Hopes of a US Nuclear Renaissance Sink With NuScale
The company, a bellwether for the move toward small modular reactors, has foundered on the most familiar of obstacles: time and money. But renewables didn’t do it any favors.
Stiff competition.
Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The hoped-for US nuclear renaissance is built on one organizing principle: Shrinking. And that’s exactly what’s happened to the company nominally leading the charge, NuScale Power Corp.
Big nuclear power projects have a habit of blowing through schedules and budgets, in large part because they are bespoke affairs built in the field. The average cost overrun worldwide is 120%, according to a recently published analysis by Bent Flyvberg, a Danish professor and expert on megaprojects. But with 60% of US grid power still coming from fossil fuels, and climate change bearing down on us, nuclear power’s zero-emissions energy is touted as a necessity.