Small nuclear reactors could power the future — the challenge is building the first one in the U.S.
Nuclear plants could become smaller, simpler and easier to build in the future, potentially revolutionizing a power source that is increasingly viewed as critical to the transition away from fossil fuels.
New designs called small modular reactors, or SMR in shorthand, promise to speed deployment of new plants as demand for clean electricity is rising from artificial intelligence, manufacturing and electric vehicles.
At the same time, utilities across the country are retiring coal plants as part of the energy transition, raising worries about a looming electricity supply gap. Nuclear power is viewed as a potential solution because it is the most reliable power source available and does not emit carbon dioxide.
Building large plants is very costly and time-consuming. In Georgia, Southern Co. built the first new nuclear reactors in decades, but the project finished seven years behind schedule at a cost of more than $30 billion.
Small modular reactors, with a power capacity of 300 megawatts or less, are about a third the size of the average reactors in the current U.S. fleet. The goal is to build them in a process similar to an assembly line, with plants rolling out of factories in just a handful of pieces that are then put together at the site.
“They’re a smaller bite from a capital perspective,” Doug True, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, told CNBC. “They’re a perfect fit for things like replacing a retired coal plant, because the size of coal plants typically is more than that of the small modular reactor design space.”
The challenge is getting the first small modular reactor built in the U.S.
Only three SMRs are operational in the world, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency. Two are in China and Russia, the central geopolitical adversaries of the U.S. A test reactor is also operational in Japan.
Executives in the nuclear industry generally agree that small modular reactors won’t reach a commercial stage until the 2030s. An ambitious effort by NuScale to deploy SMRs at a site in Idaho was canceled last year, as the project’s price tag ballooned from $5 billion to $9 billion due to inflation and high interest rates.
Eric Carr, president of nuclear operations at Dominion Energy, said the biggest challenge to commercializing the technology right now is managing the costs of a first-of-a-kind project.
“Nobody exactly wants to be first, but somebody has to be,” Carr told CNBC. “Once it gets going, it’s going to be a great, reliable source of energy for the entire nation’s grid.”
Dominion Energy
Dominion is currently evaluating whether it makes sense to build a small modular reactor at its North Anna nuclear station in Louisa County, Virginia, northwest of Richmond. The utility’s service area includes the largest data center market in the world in Loudoun County, less than 100 miles north of the plant.
Electricity demand from these computer server warehouses is expected to surge because artificial intelligence consumes more energy. In the case of Dominion, the peak power demand from data centers is forecast to more than double to 6.4 gigawatts by 2030 and quadruple to 13.4 gigawatts in 2038.
Dominion asked SMR technology companies in July to submit proposals evaluating the feasibility of developing a small reactor at North Anna. Carr said interest in the proposal process has been high. The utility is currently working with vendors to make sure they understand Dominion’s needs and to figure out which technology might be suitable, Carr said.
“For our specific case at Dominion, we have a duty to our shareholders to do the right thing, and we also have a duty to our customers to make sure we can meet the demand of this growth, but we have to balance both of those interests,” Carr said. Though Dominion has not committed to building an SMR yet, one planning scenario envisages developing six such reactors starting in 2034.
The tech companies driving the data center boom have also shown a growing interest in nuclear due to its reliability and role in fighting climate change. Carr said Dominion is having discussions with some customers on possibly collaborating to move SMRs closer to reality.
“We’re having some discussions with the technology vendors as well as the large customers that are coming in and saying, ‘What could this look like if we all work together,'” Carr said.
Holtec International
Holtec International, a privately held nuclear technology company, is trying to find a path forward for the industry on two fronts. The company is in the process of restarting the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, which would be the first time a plant that ceased operations has come back online.
Holtec also plans to install two small reactors at Palisades in the early 2030s, which would nearly double the power capacity of the plant. Kelly Trice, president of Holtec, said, without disclosing names, that at least six utilities are interested in participating in restarting Palisades and constructing the small reactors.
“If they participate, they can get all of those painful lessons learned without having to pay for them,” Trice told CNBC. “And then, when the plant is built at their site, it is the second one or the third one or the fourth — which usually becomes a lot less expensive once you’ve learned all your lessons.”
Once the first SMR has been constructed at Palisades, Holtec plans to build an order book to “continually manufacture the components to do this for whatever plant is needed,” Trice said.
Holtec’s SMR design is a pressurized water-reactor, the same technology as most plants currently operating in the U.S. fleet. “But with some elegant safety features that don’t require human action, and as a result of that simpler to operate, fewer people required, easier to maintain,” Trice said.
“And also reproducible. Our goal is for every SMR to essentially be the same,” he said.
Constellation Energy
The largest operator of nuclear plants in the U.S., Constellation Energy, is also exploring the possibility of building a small reactor at one of its facilities.
The trend in the industry is to upgrade existing plants with small reactors in part because the communities are already open to nuclear. The necessary land, water, grid connection and security footprint are also already available, said Kathleen Barrón, chief strategy officer at Constellation.
Barrón said the idea is to work with a customer that is interested in contracting at one of Constellation’s existing plants for power today, and then working with them to use the facility to “host an SMR to provide greater clean power to that customer in the future.”
“This will only happen if there’s a supportive state policy akin to what states have done with offshore wind and there are customers that are interested in buying the offtake from those reactors,” Barrón said.
For now, the energy transition will require an all-above approach with natural gas acting as a bridge toward cleaner energy as coal phases out — until the next technology comes online, Dominion’s Carr said.
“SMR may very well be that next technology,” he said.
National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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