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Britain's first small modular reactors to be built in Wales [but power unlikely before mid-2030s]
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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I understand the economic logic behind the SMR concept (production economies of scale from modularity), but the whole SMR concept is starting to remind me of cold fusion.
Concept seems to have been invented in 2007 as per Wikipedia, but as of 2024 the only known example is in China (why aren't they scaling it?). The floating nuclear power planet example from russia seems to be a different thing, but I am no expert in these matters, so happy to be corrected.
Additionally many project seem to have either unrealistically close target dates or sometime long term dates (that are subject to change by definition).
Bizarre comparison. SMRs are classic fission reactors just in a different format. Cold Fusion was just bullshit.
Ontario is finishing up installation:
https://www.opg.com/projects-services/projects/nuclear/smr/darlington-smr/
The issue is R&D on facilities like this take years for safety, then clients need to sign up to commit $7B. Ontario is going to scale to 4 reactors at $20B total, still much less than classic reactor designs, and they can be maintained easier and cheaper.
Your link shows that they are nowhere near finishing production on their first SMR reactor, much less starting the other 3. They vaguely point to the first one being done by "the end of 2030."
Thats 5 years away, at best.
$20.9B is their estimate, not 20B. That stll seems high for the 1.2MW total output at all 4 plants listed in your artice. The Georgia Vogtle plants, the most recently built nuclear plants in the US, are each 1.2MW. They had drastic delays and cost overuns, but were still about $17B each. Is SMR somehow more expensive than older reactors per watt?
Even that $21B might be low. They hope it costs $21B total, and they hope it can be maintained easier and cheaper. Most nuclear projects vastly overun their cost estimates, and while SMRs are nominally supposed to be designed to mitigate that, this is the first production one ever built.
Lastly, Ontario is a huge oil and gas producer and has come out hard against solar/wind energy usage. They have pushed nuclear as the only viable green path for power generation. These SMR plants are being stood up partially as a way to justify blocking solar farms and wind turbines, which can undermine Oil and gas interests with inexpensive, proven technologies. Realize ontario's goverments marketing/estimates/etc are based on politcal goals, not neutral assesments of the technologies viabiltiy.
I personally hope they succeed, but so far every SMR project has been overloaded with hype thats manically used to cover up repeated failures. When they get their plant online and working safely at the projected cost, then we will have another great renewable energy source at hand. Until then, its hype and hype alone.
Of course it is. Same fixed costs (e.g. safety, security) for less output. Economics of scale work against it, not for it, the same way one bus for 50 people is cheaper than 50 cars.
The whole pitch of SMR is modular reactors that can be mostly prefabbed offsite and just lego blocked into a power plant quickly.
So far, yeah we are seeing the same exact issue as normal nuclear, i.e. so complex with such high stakes if they fault, the build times and costs over run 3-5x for each of them.
SMR feels like the "clean coal" of nuclear. Ontario is absolutly treating it as greenwashing to prevent solar/wind when we know these are both cheap and easy techs that have great output, no safety issues, and almost no maintance costs, even when coupled with batteries. They really should be working to develop real SMR while pushing 100% ahead with relaible renewabale power, but yeah. Here we are.
Sorry, my mistake, I meant fusion, not cold fusion.
I was pointing out that the hype around SMRs doesn't seem to match reality. Lot's of VC-style investments and press releases. Very little "SMR were responsible for x GW power output and y total GWh in a given year.