Are consumers doomed to pay more for electricity due to data center buildouts?

Data center operators to sign pledge to supply their own power instead of relying on grid.

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[Megahedron]

The largest problem for SMRs (and there are many)...is still economics.Just like their larger traditional brethren.

You see, large commercial-scale power plants have large economies-of-scale advantages. SMRs only have an advantage in lower-risk profiles. and maybe-faster-construction....

With a 2000MW commercial reactor:

• You have one centralized site to secure against intrusion. Nuclear security guards--are some of the highest paid "SECURITY" t-shirt wearers around.
• You have only 1-2 reactor cores, so you need only a handful of operators to run the thing. These people cost a LOT of money
• Being centralized with 1-2 cores you need fewer maintenance workers...these are also expensive because of the materials being worked with, and needed security clearances
• You have only one site to ship hazardous materials too.

As opposed to, let us hypothetically say a fleet of 100x SMRs each making 20MW....where you need far more of every single kind of manpower, you have far more sites, you need far more security personnel, you have far more of everything....the advantage of SMRs is only maybe in construction time and maybe in risk profile--but no one actually knows because no one has done it yet.

I've seen payrolls of nuclear plants--as expensive as they are to build...the wages are HIGH, and would make economic gains from "cheaper" SMR construction all but wiped out.

The obvious answer to this problem is that they'll just lobby to relax regulations so they can get cheaper laborers to run them in the name of "meeting growing demand" and "accelerating business growth."

• High-paid security guards? Nah, the foreman can just hire his drinking buddy Jim for 12 bucks an hour. Sure, he got fired from his job as a cop two states over a few years ago (something about a DUI? I dunno, I wasn't really paying attention), and he might spend most of his shift watching Spike TV while high as a kite, but we just need to check the box.
• Hire high-paid, specialized operators? Nah, just grab a fresh college hire. Degree in English? Good enough, just follow this rulebook and don't fuck up.
• Hire expensive maintenance workers? Eh, we'll just poach a few guys from the local Home Depot. I'm sure they'll do a bang-up job, they fixed my water heater no problem!

Now, one might say silly things like "this is inviting disaster" and "you're going to spike the number of nuclear accidents by the hundreds," but to that I say: Do you Hate America?

(I hope that the joking tone of this post comes through)