The CEO of NuScale (SMR.N) defended his small, modular nuclear reactor business on Tuesday, saying work continues in the U.S. and two other countries after the company canceled its first plant, set to be built at an American government lab, due to rising costs.
NuScale said last week it had agreed with a Utah municipal power group to cancel the six-reactor, 462-megawatt project, which was to have begun running at the U.S. Idaho National Laboratory by 2030.
The cancellation was a blow to U.S. ambitions for a wave of new nuclear energy to help fight climate change. NuScale’s design is a departure from older plants powered by one or more large reactors.
In 2020, the Department of Energy approved $1.35 billion over 10 years for the plant, known as the Carbon Free Power Project, subject to congressional appropriations. The department has provided NuScale and others about $600 million since 2014 to support commercialization of small reactor technologies
“I know from a financial perspective we have $200 million in the bank. That’s cash, no debt. So we have a healthy balance sheet,” John Hopkins, the CEO, said at an American Nuclear Society conference in Washington.
Hopkins said NuScale projects in Romania and South Korea continue to develop.
He also said a plan with service provider Standard Power to develop two gigawatts of nuclear power intended for data centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio was on track. Hopkins said a contract for that project would be completed, “if not this week, next.”
NuScale was the first U.S. company to secure regulatory approval for its design of a small, modular reactor. Backers say such projects can be built in remote locations and power heavy industries with emissions that have been traditionally difficult to abate.
Critics say small, modular reactors and other advanced reactor designs are too expensive to succeed.
“The termination of NuScale’s contract signals the broader challenges of developing nuclear energy in the United States,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Placing excessive reliance on untested technologies without adequate consideration of economic viability, practicality, and safety concerns is irresponsible and clearly won’t work.”
Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Jonathan Oatis
