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.
On today’s thrilling episode of Quick Charge, we’ve a huge spike in global EV sales and a huge dip in Tesla deliveries. Plus a whole bunch of news from Toyota, including an updated bZ that’s just a bit better than before … but is a bit better going to make a big difference?
We’re also on track for more than 1 in 4 new cars sold this year to be electric, with a whole lot more hybrids coming in to make up the difference and drive fuel demand down to a new yearly low. All this, plus the top 5 cheapest EVs to insure when you hit the play button.
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Solar and wind accounted for almost 98% of new US electrical generating capacity added in Q1 2025, according to new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign.
Solar and wind also made up an impressive 100% of new capacity in March, and March was the 19th consecutive month in which solar was the largest source of new capacity.
Renewables were 100% of new capacity in March
In its latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through March 31, 2025), FERC says 446 megawatts (MW) of solar were placed into service in March, along with the 223.9 MW Shamrock Wind & Storage Project in Crockett County, TX. Combined, they accounted for 100% of all new generating capacity added during the month.
For the first quarter of the year, the combination of solar and wind (7,076 MW) was 97.8% of new capacity while natural gas (147 MW) provided just 2.0% and another 0.2% came from oil (11 MW).
Solar was 66.6% of new capacity added in March
Solar accounted for two-thirds (66.6%) of all new generating capacity placed into service in March. It was 72.3% of new capacity added during Q1 2025.
Solar has now been the largest source of new generating capacity added each month from September 2023 to March 2025.
New wind accounted for the remaining third (33.4%) of capacity additions in March and provided over a fourth (25.5%) of new additions for the quarter.
Solar + wind are 22.5% of US utility-scale generating capacity
The installed capacities of solar (10.7%) and wind (11.8%) are now each more than a tenth of the US total. Taken together, they constitute almost one-fourth (22.5%) of the US’s total available installed utility-scale generating capacity.
Approximately 30% of US solar capacity is in the form of small-scale (e.g., rooftop) systems that are not reflected in FERC’s data. Including that additional solar capacity would bring the share provided by solar + wind to more than 25% of the country’s total.
With the inclusion of hydropower (7.7%), biomass (1.1%), and geothermal (0.3%), renewables currently claim a 31.5% share of total US utility-scale generating capacity. If small-scale solar capacity is included, renewables are about one-third of total US generating capacity.
Ten years ago, the mix of utility-scale renewables accounted for 16.9% of total installed generating capacity, including solar (1.0%) and wind (5.7%). Thus, over the past decade, wind’s share of US generating capacity has more than doubled while that of solar has increased by more than tenfold.
Solar is still on track to be second-largest
FERC reports that net “high probability” additions of solar between April 2025 and March 2028 total 89,452 MW – an amount more than four times the forecast net “high probability” additions for wind (22,109 MW), the second fastest growing resource. FERC also foresees net growth for hydropower (596 MW) and geothermal (92 MW) but a decrease of 130 MW in biomass capacity.
Taken together, the net new “high probability” capacity additions by all renewable energy sources over the next three years – that is, the bulk of the Trump administration’s remaining time in office – would total 112,119 MW.
On the other hand, there is no new nuclear capacity in FERC’s three-year forecast, while coal and oil are projected to contract by 24,372 MW and 2,108 MW, respectively. Natural gas capacity would expand by 1,738 MW.
Thus, adjusting for the different capacity factors of gas (59.7%), wind (34.3%), and utility-scale solar (23.4%), electricity generated by the projected new solar capacity to be added in the coming three years should be at least 20 times greater than that produced by the new natural gas capacity, while the electrical output by new wind capacity would be over seven times more than gas.
If FERC’s current “high probability” additions materialize, by April 1, 2028, solar will account for nearly one-sixth (16.3%) of US installed utility-scale generating capacity. Wind would provide an additional 12.6% of the total. Thus, each would be greater than coal (12.4%) and substantially more than either nuclear power or hydropower (7.3% and 7.2%, respectively).
Assuming current growth rates continue, the installed capacity of utility-scale solar will likely surpass coal and wind in less than two years, placing solar in second place for installed generating capacity, behind only natural gas.
