There's Noise; and Then, There is Noise

What does the Levelized Cost of Energy (or Levelized Cost of Electricity) mean?

Since the publication of David Schlissel’s February 2022 IEEFA report warning that NuScale’s Small Modular Reactor programme was “too late, too expensive, too risky and too uncertain,” and given the subsequent cancellation of the company’s flagship U.S. deployment project after its projected capital cost had escalated from approximately US$3.6 billion to US$9.3 billion before cancellation, what new evidence has emerged to persuade Jamaican policymakers that SMRs are now suitable for a small-island developing state?

What analyses have been conducted comparing the full lifecycle costs, operational risks, insurance requirements, waste-management obligations, foreign-dependency implications, grid-integration challenges, decommissioning liabilities, and long-term energy-security implications of SMRs against Jamaica’s indigenous renewable-energy resources, energy-efficiency opportunities, battery-storage technologies, demand-management strategies, and potential regional interconnection options?

Absent such evidence, on what basis are public institutions continuing to devote noisy attention, taxpayers’ good money, and institutional credibility to a technology whose commercial viability remains unproven and whose most prominent North American deployment effort failed despite years of promotion, regulatory support, and escalating investment?

Has the government yet picked up the signal that :

NuScale received substantial US federal support through DOE cost-share programmes for SMR design, licensing and commercialisation, plus up to US$1.4 billion for its first Idaho deployment project, with municipal utilities sharing risks that private investors largely avoided before long foreseen cancellation?

Will the following rigorously fact-checked US Government summary figures signal a time to step on the brakes and bring the sad SMR episode to a permanent STOP and park on Jamaica’s little road-side before we have to call upon many wreckers?

Concise US Department of Energy (DOE) Summary

Funding Source	Approximate Value	Purpose
DOE SMR Licensing Support Programme	Up to US$217–226 million	Design certification, licensing, engineering, commercialization of NuScale SMRs
Broader DOE SMR support	Hundreds of millions of dollars	Advanced reactor development and commercialization activities
DOE CFPP Cost-Share Award	Up to US$1.35–1.4 billion	Reduce first-of-a-kind deployment risk for NuScale’s Idaho project
Municipal Utility Participation (UAMPS)	Ratepayer-backed commitments	Project development and power purchase commitments

Is Jamaica’s productivity, workforce discipline, and industrial safety record signalling profound improvement?

An electrical grid—let alone a nuclear power plant—does not respond to speeches, press releases, ministerial optimism, or political aspirations.

It responds to engineering excellence, rigorous operational discipline, and the continuous availability of highly trained technicians and engineers capable of identifying, diagnosing, and correcting problems on the spot, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It also depends upon a robust and exceptionally reliable external electricity supply for critical auxiliary systems, instrumentation, controls, communications, cooling, maintenance, and emergency operations.

Power systems are indifferent to rhetoric. They respond only to competence, redundancy, maintenance, safety culture, and measurable operational performance.

Before Jamaica contemplates the extraordinary technical and institutional demands of nuclear power, a legitimate question must first be asked:

Do our current productivity, workforce reliability, industrial safety, maintenance, and operational performance indicators demonstrate sustained excellence at the level required for such a technology?

If we cannot consistently achieve world-class performance in the operation and maintenance of the systems we already possess, on what evidence should Jamaicans conclude that we are prepared to operate one of the most demanding technologies ever developed by modern civilisation?

by Dennis A. Minott, PhD.

June 6, 2026.