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The problem is SMNRs do not even exist yet. They exist only as slick sales brochures, PowerPoints, tech-specs and unverified promises. Consequently, SMNR actually stands for “small mythical nuclear reactors.”
SMNR cheerleaders have sold many of the less informed on the alleged benefits of SMNRs, absent any meaningful discussion of the downsides. While legislators myopically focus on “jobs, business and tax revenue,” these serious downsides go unexamined. This willful ignorance can and will have huge negative impacts on Illinois’ energy future.
So far, pro-SMNR legislators seem to be applying the same keen, discerning analysis to SMNRs that adolescents give to a first car purchase — “If it’s fast, red and convertible, that’s the one! Don’t worry about cost, insurance, maintenance, safety, warranty. What could go wrong?” This level of thoroughness results in crashed space shuttles and 737 Maxs.
Some unexplored downsides include:
• Assuming their designs even work, which is not yet demonstrated, they would not be available in sufficient numbers commercially much before the mid-2030s. So much for hyped jobs and tax revenues.
• That fact firmly disqualifies SMNRs from being a meaningful climate solution, since we must complete our nation’s energy overhaul by 2030, according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warnings. Two former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairpersons and a host of energy analysts, economists, academics, and national and international energy agency heads concur with this assessment.
• Current calculations indicate that SMNRs will cost more and produce vastly more radioactive wastes per unit of energy than even the current generation of uneconomic reactors — which required $3.05 billion worth of ratepayer-funded bailout guarantees to survive.
• SMNRs will compete for market share and transmission access with the renewables mandated in CEJA, thus further delaying a renewable energy future.
• SMNR vendors are so smugly confident that their designs are “inherently safe” that designs are being promoted without protective containment structures; reduced plant personnel; reduction or elimination of the emergency planning zones, on-site guards and security personnel; and other cost-cutting proposals.
These and other serious issues received no thorough vetting in four Illinois legislative hearings held since 2021 where SMNRs were discussed. Only one barrier remains to slow this juggernaut.
A seemingly common sense 1987 Illinois law prevents construction of new nuclear power reactors until the federal government establishes a permanent disposal facility for the dangerous, long-lived radioactive wastes. SMNR advocates want to repeal this law — a move akin to allowing skyscrapers to be built without bathrooms. Constellation’s Illinois reactor sites currently store 11,000-plus tons of high-level radioactive waste. The SMNR crowd wants to irresponsibly add to this inventory — with no place for disposal.
Two bills — HR1079 and SB0076 — have been introduced to repeal this protective moratorium. They sailed through their respective committees, whose membership largely consisted of bill co-sponsors, and will come to votes in the legislature soon. The hearings themselves assiduously ignored the radioactive waste issue the moratorium was designed to deal with, instead turning the hearings into de facto SMNR industry trade shows.
Absurdly obtuse rationales like “We need to repeal the moratorium so we can kickstart discussion about SMNRs” ignore the rather pregnant irony that while the moratorium is still in effect, four committee subject-matter hearings and discussions on SMNRs have already occurred since 2021. Our organization’s recommendation that a dedicated subject-matter hearing on SMNRs be held, inviting equal representation between expert and professional advocates and critics, was ignored.
We should not allow inadequate examination of a potentially damaging, dangerous technology and unverified promises from an industry incapable of meeting budgets or deadlines be the final word on Illinois’ energy future. Those who worked hard for CEJA’s passage in 2021 should be most alarmed that these moratorium repeal bills are Trojan horses for SMNRs designed to sabotage the renewables goals of CEJA.
The Boeing 737 Max crashes and the recent East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment show what happens when protective regulation is ignored or not implemented in exchange for illusory short-term profits. Proposed repeal of the Illinois nuclear power construction moratorium is yet one more example of this myopic and cynical practice. It is terrible energy policy.
David A. Kraft is director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service.
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