NuScale are off the starting blocks with the NRC in the USA, with their 50 MW Small Modular Reactor [SMR]. 12 units make up a nett 570 MW nuclear power plant [npp].

When the switch is thrown on the first NuScale SMR, it will signal the end of renewable. How on Earth could the waste of money and valuable resources and the environmental, ecosystem and species destruction of every form of renewable technology be justified, when:
A single 570 MW Nuscale npp, on the site the size of a large supermarket, can generate ALL of the 24/7 electricity needs of a [UK] population of 870,000 people.

Pen-y-Cmoedd Windfarm is the latest UK onshore windfarm to become operational. It has a 228 MW installed capacity with a capital cost £365 million and occupies 47 km2 . Bearing in mind wind turbines degrade at a rate of 1.6% p.a, the average capacity factor [cf] over its 25 year [hoped for] lifespan is 29.4%.

A NuScale 570 MW SMR nuclear power plant, costing £2,126 million on a 0.16 km2 site will have a 90% cf for all of its 60 year design life.

A bit of simple arithmetic results in over 18 Pen-y-Cmoedd-sized windfarms being needed to generate the same amount of intermittent electricity as NuScale’s npp. That would total £6,704 million of capital cost and would occupy an area almost 30 km x 30 km.

Adding in estimates for O & M, fuel and decommissioning costs, the npp’s total would still only be 2/3 of onshore wind at £4,6740 million. And that’s ignoring O & M and decommissioning costs and the real, but unquantifiable, total costs of the ‘intermittency problem’ of renewable on a nation’s or state’s economy.

Right now, Claire Perry should be applying her ‘triple test to the Rolls-Royce SMR if she wants a cost-effective, decarbonising, exportable technology to put her and her department’s efforts into – forget about onshore wind.