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As policymakers look for ways to meet rising energy demands with clean and reliable power, some anti-nuclear advocates argue that new nuclear plants should be dismissed because of historically high upfront costs and past construction delays.

But advanced nuclear technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs) promise to overcome those challenges and deliver clean, reliable, and abundant power through a simple but transformative model: factory-built fabrication, one-time design permits, and modular deployment.

Some traditional nuclear plants have seen major cost overruns. The proposed Marble Hill project in Indiana, for example, rose from $800 million to $2.8 billion before being canceled in 1983, while Vogtle Units 3 and 4 grew from about $14 billion to more than $30 billion and were delivered several years late. But nuclear is hardly unique.

Large, capital-intensive projects of all kinds can run over budget and behind schedule, including wind and solar. Virginia鈥檚 Coastal Offshore Wind project grew from $9.8 billion to $10.7 billion because of grid interconnection challenges. Wisconsin鈥檚 Koshkonong Solar Energy Center rose from $649 million to more than $900 million because of supply-chain issues and labor constraints. In Arizona, the Solana Generating Station fell three years behind schedule and cost millions more than expected because of construction missteps, equipment failures, and air-quality violations, locking ratepayers into electricity prices four times the market rate.

With nuclear, high costs and delays often stem from new safety requirements imposed after construction is underway and a permitting system that requires each plant to be custom-designed from the ground up, even when the technology is very similar to past projects.

At Vogtle, nearly 200 license amendments forced costly pauses and redesigns. Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station also saw costs increase in the 1980s after new safety requirements were imposed following the Three Mile Island accident. Those circumstances were outside the builders鈥� control, but they reflect the consequences of a system that treats each project as a one-of-a-kind, standalone facility. That prevents new plants from learning from past mistakes and capturing economies of scale through repetition.

Today鈥檚 new reactors are changing that. Instead of building massive, one-time projects, advanced reactors are pursuing smaller, modular, repeatable designs that can be approved once and deployed again and again without additional permits or redesigns. Once the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission certifies a design, modules can be mass-produced in centralized factories, shipped by truck, rail, or barge, and assembled on-site with far greater speed and predictability.

Developers are already moving in this direction.

Last Energy, which has signed power purchase agreements with industrial off-takers in the UK and Poland, plans to use modular factory fabrication and skid-mounted shipping to achieve roughly 24-month deployment timelines and repeatable cost reductions for its 20 MWe PWR-20 reactor.

Kairos Power, which is backed by Google and the U.S. Department of Energy, plans to use off-site module fabrication and factory-to-site construction methods to lower commercial build risk for its Hermes low-power demonstration reactor and future 140 MWe KP-FHR platform.

NuCube Energy, which is backed by Arizona Nuclear Ventures, plans to use ultra-small factory fabrication and truck-and-rail deployment for its roughly 1 to 20 MWe microreactor platform, allowing rapid field deployment and multi-unit scaling for remote or industrial users.

By standardizing designs, making units smaller, and allowing one-time design certifications, advanced nuclear offers a fundamentally different business model: off-the-shelf, factory-fabricated nuclear plants ready for deployment and able to benefit from the cost efficiencies of serial production. That reduces construction risk, increases delivery speed, and drives the kind of cost declines seen in other industries, where each successive unit becomes faster, cheaper, and more efficient than the last.

Even legacy nuclear showed those gains. Vogtle Unit 4 was completed at roughly 30% lower cost than Unit 3, and Palo Verde鈥檚 later units were built more efficiently than the first. Replication-driven cost declines are real, and nuclear is positioned to capture them.

There will be some growing pains. NuScale Power, for example, saw projected costs rise because of construction and supply expenses, ultimately leading to the project鈥檚 cancellation. But that reflects the reality of first-of-a-kind deployment, not a structural flaw. Each company is still proving a unique design, and none has yet had the opportunity to fully benefit from the serial factory production that should deliver the economies of scale SMRs promise.

Advanced nuclear is not repeating the mistakes of the past. It is solving them. With modularity at its core, it is positioned to deliver clean, reliable, and affordable power at the scale America needs.

Let鈥檚 not allow yesterday鈥檚 permitting and construction challenges to stand in the way of tomorrow鈥檚 advanced energy solutions. Let鈥檚 support small modular reactors and build a reliable, abundant energy future.

Michael Carbone is a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing Legislative District 25 and serves as House Majority Leader. Follow him on X at @MichaelCarbone. Michael Way is a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives serving Legislative District 15, which includes Mesa and Queen Creek in Maricopa County, and San Tan Valley in Pinal County. Follow him on X at @MichaelWayAZ.