Factory-built nuclear reactors can cut costs, think tank says
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As the world steamrolls toward more nuclear power, countries looking to cut costs must do a better job of planning — in part by building reactors in factories instead of on site, a new study says.
Why it matters: The Nuclear Innovation Alliance study says a successful nuclear build-out could slash costs similar to the way the aerospace industry did decades ago while "unlocking the scale of low-carbon power needed for global decarbonization."
Driving the news: Jessica Lovering, the study's author and a senior fellow at the advanced-nuclear think tank, told Axios that better planning and coordination by countries will lower costs.
- "If you look at the [nuclear] deployment in, say, the U.S. or even Japan, it's kind of, 20 different reactors being built all at once, and by different people and different utilities," Lovering said. "And it's just kind of crazy."
- President Trump's May 2025 executive orders in support of new nuclear energy endorsed all sizes and types of reactors, from large traditional designs to small modular reactors (SMRs) and "microreactors."
Zoom in: Because of their size, large reactors haven't been factory-fabricated. But Lovering said "pretty much every other energy technology" has been built that way — even large Boeing 777s.
- "There's no reason to think we can't do that with nuclear and that it wouldn't have the same sort of learning effects and cost declines," she said.
- Small modular reactors are mostly manufactured, assembled, and tested in factories, which supporters cite as one of their chief advantages over conventional reactors.
- Lovering considers it unlikely the U.S. will widely build more reactors like the large Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor without coordinated public and private work. Westinghouse has committed to trying to build 10 AP-1000s in the U.S. by 2030.
Context: The study appears as the Energy Department unveiled an initiative Friday to exempt advanced reactors from environmental reviews in a bid to hasten their progress.
- Such projects qualify because they've shown in past National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews to operate in a way that protects the public, workers, and the environment, according to a Federal Register notice.
The bottom line: "Ultimately, the future of nuclear energy is not about choosing small or large reactors — it is about enabling the right technology for the right market," Lovering writes.
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