With some fanfare, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) board last week announced a decision to increase the funding for developing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) at the TVA’s Clinch River, to $350 million. (Small potatoes compared to $113 billion to Ukraine as of September 2023.)
Small modular reactors have their place, but they are no substitute for big reactors. For no good reason, out of the 253 nuclear reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, some 48%were canceled, and 11% were prematurely shut down. Today, some of them could be reopened and cranking out 20-30 GWh/year at an affordable price to industry and the public, before the first SMR puts out a single watt.
