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A Growing Alliance for SMRs

The European SMR Industrial Alliance, launched in February 2024, now includes over 350 members—from energy companies and research institutions to public organizations. During its second General Assembly, the alliance adopted its first Strategic Action Plan, outlining a five-year roadmap for the development, demonstration, and deployment of SMR technology in Europe. The full document is available on the Industrial Alliance on SMRs website.

The plan emphasizes that timely deployment of SMRs will be crucial for industrial competitiveness, achieving climate neutrality by 2050, and strengthening the EU’s strategic autonomy in the energy sector. Europe aims not only to develop new technology but also to become a global leader in this field.

Ten Priority Areas

The Strategic Action Plan identifies ten key areas: expanding SMR markets beyond electricity generation, rebuilding and modernizing supply chains, supporting research and development, developing technical skills, mobilizing financing, and simplifying complex regulatory frameworks.

It also addresses fuel and nuclear waste management, safety, and public acceptance. The plan therefore considers a wide context—from industrial and political dimensions to societal impacts—rather than just promoting the technology itself.

However, a central question remains: are these priorities realistic given limited financial resources, conflicting member state interests, and public skepticism toward nuclear energy?

Partnership Across Levels

The plan was developed in close cooperation with the European Commission, NuclearEurope, and the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform (SNETP). These organizations are responsible for coordinating actions, supporting demonstration projects, and overseeing the plan’s implementation.

In practice, this requires balancing the interests of diverse actors: large energy corporations seeking stable investment conditions, and EU institutions emphasizing safety and sustainability standards. Maintaining this balance between business logic and public interest remains a challenge.

Financing: Barrier or Opportunity?

The document stresses that without unlocking adequate funding sources, SMR development may remain only on paper. Nuclear technologies require massive capital investments and are subject to regulatory and social risks.

Hope lies in the IPCEI initiative for innovative nuclear technologies, recently approved by the EU, which could support key European projects—including SMRs. Yet, with tight national budgets and growing renewable energy needs, will sufficient funding be available for nuclear investments?

Public Acceptance: The Achilles’ Heel

The plan highlights the importance of social dialogue and gaining public support. Nuclear energy remains controversial, with memories of Chernobyl and Fukushima still vivid in Europe.

SMRs are designed to be safer than large nuclear plants. Smaller scale and innovative technical solutions are expected to reduce the risk of accidents and make any consequences easier to manage.

Yet nuclear waste management remains unresolved. No European country has yet developed a long-term, widely accepted solution for radioactive waste storage. These concerns may challenge public acceptance and outweigh expert arguments.

Supply Chains and Skills

Rebuilding Europe’s nuclear supply chain is a key goal. Years of deindustrialization have led to lost expertise, and much component production has moved outside Europe.

For SMRs to become a real alternative, new production lines and skilled personnel—engineers, technicians, safety experts—are needed. This requires long-term investment in education and training, with benefits that will not appear immediately. In this sense, deploying SMRs by the early 2030s may be overly optimistic.

Ambition vs. Reality

The SMR Alliance presents the Strategic Action Plan as a roadmap to secure Europe a leading role in the global technological race. But for this vision to become reality, financial challenges must be overcome, social trust built, and industrial competencies restored.

This raises doubts about one key assumption: that SMRs will be operational by the early 2030s. While goals are ambitious and well-defined, practical barriers may make the process longer and more difficult than anticipated.

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