Prices of the electricity we use to charge

[Woosh]

I am pleased that you are looking into what the government is doing to help Rolls Royce building the first SMR. If you want to create a new industry, government subsidies are a must.

 

[Tony1951]

I am pleased that you are looking into what the government is doing to help Rolls Royce building the first SMR. If you want to create a new industry, government subsidies are a must.

I can't understand why we haven't been doing that stuff for the last fifteen or twenty years.

Same with housing. If you build in factories you have a controlled environment and can build far faster and more accurately, using modular construction. Everything is repeatable and controlled.

Edit:

In terms of small reactors, you could place them near large demand centres and supply baseload power. This would maybe lessen the need for grid reconstruction and new power lines. Security may be an issue - since they are nuclear.

One issue in relation to complimenting renewable power sources is that traditional nuclear, like coal, needs to be kept hot and on stream, or you get severe penalties from cycling hot and cold. The old coal stations were badly impacted by that, necessitating much earlier major refurbishment than if they were kept working at high capacity. I don't know how SMR technology copes with heat stresses. They might not be suitable to come on and turn off as rapidly as combined cycle gas turbines which don't care about that, and can come on stream rapidly when demand peaks of when renewables drop off the grid.

 

[Woosh]

One issue in relation to complimenting renewable power sources is that traditional nuclear, like coal, needs to be kept hot and on stream, or you get severe penalties from cycling hot and cold. The old coal stations were badly impacted by that, necessitating much earlier major refurbishment than if they were kept working at high capacity. I don't know how SMR technology copes with heat stresses. They might not be suitable to come on and turn off as rapidly as combined cycle gas turbines which don't care about that, and can come on stream rapidly when demand peaks of when renewables drop off the grid.

The same issue affects SMRs because they are based on the same principle of turning thermal energy into electricity. If you look at Bill Gates' Natrium project, their reactor keeps a large tank of molten salt as a buffer.

ChatGPT sees the future for SMRs as follows:

• Best-case: SMRs are the “Tesla of nuclear” → modular, exported, widespread by 2035.
• Worst-case: SMRs are the “Concorde of nuclear” → brilliant tech, but too costly, limited adoption.
• Most likely: Somewhere in between — successful in niches, but not a global game-changer.

Our Rolls Royce SMR projects will probably amount to not very much because when you compare the scale and breadth of subsidies that China has put into renewables while our governments will still be cash strapped for the foreseeable future, I can't see Rolls Royce offering customers attractive pricing anytime before 2060s if ever. The best estimates for SMRs are £80 per MWH against £30 per MWH for solar and wind, £40 per MWH on dispatchable basis (renewables + storage battery). That hasn't stopped enthusiam for RR shares because of potential export market. RR shares went up 1,000% last year.

Current state of SMR projects around the world:

Country	Leading SMR Designs	Status (2025)	Strategic Goal
Russia	RITM-200, Akademik Lomonosov	Operational	Arctic, export
China	ACP100, HTR-PM	Near-term deploy	Scale & export
USA	NuScale, Natrium, Xe-100	Regulatory lead	Renewables pairing
UK	Rolls-Royce SMR	Design stage	Energy security, export
Canada	GE-Hitachi BWRX-300, ARC, Moltex	Deployment 2029	Domestic + export
Argentina	CAREM	Prototype build	Latin America
S. Korea	SMART	Export focus	Middle East clients

• Russia & China are the only countries with operating SMRs.
• Canada & USA are closest to real Western deployment.
• UK is betting heavily on Rolls-Royce SMRs.
• Argentina & South Korea are pursuing niche/exports.