“All the recent flurry of fusion fascination prompted one long-time observer of the story to quip, anonymously, ‘The folks who brought us the most expensive way in the world to boil water, fission, now want to double down with fusion.'”
Fusion energy — yielding enormous amounts of heat from the violent combination of elements — has long been touted as the holy grail of energy future. That’s wrong, according to a new article in the prestigious Nature Energy.
“While nuclear fusion power is often hailed as a future source of abundant, clean energy, current dominant fusion designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are unlikely to become competitive due to their expected low experience rates,” concludes the article by a team of researchers led by Lingxi Tang of the Energy and Technology Policy Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.…
“Energy hyperbole and the madness of crowds are evident with both NuScale Power and Fermi America. Bubbles burst.”
The most mature U.S. small modular nuclear reactor vendor — NuScale Power — and a politically connected firm planning to build perhaps the largest reactor project in the U.S. to power an enormous Texas data center — Fermi America — have both suffered recent, major, possibly existential blows. NuScale and Fermi, both publicly traded, have seen their stock value plummet amid bad financial results, questionable management decisions, and attacks by the wolves of Wall Street, short sellers, and claims of securities fraud.
NuScale Power
Oregon-based NuScale Power (NYSE:SMR) is the only advanced reactor vendor in this new market with a design approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a “first mover” advantage. It also uses the familiar and well-understood pressurized light water cooled technology, which has decades of mostly successful operation.…
“Europe’s biggest nuclear power operator EDF, which manages France’s fleet of 57 reactors, is under pressure to show it can improve on its record of reactor construction. Recent projects have been severely delayed and hugely over budget, taking well over 10 years to complete.” – Financial Times, February 20, 2026).
There’s a new leader in the nuclear power plant cost overrun derby, and it isn’t even in the clubhouse yet. Britain’s Hinkley Point C — being built in Somerset by France’s government-owned Électricité de France (EDF) — is now going to cost at least £49 billion ($65 billion) if it goes into service in 2030 and another £1 billion ($1.3 billion) if the first unit is delayed to 2031. This equates to $10 million per megawatt–best case–with multiple years of waiting.…