Shadowing Practice: How Solar Is Beating Nuclear's Best Idea - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Three years ago, people were predicting the end of small modular reactors.
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The Utah utility canceled plans for Portland, Oregon's NuScale to build the first of these novel nuclear reactors in the state.
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The estimated cost started at $3 billion in 2015, it hit $4 .2 billion in 2018, $6 .1 billion in 2020,
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and $9 .3 billion in 2023.
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At which point, the customers walked.
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SMRs were sold as a faster, cheaper route to nuclear, nuclear, but NuScale showed they could be just as slow and just as expensive to build.
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I've covered these things three times.
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Each time I said the same thing.
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Promising, but unproven.
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So did 2026 finally change that?
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Just a few years after NuScale's collapse, it seems reports of SMR's death have been vastly overstated.
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In fact, 2026 is perhaps the best year for SMR's ever.
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Multiple projects are breaking ground after a decade without any new commercial nuclear projects.
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And the Trump administration wants to help with a pro -nuclear agenda and 900 million dollars available to support the SMR industry.
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94 million of that has already been awarded.
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So now we're back to rosy headlines and you'd be forgiven for having a case of small modular whiplash.
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So what's actually happening here?
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Are small modular reactors about to play a major role in our energy system?
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Or are they just a waste of time and enriched uranium?
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I'm Matt Farrell.
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Welcome to Undecided.
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This video is brought to you by Incogni.
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Big reactors put out 600 to 1500 megawatts.
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Small modular reactors, or SMRs, are built for 70 to 350 MW.
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SMRs are supposed to fix the problems associated with big, honking reactors.
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Although America has more nuclear power than any country in the world and nuclear supplies about 20 % of the U .S electricity, the reactor fleet is old.
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Most of it was built before 1990.
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Over decades, nuclear reactors have gotten more and more expensive and taken longer and longer to build.
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The most recent U .S nuclear reactors at the Vogel facility in Georgia took seven extra years to build
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and produce energy at more than seven times the cost that nuclear cost in the 1970s.
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New nuclear can't compete with renewable energy in terms of cost.
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The levelized cost of electricity from nuclear is between $175 and $255 per megawatt hour.
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That's much more expensive than utility -scale solar, which has an LCOE between $40 and $98, or onshore wind, which is between $37 and $99.
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If nuclear wants to compete in an era of increased electricity demand, that's just not going to cut it.
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SMRs are supposed to make nuclear competitive again.
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They're supposed to make it cheaper and quicker to build and have more places they can fit.
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As I've mentioned on the channel, whenever nuclear comes up, the prospect of a clean, firm source of power is incredibly appealing today.
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New nuclear capacity reduces dependence on fossil fuels and compensates for the intermittency of renewables.
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Also, I am aware that there are claims
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that SMRs will be safer from malfunction than traditional reactors and that produce less hazardous waste.
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We've gone into that in detail in other videos if you'd like to hear more about it, so I'm not going to rehash it here.
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When we say SMRs are small, that refers first and foremost to how much power they make.
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Modular means that most of the components can be built in a factory, shipped, and then assembled rather than built on site.
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In a recent Reuters column, Gavin McGuire describes it like this.
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The vision is straightforward.
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Turn nuclear power from a construction business into a manufacturing business.
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The idea is that over time it'll get cheaper and easier to build the pieces of these reactors.
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That's what happened with solar panels.
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We also know that finished working SMRs are possible.
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There are sample projects in China and Russia, which we'll get into later.
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Put this all together and you can start to understand the dream.
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Smaller, safer and cheaper nuclear developed in the U .S and exported for profit.
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You see the rosy picture painted across the U .S.
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Department of Energy's website, which reads, If a sufficient number of SMR units were ordered, it would provide the necessary incentive to develop the appropriate factory capacity to further grow domestic
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and international sales of SMR power plants.
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That's a big if.
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And it's a big problem.
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If there were a large number of specific SMR in the development pipeline, we could assess if mass production actually decreased cost, at what point, for which specific technology.
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The current levelized cost of electricity for SMRs, before any cost decrease from factory learning, is $214 per MWh.
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That's higher than every source of renewable energy.
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And without those orders, we can't fully assess its potential.
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It's like a middle schooler saying they're going to be an NBA all -star once they grow up to be 6 '10".
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Sure, we can't totally rule it out, but skepticism?
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It's appropriate.
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It's even harder to make an assessment
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because currently there are a huge number of different SMR designs taking off all over the world.
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Well over 100.
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With that many designs, it's possible that the market may become too diluted for any one design to be mass -produced cheaply.
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One whole category of these designs can't legally get built in the US right now, and it has nothing to do with money.
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It comes down to fuel and a piece of paper.
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More on that in a second.
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But speaking of paperwork, when my wife and I built our house, I filled out a mountain of it.
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Permits, applications, utility forms, inspection requests, and every one of those had my name, my address, and my phone number on it.
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I didn't think twice about it at the time, but years later I've got a pretty good idea where a lot of that information ended up.
