5 ms·

A lot of people are betting serious money that they will cheaper, more flexible, faster to build, and safer. Including me - I'm working in the industry, and I t

A lot of people are betting serious money that they will cheaper, more flexible, faster to build, and safer. Including me - I'm working in the industry, and I think they might very well be future backbone of energy production. But there's a real possibility when all this shakes out that SMR's only advantage will be their flexibility. And that might be enough. A major issue with gigawatt scale nuclear is that it's frankly too big for most markets. Only very large electric markets can can easily digest a new always-on 1000 megawatts of electricity, and you need to be building multiple plants at a time for this all to be economical. That's why the nuclear power rollout of the 60s through 80s worked, and why China and to a lesser extent India's nuclear industry is thriving presently. With an SMRs smaller scale, there are just way more available projects where nuclear is feasible, and so a more consistent workload can keep everyone employed and subcontractor's backlogs filled. The flexibility in scaling lets you reclaim the benefits of having an experienced workforce and that knows how to build nuclear power plants, something we lost in the west when we stopped building them.

fulafel 20d ago
What % of global electricity production is in too small markets? Seems to be working well in EU at least, markets and grids being multinational. I'd guess many places in Africa could be potential markets that have underdeveloped grids but growing economies and populations. Hence the SMR industry in South Africa since the 90s I guess.
- DanTheManPR 20d ago
  We're looking specifically at new power plant builds. The majority of that is in Asia, with China and India being the bulk of it. But there is a lot of Asia outside of those two, and in particular Southeast Asia has a lot of potential. There is a lot of long distance transmission line connectivity already, and more planned, but you still want to product power close to where it's used so as to avoid losses in transmission. And the finances for a smaller country are just more straightforward if you're not spending multiple billions of dollars on one giant plant. The next big market is actually replacement plants in the USA and Europe. Electricity generation may have peaked there, but much of the generating capacity is decades old and needs replacement. There are a lot of smaller facilities that are not gigawatt-scale that need to shut down, and it's easier to plug that gap with SMRs. South and Central America are small markets, but they won't be ignored. There is a lot of complexity here with the inter-national hydro projects and broken up grids, so I'm sure some countries will look into SMRs. Africa unfortunately just doesn't factor in except as a long-term possibility for growth. It's only 3% of electricity generation now, and its share will probably fall as Asia electrifies. This is all worst-case scenario where SMRs are less financially competitive than current gigawatt-scale designs. If SMRs do actually succeed in being cheap assembly-line reactors, then all bets are off and the industry will experience explosive growth.
- hocuspocus 20d ago
  Even in Europe you can't necessarily bring online a 1200+ MW plant just anywhere, especially in the recent market where some PV production is curtailed in summer and brings the spot rates to zero. In theory we should start investing in synthetic fuel production, but it's been mostly vaporware so far.
inglor_cz 20d ago
Big reactors also need a lot of cooling, and we've just had a very dry summer in Europe which forced some nuclear power stations to dial down or shut down entirely.
ViewTrick1002 20d ago
The problem is that you can’t assume ”always on” anymore. Why should consumers choose expensive nuclear powered electricity when cheap renewables, or stored renewables are available? They don’t and now capacity factors crater. Leading to what was once seen as ”baseload” plants being forced to become peakers. And running a nuclear plant with those fixed costs as a peaker/firming becomes stupidly expensive per MWh produced. See this Australian ”baseload” coal plant forced into a peaker role or be decommissioned. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant-in-extraordinary-survival-experiment/104461504 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant...
- UltraSane 20d ago
  Baseload is simply the lowest wattage your grid demands in a time period. Solar and wind have not made it irrelevant at all. All of the demand from data centers very much assumes constant reliable power which is in fact a perfect match for nuclear.
  - ViewTrick1002 20d ago
    Why should your data center buy multiples more expensive nuclear powered electricity when renewables or stored renewables are available? They won’t. And even if they sign a PPA the renewable arbitrage they could do exerts large downward pressure on the price they are willing to pay. Which is to say, they would want to sign a contract saying ”deliver cheap reliable electricity when renewables and storage doesn’t do it”. And now you are trying to fit an extremely CAPEX heavy square into a round OPEX sized firming hole.
  - dalyons 20d ago
    it is not at all a perfect match for nuclear. Solar produces incredibly cheap power for the daytime hours, pushing the nuclear off the grid (why would a data center buy expensive nuke power in the hours when cheap renewables are available?). Nuclear needs to be running and selling power at its high price 24/7 for it to be even close to economically viable. Only supplying power that people want(due to its high price) during the night is fatal to nuclear. Thats what OP means by baseload generation being irrelevant.

