Energy

Can New Nuclear Nations Power the Next Energy Boom With SMRs?

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Energy is the lifeblood of industrial civilization, and a stable, large supply of power is becoming even more important due to the trend of electrification (transport, heating, industrial processes) and the demand from AI data centers. This can be a problem, as still around 80% of global primary energy sources are carbon-emitting, like oil, gas, and coal.

In theory, renewables are now cheap enough to power all of mankind’s endeavours. In practice, their intermittency and poor performance in winter mean that, at scale, they are only as cheap as the combination of renewable + massive energy storage. And even if utility-scale batteries are becoming cheaper every day, they are not yet perfectly able to compete with fossil fuels.

“The flexibility of nuclear power is different from batteries and hydropower. Batteries can support instantaneous frequency control, renewable smoothing, and short-duration balancing. In contrast, nuclear power plants (NPPs) typically adjust over longer dispatch periods and are therefore more suitable for balancing hourly and daily variability”

Nuclear energy is also remarkable for displaying the lowest land use of any power generation method.

This situation has generated a rebirth of nuclear energy, with a new generation of nuclear technology. One of the most promising ones is SMR (Small Modular Reactor), which tries to downscale the normally massive nuclear reactor and produce them on an assembly line to decrease costs.

New countries with little to no previous nuclear power plants might use SMRs and other innovative nuclear tech to become nuclear energy nations. A study by researchers at Griffith University (Australia), Murdoch University (Australia), Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (Bangladesh), and Vellore Institute of Technology (India) has analyzed how likely this scenario is, not only with regard to nuclear technology, but also economics and regulatory frameworks.

They found that regulatory readiness can be as important as the techno-economic aspects for the adoption of new nuclear power capacity, especially for non-nuclear countries.

They published their findings in Applied Energy1, under the title “Nuclear energy adoption pathways for SDG 7 in newcomer countries: Readiness barriers, technology options, and policy frameworks”.

The Nascent Nuclear Renaissance

Changing Trends

After the incident of Chornobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 (both older nuclear reactor designs), nuclear energy became unpopular and essentially stagnated, with very few new reactors built and almost no new projects started outside of Russia and China in the 2010s.

However, the increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions combined with volatile energy prices, a volatility now compounded by instability in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia war, has made many decision-makers reconsider the position of nuclear energy.

So, to reach the goals of the United Nations’ SDG 7 (Sustainable Development Goal 7), addressing the past safety concern will be essential for the nuclear industry to contribute to decarbonization and electrification.

The researchers addressed that question through a systematic literature review across major scientific publication databases like IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and Web of Science with keyword searches such as: TS=((“nuclear energy” OR “nuclear power plant” OR “advanced nuclear technology” OR “small modular reactor” OR “generation III” OR “generation IV”) AND (“low-carbon transition” OR “energy transition” OR “clean energy” OR “decarbonization”) AND (“SDG 7” OR “Sustainable Development Goal 7” OR “affordable and clean energy” OR “sustainable energy”))

In the end, 225 articles and reports were retained for detailed analysis. The selected literature represented a diverse mix of peer-reviewed studies, government reports, and international agency reports relevant to the energy transition.

New Nuclear Techs

Two different technological trends are making the nuclear industry evolve, while nuclear fusion is still at an experimental stage and unlikely to produce significant energy volumes.

The first one is the generation III and III + of nuclear reactors. The clearest difference from earlier designs is in how safety is handled. Gen II reactors depended on operators to respond to unexpected events using active, human-controlled systems, with the associated failures in major nuclear incidents.

In contrast, Gen III and III + designs lean more heavily on passive mechanisms, systems that work through basic physics rather than human action: gravity, pressure differentials, natural convection, etc. In addition, Many Gen III + designs include a core catcher. If the fuel cladding and reactor vessel fail, the molten core drops into the containment building rather than escaping it, making a catastrophic incident 100x-1000x less likely.

However, the cost structure of third-generation reactors has been a mixed bag. Western designs like France’s Flamanville EPR and the USA’s Vogtle had massive cost overruns, respectively 4x and 2x the initial estimate. But Chinese projects saw 4 new units launched within the projected costs, and eleven more are under construction.

In parallel, an entirely different concept is being developed: SMRs. The idea is to bypass the traditional reactor design by producing smaller reactors on an assembly line.

