Economic and Employment Impacts of Small Modular Reactors - SMR

In addition, it is important to note that the operations to transform projections of energy demand
projections into the forecast numbers of SMR units manufactured and operated are mathematically
linear. This means that the projected numbers of SMR units are, in effect, a re-­‐scaling of the energy
demand projections. As a result, any perturbations that occur in the energy demand projections will
impact the final SMR counts. For example, the dip in the number of SMRs manufactured in the year
2021 for both the high and disruptive cases are reflections of the drop off in additional capacity for 2021
in the EIA Basic and Reference cases, shown earlier in Figure 2 and now appearing in Figure 6, caused by
the scheduled expiration of the advanced nuclear production tax credit. As explained earlier, this may
prove an overly conservative assumption
and models.
Overview of Results
The projected demand for domestic SMR manufacturing and operations are summarized below.
Detailed results for the number of SMRs manufactured and operating in the U.S. on a year-­‐by-­‐year basis
are provided in Appendix A. These annual estimates for SMR manufacturing and operation are used to
generate the estimated economic impacts in Section 4 of this report.
Figure 5 indicates the cumulative number of SMR units operating per year in the U.S. for each SMR
Economic Impact Case described above. The plot in Figure 6 represents the number of SMR units built
in the U.S. per year for each case. As mentioned previously, the nominal unit SMR generating capacity is
assumed to be 100 MW.
Figure 5
600
500
400
Projected SMRs Operating in the US
Low Case
Moderate Case
High Case
Disruptive Case
Units
300
200
100
0
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
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