Nuclear energy is both lauded as a baseload renewable power and decried as risky, expensive and outdated technology. Small modular reactors have received billions in venture capital and unprecedented media attention, but are they a red herring, with philosophy, rather than science, driving our fixation? Professor Allison Macfarlane explores the current sombre state of the technology, where it is falling short, and what philosophy is driving the interest in this unpromising tech. From the inception of Oppenheimer’s harnessing of the power of the atom, first as a device for war, and later, as a means of peaceful energy production, nuclear energy has possessed both promise and peril. With large nuclear power plants struggling to compete in a deregulated marketplace against renewables and natural gas, small modular reactors (SMRs) offer the promise to save the nuclear energy option. In the past few years, investors, national governments, and the media have paid si…

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