The smaller size makes them inherently easier to cool and safer, as well as easier to transport from the factory to the power plant site. They are cheaper on an individual basis and can be installed in a modular fashion, making it easier to adopt for industrial applications or for small-scale energy production (local grid, smaller countries, etc.).

In theory, this could make SMRs easier to permit, easier to produce, and see massive cost reduction once they are produced at scale.

However, the lack of commercial deployment really means that the real costs are still unknown, and that the regulatory framework around nuclear energy was not designed for SMRs.

\Regulations: Nuclear’s Achilles Heel

Building The Right Framework

As a general framework, international treaties and agreements have shaped the direction of the nuclear industry, with the role of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) especially important. Still, the path toward deploying nuclear energy is fundamentally a local one.

“Regulatory evolution has moved toward harmonization, but not uniformity. The basic direction is shared, but the pace and depth of implementation remain uneven. This unevenness becomes clear on the national level. Countries have followed very different legal and policy paths, formed by their institutions, their political culture, and their development goals.”

Nuclear regulations and standards can often hinder development, like in India, where overlapping responsibilities between environmental and nuclear authorities have caused issues. Or be unstable, like in France, where a state-led path model later had to adjust via regulatory reform and stronger harmonization with international standards.

A more positive influence of regulation can be seen in China, where the success in mass deployment of nuclear projects and standardization of 3rd generation power plants was supported by more transparent and independent monitoring. A long-term commitment to deploying again and again the same design after initial testing has also helped build a resilient supply chain, skill & expertise, and control cost overruns.

“China has maintained a steady construction program, supported by strong policy, a robust supply chain, and local expertise. China’s case suggests that NE becomes easier to deliver when it is part of a continuous national development plan rather than a single isolated project. The main limitation of this strategy is that it heavily relies on a continuous development plan and a strong supply chain.”

Financing Long-Term Projects

A long-standing issue for nuclear energy has been that traditional nuclear power plants are multi-year (sometimes multi-decade) construction projects, requiring access to financing at a scale difficult to achieve for individual private operators. This makes such projects highly sensitive to interest rates, debt structure, and investor confidence.

A compounding factor is the risk of costs rising, especially when a project takes longer than expected, or capital costs move upward.

This can be a strong incentive for the deployment of SMRs, which are able to be essentially manufactured on demand and installed in a standardized and modular way, especially once that supply chain is well established and running steadily.

“SMRs are considered the frontier of cost-effective NE. Due to modular design and factory-level prefabrication, SMRs are reducing construction and operating costs. Studies show that SMRs’ LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity or Energy) will be within 70–115 USD/MWh”

Case Studies

The researchers also analyzed individual countries and looked at what delayed or hindered the deployment of nuclear energy.

In the case of Kazakhstan, a legacy of radioactive pollution during the time of the USSR required the government to look for public approval, which it got through a national referendum in October 2024, with approximately 70% of voters supporting the construction of a nuclear power plant.

The lack of a preexisting regulatory framework, qualified operator, and financing structure also caused delays. But as a global supplier of uranium (40% of global supply), Kazakhstan is now firmly looking to replace its aging coal plants with nuclear energy.

Australia is another uranium- and thorium-rich country that is lacking in nuclear energy capacity. Here, a rigid policy and regulatory framework has been the main obstacle to adoption, with explicit bans on the licensing of nuclear fuel enrichment plants and reactor construction since 1998 & 1999. Media framing, political polarization, and historical mistrust are all contributing to continuing poor public opinion, reducing pressure to adapt these regulations.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, political will is largely available, but state capacity and institutional readiness are lacking. As a result, it is instead currently considering modern SMR technology for the first commercial unit, which is less demanding than large-scale units.

“Saudi Arabia’s nuclear adoption is not a question of public acceptance and policy issues; it is a question of institutional readiness and technology choice.”

In the Philippines, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was completed in the 1980s, but the facility was never commercialized after a change in government and the Chornobyl accident, both in 1986. A combination of declining technical expertise & skilled workforce, and safety concerns regarding the aging reactors, has so far hindered even the restart of the existing plant.

These case studies illustrate that in most cases, the issue with deploying nuclear energy is not costs or technology, but institutional capacity and regulations.

