NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) was supposed to be the American SMR success story. Founded in 2007, it received over $600 million in DOE funding, became the first small modular reactor to achieve NRC design certification in 2020, and went public via SPAC in 2022. Then it all unraveled. The flagship Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) at Idaho National Laboratory saw costs balloon from $5.3 billion to $9.2 billion — a 74% increase that pushed the levelized cost of electricity from $58/MWh to $89/MWh. In November 2023, the project's customer UAMPS terminated the agreement. NuScale's stock crashed over 80%, the company cut 40% of staff, and pivoted to a Romania deployment that has not broken ground. NuScale remains the only company with an NRC-certified SMR design — but it has never built one.
Spun out of Oregon State University research by Jose Reyes and Paul Lorenzini. Based on a multi-application small light water reactor (MASLWR) concept developed with DOE funding since 2000.
Developed 45 MWe (later 50 MWe) module design. Received early DOE cost-sharing support. Built test facilities at Oregon State. Fluor Corporation became majority investor in 2011.
DOE awarded NuScale $226 million under the SMR Licensing Technical Support program — the largest federal investment in SMR development at the time. Accelerated the NRC licensing process.
NuScale submitted a 12,000-page Design Certification Application to the NRC — the first SMR to enter the full NRC review process. Began a 42-month review timeline.
Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) selected Idaho National Laboratory as the site for the Carbon Free Power Project. Initial plan: 12 modules at 50 MWe each (600 MWe total). Estimated cost: $3.6 billion.
NRC issued FSER for the 50 MWe NuScale module — the first SMR to receive NRC design approval in US history. A landmark regulatory achievement that took 4 years of review.
CFPP cost estimate rose from $3.6B to $5.3B. UAMPS reduced the project from 12 modules to 6 modules (462 MWe). Target LCOE: $58/MWh. Some UAMPS members began withdrawing.
NuScale merged with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp (SPAC) and began trading on NYSE under ticker SMR. Valued at approximately $1.9 billion at merger. The first publicly traded SMR company.
NRC issued Standard Design Approval for the uprated 77 MWe VOYGR module — a 54% power increase over the original 50 MWe design. This was meant to improve project economics.
Updated CFPP cost estimate: $9.2 billion (up 74% from $5.3B). LCOE jumped from $58/MWh to $89/MWh. The cost increase was attributed to inflation, design changes, supply chain issues, and first-of-a-kind engineering costs.
UAMPS officially terminated the CFPP agreement. The project that was supposed to demonstrate SMR viability in the US was dead. NuScale took a $100M+ write-down. The cancellation sent shockwaves through the SMR industry.
NuScale stock (SMR) fell over 80% from its 2022 highs. The company announced layoffs, cutting roughly 40% of staff. Cash burn continued with no near-term revenue. Management pivoted messaging to international markets.
NuScale doubled down on the Romania RoPower project (462 MWe at Doicesti). US EXIM Bank approved $275M preliminary commitment. Signed MOUs with partners in Poland, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the Philippines. No construction started.
NuScale remains publicly traded (NYSE: SMR) with NRC design certification but no active US project. Romania is the lead prospect. The company continues to burn cash with no revenue from reactor operations. The VOYGR design remains the only NRC-certified SMR.
The CFPP cancellation was not a single failure but a cascade of compounding problems that turned a $3.6 billion project into a $9.2 billion one. Understanding these factors is critical for evaluating every other SMR project in the pipeline.
Original 2017 estimate: $3.6B for 12 modules. By 2020: $5.3B for 6 modules. By 2023: $9.2B for 6 modules. LCOE went from $58/MWh to $89/MWh — no longer competitive with gas or renewables for UAMPS members.
No SMR had ever been built in the US. Every component, process, and regulatory interaction was being done for the first time. FOAK costs are always higher than estimates, but the gap here was extreme.
NuScale uprated the module from 50 MWe to 77 MWe to improve economics — but this required a new NRC review, redesigned components, and undermined the cost certainty the original certification was supposed to provide.
Post-COVID inflation hit construction costs hard. Nuclear-grade materials and specialized labor costs rose faster than general inflation. Supply chain bottlenecks for nuclear-qualified components added delays.
UAMPS is a consortium of 50+ small municipal utilities. Each member had to individually approve cost increases. As costs rose, members withdrew, reducing the base over which costs were spread — a death spiral.
Unlike Meta (TerraPower), Google (Kairos), or Amazon (X-energy), NuScale had no deep-pocketed corporate buyer willing to absorb first-of-a-kind costs. Municipal utilities needed the cheapest power, not the newest technology.
After the CFPP collapse, NuScale pivoted its strategy entirely to international markets. The lead project is now in Romania, where RoPower Nuclear (a joint venture between Nuclearelectrica and Nova Power & Gas) plans to deploy NuScale VOYGR modules at the former Doicesti coal plant. The US EXIM Bank has provided a $275 million preliminary financing commitment.
Lead project. EXIM Bank $275M commitment. Doicesti site. 2030s target.
Copper mining company exploring SMRs for industrial heat and power.
Part of Kazakhstan nuclear expansion plans.
Post-war reconstruction and energy security driver.
The NuScale CFPP cancellation is the most important case study in the SMR industry. It demonstrates that NRC certification alone does not guarantee commercial viability, and that customer structure matters as much as reactor design. The SMR developers that have learned from NuScale — TerraPower (Meta backing), Kairos (Google backing), X-energy (Amazon backing) — have secured deep-pocketed anchor customers who can absorb first-of-a-kind costs.
NuScale had NRC approval but municipal utility customers who could not absorb cost overruns. TerraPower, Kairos, and X-energy secured tech hyperscalers (Meta, Google, Amazon) as anchor buyers — companies with the balance sheet to weather FOAK cost risk.
Every nuclear project in history has exceeded initial cost estimates. The SMR industry must price this reality into project economics rather than assuming nth-of-a-kind costs from the start.
NuScale changed module output from 50 MWe to 77 MWe mid-program. While technically justified, this reset the cost baseline and undermined confidence in project estimates.
Going public via SPAC before building a single reactor created pressure to show progress and revenue projections that the technology timeline could not support. Public market expectations and nuclear construction timelines are fundamentally incompatible.
NuScale Power achieved something no other company has — NRC design certification for a small modular reactor. But certification without a viable business model proved insufficient. The CFPP failure was not primarily a technology failure; it was a commercial structure failure. Municipal utilities were the wrong customer for a first-of-a-kind nuclear project. The SMR industry has absorbed this lesson: every major project announced since the CFPP cancellation has a corporate anchor customer (Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft) rather than a utility consortium. NuScale still holds the only NRC-certified SMR design and the Romania project could eventually deliver a first unit — but the company that was once 5 years ahead of every competitor now trails TerraPower and Kairos Power in the race to build the first advanced reactor in the United States.