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Thanks to Incogni and to all of you for supporting the channel.
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Ok, so back to those designs and the ones you can't get off the ground.
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On the one hand, the growing number of designs for small modular reactors shows a very real interest in the technology.
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But it's also a problem.
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All these designs compete for the same investment dollars.
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That makes it harder for any one of them to get built over and over.
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And without that repetition, the cost savings never shows up.
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The flurry of innovation in SMRs is creating a bottleneck to their adoption.
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It's like a factory where 50 teams are making 50 kinds of car.
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One team might be cooking up the Model T, but there's so much traffic to get out the door, it'll never have the chance to prove itself on the road.
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Also, remember that one of the key components needed to reduce the cost is the ability to mass produce them.
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If the same market for SMRs is divided between 100 teams versus 5 teams, mass production may not be possible, at least anytime soon.
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When I covered these three years ago, I figured the field would have thinned out by now.
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A couple of designs pulling ahead, everybody else quietly dropping off.
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The opposite has happened.
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There are more designs chasing the same pile of money than the last time I looked.
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There's a whole category of these reactors that can't get built right now and has nothing to do with money.
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There are some SMRs that we can probably count out from taking off, just from the kind of fuel they plan to use.
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You wouldn't buy a car
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if it ran out of gas from a special kind of gas station that hasn't been built yet.
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But that's effectively the plan for some SMRs.
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Many SMRs and advanced large nuclear reactors in the works plan to run on high -assay low -enriched uranium, or HALU.
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This is more enriched than the low -enriched uranium fuel that's used by most current reactors.
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HALU has a higher burn -up than low -enriched uranium, so you get more energy from the amount of uranium.
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This is key to claims of increased efficiency and less waste for many SMR designs.
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But there's a problem.
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The only commercial HALU right now is produced by Russia, which is a non -starter given a law called Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act of 2024,
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which does exactly what you think it does.
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What this means is that a serious chunk of SMR designs can't take off until a domestic supply chain can be built.
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The US is putting a lot of effort, and by effort I mean cash money, into meeting this potential demand.
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A company called Centris in Bethesda, Maryland proved it could produce 900 kilograms of HALU.
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They didn't want a separate $900 million contract, this one to commercialize its operations.
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According to the company, the initial buildout will include 12 metric tons of annual HALU production capacity, as well as LOO.
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The plan is for the facility to be built out by 2029.
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It's a step in the right direction, but it won't be nearly enough to meet the demand, which could reach 50 tons a year by by 2035, according to the Department of Energy.
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So there's a chunk of SMRs that have no chance of breaking out because of their fuel.
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But set the fuel problem aside for a second.
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What happens when you stop reading the pitch decks and go look at the reactors that are already running?
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Big Nuclear did try to standardize designs to make construction cheaper, the way SMRs are supposed to do it.
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It just didn't work.
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According to a 2020 study by Ish Gates and colleagues, the cost escalation comes down to lower labor productivity and soft costs.
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I guess modularity isn't all it's cracked up to be.
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So let's look at the actual SMRs.
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Two of these things are in commercial operation right now.
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Almost nobody talks about how they're actually performing though.
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The numbers here are bad.
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China's HTRPM ran 27 hours out of a possible 8 ,760 in 2020.
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Russia's KLT -40s unit percent, performed at 26 .4 % and 30 .5 % of capacity.
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And while they were being built, they had the same cost and time overruns of regular nuclear.
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According to Goldman Sachs, Russia and China's SMRs experienced cost overruns between 300 and 400 % over initial estimates,
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which aren't likely to go down until economies of scale develop.
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And just like boring large nuclear, these SMRs took forever to build.
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China's HTRPM took nearly a decade to complete.
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Russia's KLT -40s was projected to take four years to build, but required 13.
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Despite the troubled track record, the effort going to SMRs is very real.
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Like I said at the beginning, this is an incredible year for SMRs.
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Two US projects broke ground earlier this year.
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Bellevue Washington's TerraPower received the go -ahead for a 345 MW facility in Kemmer, Wyoming, with storage that can push output to 500 MW at peak demand.
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And the Alameda, California -based company Kairos broke ground on a demonstration project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
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Energy -hungry hyperscalers are linked up with SMR companies to power the data centers increasingly central to the U .S economy.
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Investment money is flowing into the space.
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According to Michael Johnson, managing director for JPMorgan Chase, this recent round of SMR enthusiasm started in 2024 when Amazon made a deal with Rockville,
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Maryland's X -Energy.
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He told the Wall Street Journal it was real support from Amazon
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that had people believe not just in the future of X -Energy, but in the future of small modular reactors.
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Look, if you'd want anyone on your side to build your SMR, it would have to be one of the most profitable companies on the planet.
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But how much should we weight that excitement from finance and big tech against everything else that we know? So here's my take.
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SMRs are a hard sell.
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For all the activity in this space, we're not seeing anything like what we've been promised every time we've covered them.
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This is now the fourth time I've looked at these.
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I keep waiting for my answer to change.
