The federal government is in the process of wasting more than half a billion dollars to pay large, profitable companies for what should be their own expenses for research & development (R&D) and licensing related to “small modular reactors” (SMRs), which would be about a third of the size or less of today’s large nuclear reactors. In response, the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense today handed out its latest “Golden Fleece Award” to the Department of Energy for the dollars being wasted on SMRs.Titled “Taxpayer Subsidies for Small Modular Reactors,” a related TCS background report is available online here.
There is no assurance that electricity produced by an SMR would be competitive with otehr sources and there are no reliable cost estimates for SMRs. Traditional light water reactors are already seeing costs soar at the few construction sites around the world.