With a few SMR projects built and operational at this point, and more plants under development, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes in a report that SMRs are “still too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Return on investment is still heavily in favor of solar or wind generation with battery or hydro storage for low generation periods.
Yes, and SMR tech is not mature enough to be considered useful, BUT if it can overcome that hurdle, it has the potential for applications that need exceptionally high availability, like data centers targeting five 9s availability.
Energy costs aren’t always the only consideration
We can’t scale battery storage or hydro storage to the capacity we need to go carbon free
Be that as it may, nuclear is not the answer either.
