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Leading small modular nuclear reactor will be late and over budget

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Leading small modular nuclear reactor will be late and over budget

North America’s first small modular reactor project is running into two familiar challenges for the nuclear industry: timing and cost.

Ontario Power Generation said in a Tuesday earnings release that the first BWRX-300 unit at its Darlington site will not come online by its October 2030 target and will blow past its budget of $7.7 billion Canadian ($5.4 billion U.S.). The utility didn’t share new targets — it’s working on a revised assessment of cost and schedule that it expects ​“to be substantially completed by mid-2027.” It is the project’s second slip: When Ontario Power announced the design in late 2021, it said the reactor could be completed as early as 2028. 

The Darlington project, located east of Toronto, is the first new nuclear build in Canada in more than three decades. It’s also the first test of a small modular reactor design that is being pursued by developers in the U.S. and beyond. The Tennessee Valley Authority received a construction permit for a BWRX-300 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September. Developer Blue Energy has also started the NRC application process to build a BWRX-300 in Texas.

, GE Vernova Hitachi’s BWRX- 300 uses the same light-water technology that undergirds most of the world’s existing nuclear fleet today. It’s designed to produce 300 megawatts of carbon-free electricity — a substantial amount, but far less than a conventional large-scale reactor.



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