From venture capitalists to news media to US energy secretaries, it may seem like everyone is unlocking the nuclear renaissance and promoting small modular reactors as key to solving both climate change and the fierce needs of electricity in modern data centers.
On Monday, the California Legislature’s Natural Resources Commission will consider a bill to abolish the long-standing moratorium on state nuclear power plants. The bill, which has been defeated multiple times in the past, will open up exceptions to the small modular reactor, or SMRS, the current dream of nuclear advocates.
The SMR is typically less than 300 megawatts compared to a total of 2.2 gigawatts from two operating reactors at Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo. These small nuclei have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, mainly because modern nuclear reactors are so expensive that the US and Europe have mostly stopped construction.
The sad truth is that small reactors are even more meaningless than big ones. And Trump’s tariffs only make mathematics even more discouraged.
I have been analyzing nuclear power since 1993 when I began my five-year stint at the Department of Energy as a special assistant to the Deputy Secretary. I helped oversee both the nuclear energy programme and the energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes that were run in 1997.
So I’m well aware that hype is built on top of quick sands. Specifically, it is a history of seven years of failure. A 2015 analysis concluded that “economics has killed small nuclear power plants in the past, and they will probably continue to do so.” A 2014 journal article concluded that much of the “support for building small modular reactors” proposed “rhetorical visions soaked in elements of fantasy.”
But is the nuclear renaissance underway? no. The Fogle Plant in Georgia is the only new nuclear power plant that the United States has begun to successfully build in recent decades. The total cost was $35 billion, or about $16 million per megawatt production capacity. This was far more than solar and wind with methane (natural gas) or battery storage.
So, Vogtle is “the most expensive power plant ever built on the planet,” with “surprisingly high” estimated power costs, Power Magazine says. Each Georgia fee payer has paid $1,000 to support the plant, and even bills are rising over $200 a year.
The high construction costs, and the resulting high energy bill explains why nuclear nuclear share peaked at 17% in the mid-1990s, but fell to 9.1% in 2024.
For decades, economies of scale have grown nuclear reactors to more than 1,000 megawatts. To abandon this logic, the idea that costs per megawatt will be reduced is a magical idea, contrary to technical validity, historical reality, and common sense.
Even a September report from the Federal Department of Energy, which funds SMR development, modeled costs per megawatt, which is more than 50% higher than large reactors. Therefore, there are only three operational SMRs. One will be in China, one will be in 300% cost overruns, and two will be in Russia, 400% overruns. In March, a Financial Times analysis was labelled “the most expensive energy source” for such a small nuclear reactor.
In fact, the first SMRs the US was trying to build was cancelled in 2023 after surged by Nuscale – over $20 million per megawatt in 2023. In 2024, Bill Gates told CBS that the total cost of a 375 megawatt sodium reactor was “nearly $10 billion,” costing nearly $30 million per megawatt.
All this goes against the background of historically inexpensive natural gas and the rapid expansion of renewable energy sources for power generation. All competition for nuclear power is important. A 2023 Columbia University report concluded that “if the cost of new nuclear power is ultimately much higher” is $6.2 million more than $6.2 million per megawatt. RIP
SMR is just one of several wildly exaggerated and false promises that by 2040 the world is poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars including hydrogen energy and direct air carbon capture.
However, nuclear power is an original, exaggerated energy technology. When he was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss (the character of Robert Downey Jr. in “Oppenheimer”) predicted in 1954 that our children would enjoy nuclear power “too expensive and weigh it.”
However, by the time I joined the Ministry of Energy in 1993, nuclear costs had steadily increased for decades. Since then, the prices of new reactors have continued to rise, and are now the most expensive power source. However, solar, wind and batteries continued to fall, and they were at the lowest. In fact, these three technologies constitute a notable 93% of the additional Utility-scale electrical generation capacity planned for 2025 in the US. The rest is natural gas.
China is the only country to build many new nuclear power plants in the next five years, about 35 gigawatts. Less than 1% of this projection capacity comes from small reactors, while over 95% come from reactors over 1,100 megawatts. Next, compare everything to the 350 gigawatt sun and wind power China built in 2024.
For the US, President Trump’s unstable tariffs make small modular reactors even more dangerous bets. If the US economy shrinks, there is also demand for new power plants. And the twin threat of inflation and higher interest rates increase the worse risk of overrunning construction costs.
China, Canada and other trading partners also provide the critical supply chain elements needed to mass-produce SMR. This technology is key to mass production in sales pitches, which it claims could be affordable. This logic applies only when almost all current SMR ventures have failed and are ultimately set to pursue mass production.
So, can we stop talking about small modular reactors as a solution to our power needs and go back to building actual solutions for wind, solar and batteries? They are cheaper and cleaner, and are actually modular.
Joseph Rom is the former deputy vice-secretary of energy and the author of Hyper Hypothesis on Hydrogen: False Promises and Real Solutions to Save the Climate.
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