The meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 essentially put the nail in the coffin of the construction of big nuclear power plants with similar technologies in the U.S., according to nuclear proponents and watchdogs. That disaster, along with earlier accidents, ongoing delays and cost overruns at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia, has added to the tailwinds of taking the nuclear technology known as small modular reactors, or SMRs, to market. The drive to decarbonize, along with the war in Ukraine and Europe’s loss of Russian natural gas supplies, has further bolstered interest in the baseload capacity that could come from SMRs.
