“New” Nuclear Flagship Stumbles. Badly. | Climate Denial Crock of the Week (climatecrocks.com)
.November 9, 2023
 I’ll be posting more on some of the real and supposed growing pains of clean energy in coming hours and days, but remember, the Covid-amped increased prices for steel, copper, labor, and interest that have hit, for instance, offshore wind, have clobbered the already shaky economics of Small Modular Reactors.
I don’t think this is the end of the Small Modular Reactor industry, there are still a lot of players, and a lot of investors that want this to happen.
But what I do say is that building nuclear plants has always been technically challenging and financially precarious. Anyone that ignores that, or ascribes nuclear difficulties to hippie protesters or pesky regulators, does not understand the issue.
We need to accelerate solar and wind right now, since that is what we have, and if someone can eventually build new nuclear that works, that is safe, does not threaten more nuclear proliferation, and competes economically, great. But assuming nuclear will save the climate at this point is pretty naive.
Nuscale, the furthest along of any SMR companies, announced the failure of their flagship project yesterday.
 Nuscale:
Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale) (NYSE: SMR) announced today that they have mutually agreed to terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP).
Despite significant efforts by both parties to advance the CFPP, it appears unlikely that the project will have enough subscription to continue toward deployment. Therefore, UAMPS and NuScale have mutually determined that ending the project is the most prudent decision for both parties.
“Through our work with UAMPS and our partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, we have advanced our NuScale Power Modules™ to the point that utilities, governments and industrials can rely on a proven small modular reactor (SMR) technology that has regulatory approval and is in active production. Our work with CFPP over the past ten years has advanced NuScale technology to the stage of commercial deployment; reaching that milestone is a tremendous success which we will continue to build on with future customers,” said NuScale President and Chief Executive Officer John Hopkins. “NuScale will continue with our other domestic and international customers to bring our American SMR technology to market and grow the U.S. nuclear manufacturing base, creating jobs across the U.S. We thank UAMPS for the collaboration that has enabled this advancement.”
“This decision is very disappointing given the years of pioneering hard work put into the CFPP by UAMPS, CFPP LLC, NuScale, U.S. Department of Energy, and the UAMPS member communities that took the leadership role to launch the CFPP,” said UAMPS Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Mason Baker. “Yet, this decision is the best course for the UAMPS members participating in the CFPP and doing what is best for those member communities will always be the guiding light in such decisions. We have learned many invaluable lessons during the development of the CFPP that we will carry forward in future development work to meet the future energy needs of the UAMPS member communities. We look forward to continuing to provide innovative and cost-effective new resource solutions to our members, and, at the same time, we hope NuScale is successful in deploying its technology.”
Baker concluded, “We are working closely with NuScale and the U.S. Department of Energy on next steps to wind the project down.”
Decarbonization news outlet Recharge News had this to say:
NuScale in January set a new target price for power from CFPP at $89/MWh, an increase of more than 50% on previous estimates. It noted then that the upward revision “has been influenced by external factors such as inflationary pressures and increases in the price of steel, electrical equipment and other construction commodities not seen for more than 40 years”.
The cancellation is a setback for hopes in the nuclear industry that SMRs – also known as ‘mini-nuclear’ technology – can play a pivotal role in the energy transition by supplying carbon-free power from plants that are easier, quicker and cheaper to build than the multi-gigawatt mega-power stations seen previously in the sector. |
