With a few SMR projects built and operational at this point, and more plants under development, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes in a report that SMRs are “still too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky to play a significant role in transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Big overruns in budget and time for first 4 plants currently under construction, but the analysis double dips regarding “risk” as they are again talking about financial risk to investors, not risk of meltdown or other disaster.
Investment risk is a category of risk. How’s that “double-dipping?”
The investment risk is directly related to cost overruns and delays, which are already stated.
On the other hand, a major point of these projects is how they significantly reduce the risk to humans and the environment compared to other nuclear plants, so I don’t think I’m alone in expecting the “risk” in the headline was referring to some rebuttal of their claims, but that is not the case.