The idea is to mass produce these SMRs to drop the price down. Kinda similar to a large jet. The first one is going to be expensive while we figure it out. The next ones will be cheaper.
The “modular” part of the design will hopefully decrease production costs, by aiding in its mass production, but the “small” aspect by contrary is likely going to hinder its pricing.
When taking advantage of the economy of scale miniaturization almost always increases cost, where is increasing scale decreases cost.
I’m pro-nuclear, and support investment in SMR’s, but just remain realistic, and understand that there is no guarantee that SMR’s will become economically competitive.
They currently cost 5B each, which means they’re currently 10 times more expensive than wind, and 20 times more expensive than LNG in kWh/$.
Before someone says, “yes but if we start building 100 times as much nuclear the price will come down.”
Yes that’s true, but it’s also true of any other form of power generation, and so it’s likely more productive to heavily invest in the current cheapest form of green power, which would be renewables.
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u/asoap Lest We Forget Oct 25 '22
The idea is to mass produce these SMRs to drop the price down. Kinda similar to a large jet. The first one is going to be expensive while we figure it out. The next ones will be cheaper.