, I thought that that was probably the end of SMRs (Small Modular Reactors).  This was a new technology and a new way of delivering nuclear power.  Without sales, how was NuScale to fund further research?

But it seems I was too pessimistic.  Even though NuScale lost that contract, it has won others.

It has a project on the go in Romania (pérmitting stage).

An announced six units for Polish mining giant KGHM

Has been in talks with Ukraine, and has signed a memorandum of understanding.

Has an agreement with Ghana to build a NuScale plant

(However, the last two may not survive the Trump régime, since they were being subsidised by Biden's 'IRA' legislation.)

I still have serious doubts about SMRs.  The logic behind their introduction is that they can avoid big-project bloat by commoditising the manufacture of nuclear reactors.  Make them small, and build lots of them so you can get economies of scale.  That way, unlike with the giant nuclear projects which have been so expensive and so delayed, you have control.  You don't, for example, have huge cost overruns on wind or solar farms, because you can buy each unit "off the shelf".   But that requires mass production, and we're still a long way from that.  All the same, NuScale has survived.  As I've said before, if nuclear proves necessary to stop the climate catastrophe, then I will support it.  Through gritted teeth.