REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
Imagine a revolutionary new coffee machine – one that can get twice as much coffee from the same amount of beans. This machine would make coffee cheaper to make at home and buy at shops like Dunkin’ and Starbucks. This coffee machine starts to get buy-in from major companies in the coffee business, like Keurig and Nespresso, and is projected to be launched in Summer 2025. Halfway through the spring, it’s announced that, due to delays, it will now be launched in Winter 2027. After another delay, it’s announced that the project is now expected by 2030. Keurig and Nespresso, in response, withdraw from the project, further delaying it until 2035. After 10 years of delays, would you still invest in this machine? Probably not, so why are we investing in an energy technology that’s built on the same promises?
Small modular reactors (SMRs), unlike the coffee machine, are a real technology that promise to make nuclear energy cheaper and more accessible. In theory, their smaller size allows them to be deployed more quickly and in a variety of settings, an advantage over solar panels, wind turbines, and tidal energy, which have location restrictions. Some of these reactor designs can reprocess spent fuel (known as a “closed fuel cycle”) to extract more energy than traditional reactors can from the same amount of fuel. As such, many have hailed these nuclear reactors as the key to addressing the climate crisis, as they seem to resolve a lot of the current problems that have plagued nuclear power thus far.
On an international level, France and India have announced plans to begin constructing SMRs together, praising the energy source for its potential to enable the transition to a low-carbon future. India is also expected to work with U.S. firms to enhance investment in the technology. Similarly, Trump’s pick for energy secretary, Chris Wright, served on the board of Oklo Inc., a company that focuses on advanced nuclear technology, and is pushing for investments in nuclear energy (alongside fossil fuels). As the Trump administration ditches renewables for fossil fuels and nuclear energy, some, including Wright, have said that now is the time for the nuclear renaissance.
Unfortunately, however, it seems increasingly likely that these reactors will fail to live up to their promise. Talks of deploying small modular reactors have been ongoing for over a decade, and while around a hundred designs exist, only two reactors have been deployed–one in China and one in Russia. In the U.S., while private companies and the federal government have invested billions into their development, projects have faced delays and cancellations. Long construction times, issues with quality control, and disproportionately high energy costs (for producers and consumers alike) have led many to conclude that the energy source is a false promise. Recognizing this failure, many of the largest energy companies, such as Babcock & Wilcox and Westinghouse have withdrawn their investments, leaving many other investors hesitant to put any of their assets in the nuclear cause. While the potential of these models is exciting in theory, investors would much rather hedge their bets on just about anything else.
To make matters worse, small modular reactors come with an additional catch: they risk enabling the proliferation of nuclear weapons. SMRs are a dual-use technology; after reactors have extracted energy from the fuel rods (the real-life equivalent of the coffee beans from earlier), they’re left with weapons-grade plutonium in the nuclear waste that could be used to create a potent nuclear weapon. This risk is particularly acute for reactors that reprocess for more energy, as the leftover waste is more potent and more viable for a nuclear weapon. This presents a particular challenge, as in order for the touted benefits of SMRs to materialize, they need to distinguish themselves from the nuclear reactors we have now. As such, these new designs have to be more efficient and take advantage of their versatility, which means a lot of smaller reactors capable of reprocessing. More fissile material (in quantity and quality) coming out of more reactors makes it difficult to effectively monitor where all the waste goes. To complicate things, monitoring is already a problem, as it’s difficult to accurately measure nuclear material as it’s being transported from the facility to a waste disposal unit. The ease of diverting material could provide a pathway for states that have long had nuclear ambitions, such as Iran (who is also in a proxy war against a nuclear-armed adversary), or opportunistic non-state actors (such as domestic extremists or terrorist groups like ISIS) to finally get their hands on a nuclear weapon.
Unfortunately for proponents, it’s unlikely that the U.S. will be able to control or monitor the spread of this technology. The U.S. cannot set the standards for SMRs when it continues to lag behind Russia and China in production. Even then, why would countries already in China’s global infrastructure program, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, choose to get nuclear reactor designs from the U.S. further down the line when they can get nuclear reactors from China now? Chinese energy technology is likely more interoperable—able to work with pre-existing infrastructure—than U.S. designs, further restricting the U.S.’ potential market share. Even our closest allies wouldn’t want U.S. models, as some of them, including Germany and Japan, have given up on nuclear energy altogether. Given this hesitation and the long delays, SMRs would either fail to be deployed at a sufficient scale to resolve climate change, or would be completed hastily, which increases the risk of state or non-state actors acquiring a nuclear weapon.
While some may argue that any investment in renewable energy is a net positive in the fight against climate change, investing in nuclear energy hamstrings the response of future administrations. Investing in nuclear power creates a dangerous moral licensing, wherein future leaders may feel less incentivized to invest in other, effective renewable energy sources because they feel that they already have it covered with nuclear power. Historically, because of the way subsidies are distributed under the Clean Power Plan, nuclear energy actively stifles the development of other energies. In an effort to make nuclear power prices competitive, the U.S. government subsidizes it, which actively siphons those subsidies away from solar, wind, and tidal energy. As solar energy becomes the cheapest option available, subsidies to expand its gap or aid its clean partners could enhance renewable energy’s grip on the market. Absent these subsidies, however, fossil fuels may retain their foothold in the market for the foreseeable future. Given the existential threat at stake, the risk that this poses for the climate response cannot be overstated.
While advocates of SMRs are right that renewable energy needs to be adopted swiftly, trying to haphazardly rush out these reactors to deploy around the world risks trading one crisis for another, enabling a new era of nuclear proliferation. Similarly, if the Trump administration wants to keep its promise of low energy prices, their best bet is to stop investing in the nuclear power industry and let solar and wind energy take the reins. Like the hypothetical coffee machine, the benefits of SMRs will remain a nice thought, but nothing more than that. As climate change beckons at our doorstep, we can’t afford to invest in a false promise—it’s time to ditch SMRs.