In the last two weeks this series has covered topics from definitions to permitting, fuel cycles and business models. (Links to all prior articles at the end of this post.)
My bias is pro enough generation to weather winter storms, which means I am in favor of anything that is a good fit for future energy production including wind, solar, storage, geothermal, and more. Nuclear in my personal opinion is an important part of that portfolio.
I have tried to stay as factual as possible. Trying not to bias these articles for or against SMRs.
The reality is not that SMR (or other generation) needs subsidies, rather they need permitting timelines, removal of duplicate and triplicate permits from different authorities, and litigation reform. It will be up to congress to make these changes. If they do not make permitting reforms, likely the country is headed for blackouts and weather-related deaths (whether we use nuclear or not).
I will let you draw your own conclusions on this opinion.
I have two more topics to tackle, one of infrastructure to support an SMR vs. Solar PV in a winter scenario, and one to look at lifetime total cost of ownership for solar plus storage vs. an SMR.
I return to travel today, and that means I cannot sustain a daily post. So it may be 2 or 3 weeks before I finish the writing and editing of these last two pieces. Again I am going to try to keep the industry jargon to a minimum so they are consumable, but please be aware, the depth of the models I am using are far more than the depth of the articles. These models are based on the ones that I use to make a living but rolled up to levels that can fit in 2400-character posts.
The original plan was to finish it all by today, but digging out all the permitting required (including from scanned images of permits from several agencies) took way longer than I expected.
I hope you have a better understanding of SMRs. Of, and I will be writing some later posts about some of what I think are more interesting and offer the best chance to be built. Thank you for reading.
SMR I - Announcement of Small Modular Reactor Series
SMR II - Major types of reactors
SMR III - Why is 300 megawatts the dividing line for SMR?