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Even people working to develop SMR companies don't expect the tech to break out.
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Ray Rothrock is an investor in several reactor companies.
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He expects very few SMR startups will survive.
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It's a single digit, he told the Wall Street Journal.
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It's not a double digit.
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The big problem is that a small nuclear reactor is more like a large nuclear reactor than a PV panel.
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It faces the same regulatory hurdles and process challenges.
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A reactor a tenth the size is just as complex to produce.
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It needs the same design work, build the tension and paperwork, and at first it makes less power for more money.
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Here's how the chief executive of TerraPower, Chris Levesque, put it to the Wall Street Journal.
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Because this is a smaller reactor doesn't mean smaller design effort, because it's still fission.
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A factory cranking out PV panels can produce millions of a specific design in a year.
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That That leads to lower costs. And comparatively, right now there are just a trickle of SMR projects without
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even a single design proving itself to iterate on into the future.
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In an era of ubiquitous solar backed up by batteries, the case for massive SMR investment is thin.
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But there's still a case for them.
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An IEA report last year predicts that globally, SMRs are poised for rapid growth.
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The IEA's baseline scenario has SMRs hitting 40 GW by 2050.
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And to be fair to nuclear, 40 gigawatts of reactors running around the clock outproduces a year of US solar installs by a good margin.
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The problem is the calendar.
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The US installed that much solar last year.
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SMRs get there in 2050.
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But it's still something.
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There are plenty of places they might be useful.
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Military installations, small outposts, way off the grid, and of course the data centers that keep coming online.
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I know how much we all love a good data center.
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Increased energy demand and climate change make any new source of clean energy worth pursuing.
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SMRs are being pursued, but their central mechanism to lower cost and speed adoption has yet to be proven.
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It likely won't anytime soon, or maybe even ever.
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But right now, solar and batteries are dunking on SMRs.
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It's not a fair comparison really, for a technology that is still some years away at best from reaching the rim.
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So are SMRs a waste of time?
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What do you make of the money that's still going into them? jump in the comments and let me know.
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You can also check out extended cuts of my videos over on Patreon.
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In this one I go into more detail on the different kinds of SMR designs that are out there.
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If human -written and researched videos matter to you, Patreon support helps a ton.
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And a big welcome to new Supporter Plus member Blue Falcon.
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The link's in the description if you'd like to join, but just watching, subscribing, and turning on notifications is awesome.
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And check out my follow -up podcasts still to be determined will keep this conversation going.
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Keep your mind open, stay curious, and I'll see you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 195 sentences and 2687 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:02. The speaker talks fast, about 191 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| reactor noun | /ɹiˈæktɚ/ | A person who responds to a suggestion, stimulation or other influence. |
| modular adjective | /ˈmɑd͡ʒəlɚ/ | Consisting of separate modules; especially where each module performs or fulfills some specified function and could be replaced by a similar module for the… |
| uranium noun | /ˌjuː.ˈɹeɪ.ni.əm/ | The element with atomic number 92 and symbol U. A radioactive silvery-grey metal in the actinide series. |
| electricity noun | /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/ | Originally, a property of amber and certain other nonconducting substances to attract lightweight material when rubbed, or the cause of this property; now… |
| compete verb | /kəmˈpiːt/ | To be in battle or in a rivalry with another for the same thing, position, or reward; to contend. |
| utility noun | /juːˈtɪlɪti/ | The state or condition of being useful; usefulness. |
| renewable adjective | /ɹɪˈnu.ə.bl̩/ | Able to be renewed; capable of renewal. |
| thin adjective | /ˈθɪn/ | Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite. |
| assessment noun | /əˈsɛsmənt/ | The act of assessing or an amount (of tax, levy or duty etc) assessed. |
| removal noun | /ɹɪˈmuː.vəl/ | The process of removing or the fact of being removed. |
| component noun | /kəmˈpoʊ.nənt/ | A smaller, self-contained part of a larger entity. Often refers to a manufactured object that is part of a larger device. |
| ton noun | /tʌn/ | The short ton of 2000 pounds (about 907 kg), 20 hundredweights of 100 pounds avoirdupois each. |
| pursue verb | /pɚˈsu/ | To follow urgently, originally with intent to capture or harm; to chase. |
| anytime adverb | At any time. | |
| adoption noun | /əˈdɑp.ʃən/ | The act of adopting. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| take off verb | To remove. |
| break out verb | To escape, especially forcefully or defiantly. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. |
| build out verb | To develop or expand (a system, structure, project, etc.). |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've covered · have been · has already been awarded |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were sold · been awarded · is brought |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | solar, which has · Russia, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 43 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, you'd, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, tenth /tɛnθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: adoption /əˈdɑp.ʃən/, exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/, innovation /ˌɪn.əˈveɪ.ʃən/, sufficient /səˈfɪʃənt/
- Long words — get the stress right: uranium /ˌjuː.ˈɹeɪ.ni.əm/, electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, utility /juːˈtɪlɪti/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like reactor, modular, uranium.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.