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Why are people betting on small modular reactors? Even given all the problems described. I don’t think it’s that policy officials are gullible to marketing. I
by oofbey 1y ago
Why are people betting on small modular reactors? Even given all the problems described. I don’t think it’s that policy officials are gullible to marketing.
I think the key reason is the promise of low price, high power, and fast deployment. PROMISE being the key word, because it should be obvious (not to the author) that you don’t get low prices on the first experimental units. You get them when you have factories efficiently building hundreds. And in this hopeful future, you can turn these things on much faster than setting up acreage of wind or solar plus supporting batteries. And do it in places where you don’t have natural supply of either.
It’s a bet that hasn’t proven itself yet. But given the severity of the crisis, I for one am glad somebody is taking it.
- ViewTrick1002 1y agoPeople aren’t betting on SMR. They want insanely large government handouts for a handsome profit.
- oofbey 1y agoThe bet is that the government handout for these early units turns into an easy source of carbon free energy in a decade or so.
- preisschild 1y agoNah, there is lots of private investment into advanced nuclear too See this for example https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/google-kairos-power-nuclear-energy-agreement/ https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/goog...
- jl6 1y ago> And do it in places where you don’t have natural supply of either. Exactly. Nobody’s investing in small nuclear to be competitive with absolute-cheapest grid-scale wind/solar/storage, the point is that there are a thousand and one niches all over the world where the density and (hopefully) reliability of nuclear makes it quite attractive.
- oofbey 1y agoWhich means you don’t need to build up transmission capacity. The article was factually wrong on that point. Put an SMR next to a data center or an aluminum factory and the power is used right there.
- potato3732842 1y agoNot needing transmission means you can leapfrog over a problematic jurisdictions that won't let you upgrade transmission capacity without a bunch of expensive concessions.
- potato3732842 1y ago>Why are people betting on small modular reactors? Because it's a bet on bad government(s) continuing to be bad. There is immense value to utilities in being able to just park SMRs on top of semi trailers beside all the infrastructure they already own and "get ahead" of onerous governments who would be all over something like a solar farm say nothing of a real large scale power generation station looking to extract their pounds of flesh. Being able to just "inject" base load power near where you need it on the grid saves nearly infinite money in otherwise necessary upgrades in transmission between the source and users of the power.
- HardwareLust 1y ago>Because it's a bet on bad government(s) continuing to be bad. Easy money.