So like, everyone and their mom is flipping out over these things called small modular reactors. Seriously, it’s like a buzzwordeater party from venture capitalists, media heads, and, for some bizarre reason, even the U.S. Secretary of Energy. They’re all putting SMRs up on this pedestal of hope — like some kind of nuclear knights here to save our power-hungry, climate-dying world. Spoiler: it ain’t that simple, folks.
Anyway, picture this: California’s Natural Resources Committee is about to chat about a bill that messes with an old rule. The rule? No new nuke plants until we figure out what the heck to do with all that glowing garbage they produce. This bill wants to give a free pass to SMRs — aka the current fantasy dream child of nuclear energy fans. These things are pint-sized compared to big hulking plants like Diablo Canyon. We’re talking about less than 300 megawatts of power versus Diablo’s whopping 2.2 gigawatts. The reactors might be smaller and all, but the hype is huge. Why? Because building big, fancy reactors is so expensive that everyone’s pumped the brakes on them.
Real talk though — tiny reactors make less sense than their gigantic siblings. Thanks, mostly, to Trump-era tariffs messing with the numbers. Bummer facts incoming: back in the ’90s, I was Swotting away on nuclear stuff at the Department of Energy. Yeah, I got into the nitty-gritty of energy programs — nuclear and renewable vibes — in the late ’90s. So yeah, I’ve seen the hype and it ain’t sturdy. It’s got this wacky 70-year-old trick of repeating… promising the moon and delivering a mud puddle.
You heard of Georgia’s Vogtle plant? It’s been crowned the most expensive power-making monster on the planet. Like, opening credits expensive. Cost $35 billion to build, no biggie. That’s about $16 million a megawatt — which is astronomically higher than slapping some solar panels and batteries together or firing up a natural gas plant. Residents of Georgia are already shelling out cash, like $1,000 each, for this pricey homewrecker before flicking the light switch.
As you’d guess, it’s stuff like this that made nuclear’s share of global power take a nosedive from 17% in the 1990s to just over 9% in 2024. Massive reactors sprouted back in the day because bigger meant cheaper power per megawatt. Straying from this hefty logic just to embrace SMRs is pie-in-the-sky thinking. SMRs seem promising only if everyone else fails and one or two champ out the mass production game. But even models from the federal Department of Energy show the expenses per megawatt could blast 50% higher than what you’d see with big guns.
Let’s not forget about our friends overseas: China and Russia have their own SMRs, and guess what? They’re way over budget too. The Big Tardis of Expensively-Doomed Endeavors! Meanwhile, natural gas is cheap and renewable energy is booming like some cosmic garden party. A recent cry from Columbia University weighed in during 2023, saying that if new nuclear costs leap over $6.2 million a megawatt, yeah, it’s gotta fade out of the U.S. energy picture.
So what else is ready to gobble up our wallets? Hydrogen and things like “direct air carbon capture” — promise breakers lining the horizon for potential dollar-spending fiascoes. Nuclear, the OG overhyped tech, has been teasing us since forever — remember when Lewis Strauss was like our future power is “too cheap to meter”? Ha!
Long story short: I’ve peered into the crystal ball at all these expensive nuclear machines getting pricier, while wind, solar, and batteries go “watch me lower this price tag.” In 2025, those three amigos will be 93% of new U.S. utility-scale electricity capacity. Who’s hanging around the rest of that pie chart slice? Good ol’ natural gas.
China’s running full throttle, planting nukes — 35 gigawatts worth thereabouts — all while outdoing itself, building 350 gigawatts of wind and solar in 2024 alone. Yet we’re over here in the U.S. worried about tariffs cramping the SMR style, with the economy’s ups and downs letting us know it’s probably not worth the hassle.
Can we give SMRs a rest already? Let’s rally behind real solutions that get us jazzed for a sustainable future. Bring it back to the basics with wind, solar, and batteries — cheaper, cleaner, and actually, dare I say, “modular”. C’mon, we can do this better, people.
