Another Paris Fall-out: The EU SMR Strategy

2026-03-10

And, voilà, the nuclear fairy tale continues. The European Commission presented its strategy for the Small Modular Reactors as a Communication, i.e. the Commission’s opinion with zero legal content. “Our goal is simple: we want this new technology to be ready for use in Europe by the early 2030s,” said von der Leyen. For those among us who remember: the goal was already set for 2020.

The 14-pages document describes how SMR could be used for the chemical industry or data centres: „SMRs can deliver dispatchable, lowcarbon electricity with a high annual load factor that is ideal for colocation and hyperscale AI-driven data centres, while their scalable modular design allows power capacity to expand along with digital infrastructure.“

The EC also writes that while the EU SMR “Alliance has already identified concrete SMR projects, it needs to further stimulate and coordinate industry actions to deliver: 1) light water small and modular reactors (LW-SMRs); 2) advanced modular reactors (AMRs). Some of the most advanced LW-SMR projects are based on designs of non-EU origin.“

The strategy seems to have shrunken down to continue to “develop“ the LW (Light Water Reactor) as the most widely used reactor type of the past decades, the “magic“ of possible other reactor types is not necessarily pursued. The only newer approach is the goal to reach a modular manufacturing of those LW SMR.

Let’s see whether the LWR will be re-labelled as “disruptive nuclear technologies“ to receive public funds from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund.