Nuclear power hucksters have lately been touting "small modular reactors" as the panacea of a dying industry. It is dying for a simple reason: nuclear power is uneconomic compared to other less potentially dangerous power sources. This reason did not stop the nuclear boosters from gathering in Brussels at a March 21st conference organized by the IAEA to cheerlead for nuclear power. Bankers, however, were much less exuberant.
Insiders know that SMR is, as the former CEO of NuScale at the forefront of SMR development called it, "a dead horse". He recently sold 59,768 shares of the company. NuScale is burning through $185 million per year developing its VOYGR project. Wells Fargo, hardly a progressive bank, declared investors to be "misguided". Motley Fool reported that VOYGR has no secure customers, and is not cost competitive.
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| not Fukushima, but San Onofre, CA |
The captured Nuclear Regulatory Commission was unable to approve another SMR project known as Aurora because the application for a license contained significant gaps in information about potential accidents and safety systems. It denied the application outright in January 2022, and a reapplication nine months later went nowhere. USAF cancelled its order for an Aurora unit destined for Eielson AFB in Alaska. Predicatably people with a financial interest in nuclear power are continuing to deny reality and sell nuclear power as the answerto Earth's climate crisis. [photo credit: Jelson25]
Of course nuclear supporters want and need ratepayers and taxpayers to foot the exorbitant bills associated with nuclear power development. Private capital is unwilling to finance the cost without subsidies. Depsite the reluctance of the private sector, the federal government appears to be willing to enslave US at the behest of nuclear interests. The House passed the ADVANCE act to encourage nuclear power development and do away with supposedly unneeded, burdensome regulations. Only 35 Democrats voted against passage. Making its way through the Senate is a forty-year extension of the Price-Anderson Act due to expire in 2025. The law limits liability of plant owners to just $16 million per reactor for accidents. This de-regulation push by industry is hardly consistent with claims that SMRs are "walkaway safe" and "meltdown-proof". Oh, the wonders of the techno-god! Sorry, we have heard this all before. Nuclear power is dying because its electricity is too expensive to safely build. Period.