The researchers recommend a step-by-step approach to overcome limitations to nuclear energy deployment:

  1. Nuclear readiness assessment: a realistic evaluation of construction time, land and water use, waste management, safety, and public acceptance, as well as a cost comparison to alternatives.
  2. Policy reform: relaxing these restrictions but with a clear national pathway to maintain trust and investment.
  3. Building public trust with consultation: managing fear of safety, radiation, and waste management. The process should also include local communities, which should not be treated as a late-stage formality.
  4. Site selection criteria requiring strong transmission infrastructure, reliable cooling options, low exposure to major natural hazards (bushfires, floods, coastal erosion, and extreme heat), far enough from large population centers yet close enough to skilled labor, roads, ports, and emergency services, and locally accepted.
  5. Pilot project using SMRs, as smaller unit size could reduce individual project exposure and allow capacity to be introduced gradually. An SMR pilot should be treated as a technology-demonstration and institutional-learning project rather than as an already proven low-cost pathway.
  6. Waste management with a clear plan for spent fuel storage, transport, monitoring, funding, and long-term responsibility. It should be independent, transparent, and linked with community consultation.
  7. Hybrid nuclear-renewable power system: the goal is to make a renewable-dominated system more secure, not replacing renewables. This saves the country from having to build large-scale batteries and extra power lines just to cover

Investors Takeaways

Nuclear energy proponents often try to pretend that new technology or “just better PR” can overcome limitations to deploying this form of power generation.

But this study makes clear that institutional abilities, financing availability, and skills are most of the time the real limitations. This is especially true for countries with limited to no experience with nuclear energy.

This is all positive for SMR technology, which offers a lower total price tag for pilot projects, higher levels of safety, and a smoother ramp-up in capacity thanks to its inherently modular design.

As a result, many countries like Saudi Arabia are looking to launch or restart their nuclear energy program with SMRs instead of the traditional larger nuclear power plants.

So it is likely that in the next decade, we will see a nuclear renaissance structured globally around two axes:

  • Large countries with high institutional capacity and integrated supply chains launching a string of large nuclear power plant build-ups, with China the best model in that category, and who could be imitated by Russia, the USA, and some major European powers already experienced with nuclear energy (France especially).
  • Many other smaller or poorer countries are buying “key-in-hand” SMR designs from global suppliers, and building or rebuilding their regulatory framework around SMR technology, with the goal of building a hybrid nuclear-renewable power grid progressively freed of fossil fuel dependency.

The key factor for SMR companies’ success or failure will be successful early deployment of test projects, especially in countries new to nuclear energy, for example in Poland, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, etc. This will create case studies to imitate for many other nations, including developing countries.

Similar success in deployment for industrial applications, for example, industrial heat, will also boost SMRs’ future demand and economies of scale.

Investing In Nuclear Energy

GE Vernova

GEV Price Chart

GE Vernova (GEV ), the part of the now broken-up GE conglomerate that is responsible for energy production, has been working for years, in partnership with BWXT and Hitachi, on its own SMR design, the BWRX-300.

This reactor matches well the “entry project” style of SMR that a country new to this form of energy would look for, as it is built around tried-and-tested technology, just smaller. In this, it differs from more ambitious and experimental designs like Oklo’s or even NuScale, which are innovating in terms of fuel or design, at the risk of not matching existing regulatory frameworks.

Among the BWRX-300 successes in the past few years can be mentioned:

Besides SMRs, GE Vernova is also a leader in power generation through turbines, with its engines powered by gas, wind, hydropower dams, or nuclear energy (including large reactors).  In total, GE Vernova systems generate approximately 25% of the world’s total electricity.

This makes the company a good stock pick for investors looking for exposure to electrification, nuclear energy, SMRs in particular, and interested in a more defensible selection than a speculative pre-revenue reactor developer.

(You can also read more about GE Vernova in our investment report dedicated to the company).

Latest GE Vernova (GEV) Stock News and Developments

Study Referenced

1. Rajvikram Madurai Elavarasan et al., Nuclear energy adoption pathways for SDG 7 in newcomer countries: Readiness barriers, technology options, and policy frameworks. Applied Energy. Volume 426, Part C, December 2026, 128701. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2026.128701 

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Jonathan is a former biochemist researcher who worked in genetic analysis and clinical trials. He is now a stock analyst and finance writer with a focus on innovation, market cycles and geopolitics in his publication 'The Eurasian Century".