IAEA Triples Nuclear Power Forecast as Small Reactors Finally Take Off
Macron Calls for Another Emergency Oil Release as Europe Loses Supply Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… After years of delays and plateaued development timelines, it might finally be time for the small nuclear revolution.
In abrand new report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again increased its long-term nuclear power forecast, projecting that the world’s nuclear power generation capacity will fully triple by 2060.
The Agency expects a whole lot of that increased capacity to come from a strong wave of small modular nuclear reactors connecting to power grids around the world, at long last.
For years, small modular reactors (SMRs) have been touted as a game-changer for clean energy, with the potential to offer round-the-clock, emissions-free electricity at a fraction of the up-front cost of traditional nuclear power plants.
Typically, nuclear power plants are huge, bespoke operations with enormous up-front costs and long timelines for approval, construction, and connection.
By contrast, SMRs would be factory-made and mass-produced to the same specifications, and then set up on-site.
A bigger site would use more of them, and a smaller one would use less.
But these visions have beenslow to materializethanks to regulatory hurdles, funding gaps, and nuclear fuel supply chain issues, among other snags.
The primary issue is that while these models are cheaper than traditional nuclear energy,that doesn’t mean that they’re cheap.
While the nascent technology will likely continue to get cheaper over time, it is not yet genuinely competitive with other clean alternatives like large-scale hydropower and offshore wind projects.
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“A key argument from SMR proponents is that the new reactors will be economically competitive,”saysDavid Schlissel, IEEFA director of resource planning analysis.
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