Slap-dash, fly-by-night startup SMRs without the same procedural and security rigor of existing plants coming soon to "sacrifice zone" backyards near you.
Disclaimer: I worked in Campbell CA at a nuclear engineering consultancy for 5 years where things were done properly.
Since you're in industry, any thoughts on the Rellis "test bench" at Texas A&M?
"SMR Four" Consortium:
In early 2025, Texas A&M selected four other major SMR companies to deploy reactors at RELLIS:
Kairos Power: Developing fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors.
Natura Resources: Working on liquid-fueled molten salt reactors (MSRs).
Aalo Atomics: Focused on factory-fabricated microreactors (the "Aalo-1").
Terrestrial Energy: Developing the Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR).
Was, I'm retired. None good. SMRs were "flying cars" in the 90s, but the issue isn't the technology so much but the mindset of "factory" "startups" without grasping the rigorous process and security protocols of operations and sustainment. It's simply not scalable to have tiny nor supposed underground sites because the fixed costs of doing the minimum to secure and maintain them are large when done properly. Having a lot of SMRs on a single site would be fine, but I'm totally against unmanned SMRs in residential areas or running around on flatbed trucks not used by the military for emergencies. SMR manufacturers not backed by a major existing vendor like Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Westinghouse, or GE is also a risk because 90% of startups fail, and then it will be made the taxpayers' problem to clean up their messes. I'm betting that one or more SMR startups will skip insurance and/or licensure, or that techbro third-world country-style political intervention will do it for them and put the public at risk because DOGE will "decide" the NRC is "fraud, waste, and abuse".
Announcement post: https://about.fb.com/news/2026/01/meta-nuclear-energy-projec...
Slap-dash, fly-by-night startup SMRs without the same procedural and security rigor of existing plants coming soon to "sacrifice zone" backyards near you.
Disclaimer: I worked in Campbell CA at a nuclear engineering consultancy for 5 years where things were done properly.
Since you're in industry, any thoughts on the Rellis "test bench" at Texas A&M?
"SMR Four" Consortium:
Was, I'm retired. None good. SMRs were "flying cars" in the 90s, but the issue isn't the technology so much but the mindset of "factory" "startups" without grasping the rigorous process and security protocols of operations and sustainment. It's simply not scalable to have tiny nor supposed underground sites because the fixed costs of doing the minimum to secure and maintain them are large when done properly. Having a lot of SMRs on a single site would be fine, but I'm totally against unmanned SMRs in residential areas or running around on flatbed trucks not used by the military for emergencies. SMR manufacturers not backed by a major existing vendor like Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Westinghouse, or GE is also a risk because 90% of startups fail, and then it will be made the taxpayers' problem to clean up their messes. I'm betting that one or more SMR startups will skip insurance and/or licensure, or that techbro third-world country-style political intervention will do it for them and put the public at risk because DOGE will "decide" the NRC is "fraud, waste, and abuse".
If you want to read about the history of the nuclear industry, read 978-0894485732 / https://search.worldcat.org/title/84903757
So these particular agreements are mostly with big, centralized plants, not SMRs in particular. Many others in the AI space and broligarchy want SMRs.