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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowOne refreshing observation in George Gemales’ Forefront piece is that small-modular reactor—or SMR—technology is a “still-unproven sector” [“George Gemelas: Indiana must get real, specialize to win on nuclear,” Forefront, Aug. 8.]
All other supporters seem to think SMRs are just around the corner and a done deal. They are at least a decade away unless the Trump administration short-circuits Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety protocols and unreliable, if not dangerous, units are deployed.
But it is impossible to become a “nuclear manufacturing hub,” which Gemales advocated, with unavailable technology and an extremely uncertain future market for SMR technology. SMRs are currently a purely speculative venture.
Gemales does call for “capital structures that responsibly share risk … .” But the state is already speculating with ratepayer and taxpayer dollars. Excessive ratepayer costs are unavoidable.
The General Assembly has shifted all SMR financial risk—current and future—to Hoosier ratepayers and taxpayers. The state Legislature has given utilities a blank check for SMR design, engineering, planning and permitting costs—even prior to seeking approval to build an SMR. Interested utilities could potentially recover hundreds of millions of dollars (including profit) from ratepayers without building anything. And legislators provided potential SMR component manufacturers a massive tax subsidy.
—Grant Smith, Indianapolis
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