Decarbonising our energy supply is vital to achieving net-zero and while we have made great strides in deploying renewables, satiating our growing energy needs requires radical thinking. In this response to a prior article published here 'The End of Oppenheimer's Dream' by Allison Macfarlane, Jan Emblemsvåg argues far from resigning nuclear to the past, the new technology of small modular reactors finally allows nuclear to exploit Fordist capitalism, and with it, potentially save our energy crisis.

Professor Allison Macfarlane discusses in these pages the state of Small Modular Reactors (SMR), and overall she draws a pessimistic picture even arguing that SMRs are ‘supported by ideology alone’. She has many valid points in her article, but to cut across all the roughly 100 different SMR concepts with a single, broad stroke is too simple. Also, what about all the small nuclear power plants operating around today? Sure, many of these concepts will have licensing problems. Sure, many will have serious waste issues. Sure, many will not be competitive due to costs, and so on. But some of them will succeed, and industrialization will define the industry, just as industrialization changed the world.

Let us remind ourselves that in 1908 there were more than 250 car manufacturers in the US alone. 40 years later, it was five. Similarly, a similar shakeout will also take place in the SMR domain. In 1908, it was at best a niche industry until Henry Ford took it the next step through industrialization. Ford Model T cost initially 850 USD in 1908 but through industrialization it fell to 350 USD in 1916! It was said that Ford extracted the iron ore on Monday and delivered the car on Friday! This is the power of industrialization, and it illustrates that we must move the nuclear industry from handcraft today to the first Model T nuclear power plant design over the next decade.

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Many venture capitalists are satisfied if 1 out of 10 investments pay handsomely off.

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