Book Review – “An Introduction to Strategy”
March 5, 2025
Hammad Waleed
In the vast chessboard of global energy, a new player is making its move—a promise wrapped in steel and uranium, heralded as the saviour of both the climate crisis and the nuclear industry itself. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being hailed as the future of clean energy, a technology that could redefine power generation as we know it. Compact, factory-built, and supposedly safer, faster, and cheaper, SMRs have been cast as the solution to nuclear energy’s greatest pitfalls.
SMRs are marketed as a nuclear breakthrough—smaller, safer, and scalable—but their high costs and lack of investment slow progress.
Yet, for all the fanfare, the revolution has yet to arrive. Over 80 different SMR projects have been proposed in recent decades, yet only two have been designed and put into commercial operation . The Western world, despite its enthusiasm, is struggling to make SMRs a reality. Meanwhile, the East—led by Russia and China—is racing ahead, proving that when it comes to nuclear energy, state-backed ambition often trumps free-market hesitation.
Not too long ago , nuclear energy was the great hope of modern civilization. It was the power of the future, promising limitless energy without the environmental scars of coal and oil. But then came Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. Fukushima. One disaster after another shattered public confidence, turning nuclear into a relic of a more naive era.
Now, as the world plummets toward climate catastrophe, nuclear power is finding its way back into the mainstream energy discourse . The International Energy Agency (IEA) has stated, unequivocally, that nuclear capacity must double by 2050 if we are to meet global net-zero targets. But here’s the problem—traditional nuclear plants are too expensive, too slow to build, and too politically fraught ( something that politicians dependant upon five year election cycles would consider too costly and politically less rewarding)
Enter SMRs, the golden compromise. They’re small. They’re scalable. They can be mass-produced in factories like airplanes instead of being built from scratch on-site. They take up a fraction of the space required by wind and solar farms. In theory, they’re a silver bullet. In practice? Not so much.
China and Russia lead the SMR race, using state-backed funding, streamlined regulation, and full-service nuclear deals to outpace the West.
The logic behind SMRs is simple: make them smaller, make them safer, and make them modular. Instead of sprawling mega-facilities that take decades to construct, SMRs could be produced assembly-line style and shipped to wherever they’re needed. They could power remote towns, support industrial manufacturing, and even serve as a replacement for decommissioned coal plants.
More importantly, they are designed with passive safety features—instead of relying on external power and human intervention, many SMRs cool themselves naturally. No pumps, no backup generators—just physics doing its job. The nuclear industry argues that this makes them inherently safer than their predecessors, ensuring that a Fukushima-style meltdown would be nearly impossible.
But while the technology looks good on paper, the economics tell a different story. SMRs lose the economies of scale that make large reactors cost-effective. Smaller reactors generate less electricity, meaning their revenue streams are inherently weaker. The brutal economic reality is that SMRs, as they stand, are often too expensive to justify their small output.
In the free-market-driven economies of the U.S. and Europe, nuclear power must prove itself to investors. And so far, it has failed. But in state-controlled energy systems like Russia and China, SMRs are treated as a strategic national investment, not just a business venture.
Russia’s Rosatom and China’s CNNC have sidestepped the financial constraints that have shackled their Western competitors. They don’t have to convince Wall Street or private investors. They simply build, fund, and operate their reactors with state backing.
China’s Linglong One, a 125 MW SMR on Hainan Island, is scheduled to be the first commercial land-based SMR in the world by 2026. Meanwhile, Russia’s floating nuclear plants, powered by SMRs, are already in operation, supplying energy to remote Arctic regions where renewables simply aren’t feasible.
The Western model relies on private investment, making nuclear expansion slow and expensive compared to state-driven programs in China and Russia.
But it’s not just about technology—it’s about the entire package. When China or Russia sells an SMR to another country, it doesn’t just deliver a reactor. It provides: financing, through state-backed loans, fuel supply and waste management, technical training and operational support
By comparison, Western companies force nations to piece together their nuclear infrastructure from dozens of private firms, making the process more expensive and bureaucratic. Who, then, is a developing country more likely to sign a deal with?
For all their promise, SMRs are not a magic bullet. The biggest challenge in decarbonizing the planet isn’t space—it’s money and scale. China, the fastest-growing nuclear nation, has made a bold choice: while it experiments with SMRs, it’s doubling down on massive, full-scale reactors. The logic? If you’re going to invest in nuclear, bigger is still better. The world’s energy needs are skyrocketing, and there is an open question as to whether thousands of smaller reactors make more sense than hundreds of large ones. For SMRs to truly change the game, they need government backing, regulatory streamlining, and better economic models.
The dream of factory-built, plug-and-play nuclear power stations isn’t dead—but it’s far from realized. If the West continues to rely solely on private investment to drive nuclear expansion, it will fall further behind. Meanwhile, Russia and China are proving that nuclear success requires state commitment, not just market enthusiasm.
SMRs have the potential to reshape the global energy landscape—but they won’t do so unless governments decide to make them happen. The question now is not whether the world needs nuclear—it does—but who will lead the way?
The author is a Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad. He graduated with distinction from National Defence University, Islamabad. He writes on issues pertaining to National Security, Conflict analysis, Strategic forecast and Public policy. He can be reached at hammadwaleed82@gmail.com
