From CFACT

By Duggan Flanakin

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are more than 90 different designs for small modular (nuclear) reactors (SMRs). Power expert Robert Bryce, who has just launched SMR Intelligence US, says that 42 companies in the U.S. alone are working to develop and commercialize their SMR designs – and that’s too many.

Michael Barnard, chief strategist at The Future Is Electric (TIFE) Strategy, blames federal SMR policy for allowing a Wild West competition for the future of electric power generation in America. The plethora of designs is not in itself an issue, but the glut of options makes for difficult choices as to which designs are most likely to bring a return on investment.

Barnard says the original SMR case rested on the premise of making reactors smaller so they can be built in factories and assembled at multiple sites. Only by limiting the variety of SMRs, he says, can construction schedules be shortened and investments made more secure.

Today, all functioning nuclear reactors in the U.S. are either pressurized water reactors or boiling water reactors. France, South Korea, and China limited reactor designs through alignment among government policy, utilities, vendors, regulators, finance, and workforce.

SMRs, Barnard contends, only make economic sense if the sector converges on a few designs and builds them many times. Only through repeated production of similar products – with stable tooling, stable suppliers, stable inspections, stable quality assurance, stable training, and steady demand – can a product be improved over time.

Instead, he laments, we have a myriad of very different reactor designs, each with a safety case, a fuel qualification pathway, licensing work, site work, security, emergency planning, operator training, waste arrangements, and decades of liability.

Prospective SMR manufacturers each require engineering, regulatory, fuel-cycle, owner, and supply-chain attention – and there are large design differences between light-water SMRs, high-temperature gas reactors, sodium fast reactors, molten-salt reactors, and even microreactors.

Barnard notes that nuclear has large, fixed costs that do not shrink in proportion to reactor size. Though some hardware costs scale down, institutional costs do not – not unless federal regulators approve designs that can be deployed at multiple sites without further design approval, leaving site-specific items as the primary regulatory concern.

Americans, Barnard says, blissfully treat the fragmented SMR sector as if it were already a deployable answer to the nation’s energy needs. This has led to the false conclusion that aspiration, option value, and industrial strategy alone signify deployment readiness.

Barnard fails to note that federal policy is already being used in SMR development. The Department of Energy (DOE) has picked ten companies to help unlock private funding and accelerate SMR and advanced reactor projects: Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear Inc., Atomic Alchemy Inc., Deep Fission Inc., Last Energy Inc., Oklo Inc., Natura Resources LLC, Radiant Industries Inc., Terrestrial Energy Inc., and Valar Atomics Inc.

NuScale Power, which in 2023 relied on 10 CFR Part 52 to secure the first SMR design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is not on that list. Part 52 is a one-step licensing framework that resolves all major safety, design, and operational issues before construction begins. Without NRC design approval, no SMR can deliver power to the grid.

Heretofore, all commercially owned nuclear power plants and research/test reactors in the U.S. were licensed under 10 CFR Part 50, a cumbersome process that effectively halted U.S. nuclear expansion for decades. Vogtle Units 3 and 4 were licensed under Part 52 but still required decades to complete.

First introduced in 2019, 10 CFR Part 53, which establishes a risk-informed, technology-inclusive, and performance-based licensing framework for advanced and non-light-water nuclear reactors, was approved in April. The NRC believes design reviews under Part 53 can be completed within 18 months – potentially halving application costs and enabling mass production of approved SMR and microreactor designs.

Barnard’s critique assumes funding for SMR development will be scarce. But money these days seems easy to come by, with giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Amazon, Meta, and billionaires like Bill Gates (whose business models are wholly reliant on uninterruptible electric power) all throwing money toward SMRs.

The race, as it were, is on.

With so much money out there, startups have to convince investors that their designs are workable, affordable, and scalable. The market, not bumbling bureaucrats, is quite capable of deciding who will emerge as winners in the SMR race.

The same is true for HALEU fuel, for which the U.S. has long been dependent on foreign sources. The DOE issued four HALEU contracts in 2024, and last year Centrus Energy delivered the first 900 kilograms of HALEU. The DOE’s HALEU program expects to secure a domestic HALEU supply chain by 2028 – when a waiver allowing purchases from Russia expires.

Barnard’s critique appears consistent with complaints that the Trump Administration is “gutting the NRC” or that the NRC is “losing its independence.” But it was those “independent” careerists who stifled nuclear energy in the U.S. for half a century with over-restrictive, time- and money-consuming requirements many believe were designed to ensure that nuclear would fade away.

Oklo spokesperson Bonita Chester pooh-poohed Barnard’s imaginations about reactor proliferation, stating that her firm “is not trying to sell one-off reactors to utilities and hoping the supply chain appears later.”

Instead, Oklo is “developing a repeatable fast fission power plant based on decades of fast reactor experience, a build-own-operate model, integrating fuel fabrication and recycling, and focusing on customers and sites where firm, clean power has high value.”

Chester says Oklo is one of many companies working to create the conditions nuclear needs to scale – repeatable designs, fuel supply, licensing progress, customer demand, qualified suppliers, and disciplined project execution.

Barnard is right that nuclear works best when scaled through strong institutions, standardization, experienced operators, capable regulators, and repeated construction, not through isolated science projects. But he fails to realize that many of today’s well-funded SMR startups are capable of meeting that challenge.

May the best designs win.

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Duggan Flanakin

Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. A former Senior Fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mr. Flanakin authored definitive works on the creation of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and on environmental education in Texas. A brief history of his multifaceted career appears in his book, “Infinite Galaxies: Poems from the Dugout.”