Renewables may overtake natural gas within three years
The mix of all utility-scale (i.e., >1 MW) renewables is now adding about two percentage points each year to its share of generating capacity. At that pace, by April 1, 2028, renewables would account for 37.5% of total available installed utility-scale generating capacity, rapidly approaching that of natural gas (40.2%). Solar and wind would constitute more than three-quarters of the installed renewable energy capacity. If those trendlines continue, utility-scale renewable energy capacity should surpass that of natural gas in 2029 or sooner.
However, as noted, FERC’s data do not account for the capacity of small-scale solar. If that is factored in, within three years, total US solar capacity (small-scale + utility-scale) could approach 330 GW. In turn, the mix of all renewables would exceed 40% of total installed capacity while the share of natural gas would drop to about 37%.
Moreover, FERC reports that there may actually be as much as 223,620 MW of net new solar additions in the current three-year pipeline in addition to 66,368 MW of new wind, 9,059 MW of new hydropower, 201 MW of new geothermal, and 39 MW of new biomass. By contrast, net new natural gas capacity potentially in the three-year pipeline totals just 29,912 MW. Consequently, renewables’ share could be even greater by early spring 2028.
“Notwithstanding the Trump Administration’s anti-renewable energy efforts during its first 100+ days, the strong growth of solar and wind continues,” noted the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director Ken Bossong. “And FERC’s latest data and forecasts suggest this will not change in the near-term.”
Electrek’s Take
This is encouraging, but it might change in the longer term, depending on what happens with the House draft budget, in which the Republicans are attempting to end the residential 30% solar tax credit.
Trump and the energy secretary are also doing everything they can to smash renewables and promote fossil fuel growth, thus being out of step with the rest of the world. They’re certainly doing a fine job kicking offshore wind where it counts. Only time will tell in terms of how much damage Trump inflicts.
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Lucid (LCID) is gearing up for big growth this year. After launching its first electric SUV, the Gravity, the company plans to double production this year. According to Lucid’s interim CEO, Marc Winterhoff, the EV maker will enter new global markets this year, including parts of Europe and the Middle East.
Lucid is expanding into new global markets in 2025
With over 3,100 vehicles delivered in the first quarter, Lucid set its fifth straight quarterly record. Production is picking up at its Casa Grande manufacturing plant, with 2,213 units built from January to March.
Lucid said the record quarter was achieved despite “limited deliveries in Saudi Arabia” due to a system change that has since been fixed. The company had another 600 vehicles in transit to Saudi Arabia, which will be counted in its second quarter results.
During the Saudi-US Investment Forum on Tuesday, Winterhoff told Bloomberg that Lucid expects to accelerate its global expansion with plans to enter new parts of Europe and the Middle East this year.
“We have started Abu Dhabi and we’re looking into Qatar and other additional markets coming very soon,” Winterhoff said.
Lucid opened its first international manufacturing plant (AMP-2) in Saudi Arabia and has been assembling its Air luxury electric sedan since September 2023. It’s also on track to finish construction on another plant in the region with 150,000 annual production capacity in 2026.
Last week, Lucid’s senior vice president, Adrian Price, announced on social media that the second batch of Gravity models was ready to ship to Saudi Arabia.
Winterhoff told Bloomberg that the company will begin delivering Saudi-made EVs locally the following year while exporting to Europe and parts of Asia, outside of China. Although no details were confirmed, Lucid is considering producing EV batteries in Saudi Arabia through a collaboration.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is Lucid’s top shareholder, with a 60% stake in the company. The investment fund has invested billions in the EV startup as it aims to diversify its GDP beyond oil.
Even with Trump’s auto tariffs, Lucid expects to produce 20,000 vehicles this year, more than double the 9,000 it made in 2024.
The Lucid Gravity Grand Touring model is available to order in the US, starting at $94,900 with up to 450 miles of range. For those looking for something a little cheaper, Lucid will launch the Gravity Touring trim later this year, starting at $79,900.
Lucid ended Q1 with $5.76 billion in liquidity, which it expects will be enough to fund it into the second half of 2026, when it plans to launch its more affordable midsize platform.
Lucid’s stock has risen over 15% since reporting first quarter earnings on May 6, but share prices are still down 12% over the past year at around $2.76.
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