fulafel 20d ago

What % of global electricity production is in too small markets? Seems to be working well in EU at least, markets and grids being multinational. I'd guess many places in Africa could be potential markets that have underdeveloped grids but growing economies and populations. Hence the SMR industry in South Africa since the 90s I guess.

DanTheManPR 20d ago
We're looking specifically at new power plant builds. The majority of that is in Asia, with China and India being the bulk of it. But there is a lot of Asia outside of those two, and in particular Southeast Asia has a lot of potential. There is a lot of long distance transmission line connectivity already, and more planned, but you still want to product power close to where it's used so as to avoid losses in transmission. And the finances for a smaller country are just more straightforward if you're not spending multiple billions of dollars on one giant plant. The next big market is actually replacement plants in the USA and Europe. Electricity generation may have peaked there, but much of the generating capacity is decades old and needs replacement. There are a lot of smaller facilities that are not gigawatt-scale that need to shut down, and it's easier to plug that gap with SMRs. South and Central America are small markets, but they won't be ignored. There is a lot of complexity here with the inter-national hydro projects and broken up grids, so I'm sure some countries will look into SMRs. Africa unfortunately just doesn't factor in except as a long-term possibility for growth. It's only 3% of electricity generation now, and its share will probably fall as Asia electrifies. This is all worst-case scenario where SMRs are less financially competitive than current gigawatt-scale designs. If SMRs do actually succeed in being cheap assembly-line reactors, then all bets are off and the industry will experience explosive growth.
hocuspocus 20d ago
Even in Europe you can't necessarily bring online a 1200+ MW plant just anywhere, especially in the recent market where some PV production is curtailed in summer and brings the spot rates to zero. In theory we should start investing in synthetic fuel production, but it's been mostly vaporware so far.

inglor_cz 20d ago

Big reactors also need a lot of cooling, and we've just had a very dry summer in Europe which forced some nuclear power stations to dial down or shut down entirely.

ViewTrick1002 20d ago

The problem is that you can’t assume ”always on” anymore. Why should consumers choose expensive nuclear powered electricity when cheap renewables, or stored renewables are available? They don’t and now capacity factors crater. Leading to what was once seen as ”baseload” plants being forced to become peakers. And running a nuclear plant with those fixed costs as a peaker/firming becomes stupidly expensive per MWh produced. See this Australian ”baseload” coal plant forced into a peaker role or be decommissioned. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant-in-extraordinary-survival-experiment/104461504 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant...

UltraSane 20d ago
Baseload is simply the lowest wattage your grid demands in a time period. Solar and wind have not made it irrelevant at all. All of the demand from data centers very much assumes constant reliable power which is in fact a perfect match for nuclear.
- ViewTrick1002 20d ago
  Why should your data center buy multiples more expensive nuclear powered electricity when renewables or stored renewables are available? They won’t. And even if they sign a PPA the renewable arbitrage they could do exerts large downward pressure on the price they are willing to pay. Which is to say, they would want to sign a contract saying ”deliver cheap reliable electricity when renewables and storage doesn’t do it”. And now you are trying to fit an extremely CAPEX heavy square into a round OPEX sized firming hole.
- dalyons 20d ago
  it is not at all a perfect match for nuclear. Solar produces incredibly cheap power for the daytime hours, pushing the nuclear off the grid (why would a data center buy expensive nuke power in the hours when cheap renewables are available?). Nuclear needs to be running and selling power at its high price 24/7 for it to be even close to economically viable. Only supplying power that people want(due to its high price) during the night is fatal to nuclear. Thats what OP means by baseload generation being irrelevant.