https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power is the epitomy of scams in US/western nuclear and political corruption. SMRs are a new scam because larger units are unbankable and proven failures. The science for a theoretical on budget process makes SMRs more costly, even though the on budget time/costs of nuclear is not economic to begin with anymore.
NuScale SMR is about combining up to 12 77mwe reactors for your totals. It is up to budgets of $20/watt with variable costs of $120/mwh with still a handful of years to go before first completion. Vogtle spent a decade with a 3 year completion target, and budget doubled during that decade. They ended with $17/watt construction costs. SMRs also cheat on build costs by requiring ultra enriched (expensive/scary plutonium equivalent) fuel that is scarce without new build of military focused breeder/traditional reactors to provide adequate supply.
thanks for the detailed analysis!
i’m curious though, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor#List_of_reactor_designs says the design with the largest output is just 940 MWe and the second-largest output 600 MWe, are you sure they should be at least 1 GWe or am i reading something wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuScale_Power is the epitomy of scams in US/western nuclear and political corruption. SMRs are a new scam because larger units are unbankable and proven failures. The science for a theoretical on budget process makes SMRs more costly, even though the on budget time/costs of nuclear is not economic to begin with anymore.
NuScale SMR is about combining up to 12 77mwe reactors for your totals. It is up to budgets of $20/watt with variable costs of $120/mwh with still a handful of years to go before first completion. Vogtle spent a decade with a 3 year completion target, and budget doubled during that decade. They ended with $17/watt construction costs. SMRs also cheat on build costs by requiring ultra enriched (expensive/scary plutonium equivalent) fuel that is scarce without new build of military focused breeder/traditional reactors to provide adequate supply.