3 ms·
Meanwhile, in Utah: > NuScale Power (SMR.N) said on Wednesday it has agreed with a power group in Utah to terminate the company's small modular reactor project
by Krasnol 3y ago
Meanwhile, in Utah:
> NuScale Power (SMR.N) said on Wednesday it has agreed with a power group in Utah to terminate the company's small modular reactor project, dealing a blow to U.S. ambitions for a wave of nuclear energy to fight climate change and sending NuScale's shares down 20%.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-agree-terminate-nuclear-project-2023-11-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nuscale-power-uamps-...
- Animats 3y agoTheir cost estimates kept going up, and they hadn't even started construction.
- lnsru 3y agoIt can’t go down with probably hundred levels of subcontractors. 80 of them are paid to manage their project plans and couple do actual job. I assume, that the real pay for the job done is a small fraction of the overall cost. Heck the solar panel 6 kW installation on the house near by took few weeks and there were 5 companies involved.
- outside1234 3y agoThis is one of those things where you want a lot of people looking at everything in duplicate because it is six orders of magnitude less expensive than the alternative.
- lnsru 3y agoI doubt anybody is really physically going to construction site more than needed by some obscure standard and checking anything.
- Krasnol 3y agoSo like with everything nuclear?
- bhhaskin 3y agoOnly way it makes sense is to do it all in house like SpaceX. But that is a tall order.
- cyberax 3y agoSMR never made any financial sense. They are far inferior to large-scale PWRs in almost all regards. The SMRs' _only_ advantage was the relative ease of construction. Only a handful of companies in the _world_ can construct reactor vessels for large-scale PWRs, and none of these companies are in the US. SMRs can be constructed domestically.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoRussia has a floating nuclear power stations in the Far East: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov I was surprised they even had that, but they do have nuclear powered ice breakers, so I guess it makes sense.
- cyberax 3y agoAkademic Lomonosov is a prestige project, it wouldn't be economical by itself. It makes sense as a portable power plant for emergencies, or for remote military/mining outposts where economics are different.