Utah’s Energy Future Starts Tomorrow - Why Nuclear (SMR's) Are a Good Thing

Over the past several months, I’ve heard from a lot of Utahns who are uneasy about Governor Spencer Cox’s plan and support for small modular nuclear reactors. The concerns are sincere, emotional, and understandable. For many people, the word “nuclear” immediately brings to mind images of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and a long history of secrecy, contamination, and public distrust. Those reactions didn’t come out of nowhere. They were earned by an earlier era of technology and by institutions that failed to be transparent or accountable.

But it’s important to slow down, take a breath, and put what’s being proposed today into its proper context. What Utah is discussing is not the resurrection of Cold War–era nuclear power plants, and it certainly is not a plan to scatter “little Chernobyls” across our neighborhoods. The technology being discussed—small modular reactors, or SMRs—is built on more than half a century of nuclear science, refinement, and hard lessons learned. It represents a fundamentally different approach to nuclear energy, one that prioritizes inherent safety, redundancy, and realism about how systems fail.

This is not new technology in the way most people mean when they hear that phrase. The physics behind these reactors is well understood. The science has been studied, tested, challenged, and improved for decades. What’s new is how deliberately these designs account for human error, power loss, and worst-case scenarios—by designing reactors that don’t need heroics or perfect conditions to remain safe.

To understand why this matters, it helps to briefly explain why disasters like Chernobyl could happen in the first place. Chernobyl was built with a reactor design that was fundamentally unstable under certain conditions. It relied heavily on active systems and human intervention to stay within safe operating margins. Worse, it had design flaws that could actually increase reactor activity during emergency shutdown procedures. Combine that with secrecy, political pressure, and a catastrophic test conducted under unsafe conditions, and you get a tragedy that still shapes public perception of nuclear energy today.

Modern small modular reactors are the opposite of that philosophy.

At a basic, college-level understanding, nuclear reactors work by controlling a chain reaction. When atoms split, they release energy and neutrons, which can hit other atoms that then trigger further reactions creating a chain reaction. The entire challenge of nuclear engineering is not creating this reaction—we figured that out a long time ago—but controlling it safely and predictably. Older reactor designs depended heavily on active systems: pumps, motors, operators, and external power sources that all had to function correctly, all the time. Small modular reactors flip that approach on its head.

(Photo courtesy of NuScale) Twenty-nine Utah municipalities are exploring small nuclear modular reactor technology to power their cities in a world without coal. This mockup shows an aerial view of the 12-module plant site at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls.

These reactors are designed to be inherently stable. As temperatures rise, the physics of the system naturally works against the reaction rather than amplifying it. Materials expand, neutron behavior changes, and the reaction slows down on its own. Control rods and neutron-absorbing materials are still part of the system, but they’re backed up by passive safety features that don’t require electricity, operator input, or split-second decisions.

If power is lost, the reactor doesn’t spiral out of control—it settles down. Cooling occurs through natural circulation, gravity, and convection. Heat is dispersed without pumps. In many designs, the reactor is physically incapable of sustaining a runaway reaction because the laws of physics won’t allow it. That’s not marketing language—that’s engineering philosophy.

This is why you’ll often hear the phrase “walk-away safe” used to describe these systems. Not because engineers expect people to walk away, but because the reactor remains safe even if everything else goes wrong. That distinction matters.

It also matters that these reactors are smaller by design. Large, centralized reactors concentrate enormous amounts of energy in one location. Small modular reactors distribute that risk, reduce complexity, and allow for factory-built components that are standardized, tested, and inspected under controlled conditions. That alone dramatically reduces the chances of construction flaws or improvisation in the field.

So no, this is not Chernobyl in a new wrapper. It’s not even the same conversation.

The next part of this conversation is the one we often avoid because it’s uncomfortable: energy demand. Utah is growing. Our population is growing. Our economy is growing. Our energy use is growing, and it’s not going to slow down. Data centers alone—many of which are already under construction or being planned—consume staggering amounts of electricity. Electrification of transportation, heating, and industry will only increase that demand.

We can—and should—continue investing aggressively in renewable energy. Wind, solar, and geothermal are critical pieces of our energy infrastructure. Utah is uniquely positioned to lead in geothermal development, and we should be leaning into that advantage hard. But renewables alone cannot yet provide consistent, around-the-clock power at the scale we are going to need without massive storage infrastructure that doesn’t currently exist at the required level.

Energy policy has to deal with reality, not slogans. Nuclear energy, including small modular reactors, is one of the few carbon-free power sources that can provide reliable baseload power day and night, regardless of weather. Ignoring that reality doesn’t make it go away—it just shifts the consequences onto ratepayers, working families, and future generations.

If we fail to plan responsibly, the result won’t be ideological purity. It will be instability, skyrocketing utility bills, and a grid pushed beyond its limits.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it: Utah’s future starts tomorrow, so we have to plan for it today. Planning doesn’t mean blindly accepting every proposal put in front of us. It means asking hard questions, demanding transparency, enforcing oversight, and making decisions grounded in evidence rather than fear.

I’m not shy about the fact that I disagree with Governor Cox on many issues. But public service isn’t about reflexive opposition. When an idea is sound, supported by evidence, and aligned with long-term public interest, it deserves to be evaluated on its merits. On nuclear energy—specifically modern, small modular reactor technology—this is a conversation worth having honestly.

As a legislator, this is exactly the kind of issue where I would be prepared to work with Governor Cox and anyone else willing to approach the problem responsibly. Supporting modern nuclear initiatives like small modular reactors doesn’t mean abandoning oversight or accountability—it means recognizing when the evidence supports moving forward and committing to doing it right. That includes rigorous regulatory standards, transparent public engagement, strong safety requirements, and ensuring communities are part of the conversation rather than subjects of it. Good governance isn’t about reflexive opposition or blind loyalty; it’s about stewardship.

This approach is central to how I understand the role of a legislator in the 21st century. If we are serious about sustainability in the 22nd century, we have to be willing to invest in long-term infrastructure now. Energy policy is not just an environmental issue—it’s an affordability issue, a public health issue, and an economic stability issue.

My platform is grounded in the belief that Utah must plan deliberately for the future we are already walking into, not the one we wish we were still living in. That means supporting a diversified, resilient energy strategy that can meet growing demand without sacrificing safety, transparency, or the well-being of our communities.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about being pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear. It’s about being pro-reality, pro-science, and pro-future. Utah has an opportunity to build an energy strategy that is clean, resilient, affordable, and honest about the challenges ahead. That strategy will require a mix of technologies, thoughtful regulation, and a willingness to move beyond the fears of the past without forgetting the lessons they taught us.

We don’t honor history by refusing to learn from it. We honor it by doing better.

Utah’s future starts tomorrow. The question is whether we have the courage and the clarity to plan for it today.