Small modular reactors attract offtake letters, but construction risk stays with vendors

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Small modular reactors have offtake. They do not yet have a fleet. Buyers said they will contract for electrons if someone else eats the first-of-a-kind construction risk, a sentence that sounds cooperative and is in fact a refusal.

Vendors can live with that if the letters help them raise. They cannot live with it if every delay in licensing becomes a renegotiation.

The next 24 months will sort the firms that can pour concrete from the firms that can pour PDFs. Equity should not confuse the two.