this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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The masculine urge to nuclear project posting (slrpnk.net)
submitted 4 weeks ago by ecoenginefutures@slrpnk.net to c/memes@slrpnk.net
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[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 points 3 weeks ago

Is SMR a joke to everyone?

Yes, because it hasn't really been demonstrated to be particularly viable. You don't need tons of small reactors, that's way too much logistical and regulatory overhead for little capacity. And you need way more auxiliary infrastructure and personnel that way, driving up costs that exceed what you save by modularizing them.

In October 2023, an academic paper published in Energy collated the basic economic data of 19 more developed SMR designs, and modeled their costs in a consistent manner. A Monte Carlo simulation showed that none were profitable or economically competitive.

In 2024, Australian scientific research body CSIRO estimated that electricity produced in Australia by a SMR constructed from 2023 would cost roughly 2.5 times that produced by a traditional large nuclear plant, falling to about 1.6 times by 2030.