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Italian vitality giant Enel is placing a bet on small modular nuclear reactor through a partnership with Ansaldo , another Italian DOE company , and Leonardo , a defense contractor . The raw company isexpected to be announcedin the coming days .
Enel already hasa dealwith small modular reactor startup Newcleo to explicate so - call 4th - propagation nuclear nuclear reactor technology . The novel Enel - Ansaldo - Leonardo endeavor and the recondite sack of its angel could put additional pressure on other small modular reactor ( SMR ) startup that have struggled to make king plants . Enel ’s planetary revenue alone is tantamount to about 4 % of Italy ’s GDP .
A slew of newfangled companies have egress over the last decade to market smaller reactor . Most of today ’s new nuclear reactor are large , equal to of supplying 1,000 megawatts of electrical energy , and they take yr to build , oftentimes blowing past their budget estimate . SMR inauguration , on the other hand , have bet their occupation on mass production and speedy installations .
Still , none of those startups have built a commercial - scale nuclear reactor . Several are still in the intent stage , and those that have emerge from it have run away into roadblocks : Oklo had its permit applicationdeniedby the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2022 , NuScale ’s first contract wascanceledin January , and X - Energy ’s reverse mergerfailedin 2023 .
Yet as electricity need for AI data centers has startle , tech companies have bet that this raw wave of atomic companies can abate their hungriness for tycoon . Amazon , Microsoft , andGooglehave all placed stakes on nuclear ability in recent months .
This same logical system has Enel and its partners follow new nuclear . Flavio Cattaneo , Enel ’s CEO , has say that the company has received between40 to 50 letter of the alphabet of interestfrom parties hoping to build data centers in Italy . Until lately , nuclear might in Italy was off the table , as the Italian electorate doubly voted against nuclear power plants , once in 1987 and again in 2011 . But the current government has said it plan to draft new rulesby the goal of this yearto rustle the ban .
The three companies have been toying with some form of collaboration for years . Leonardo isworking with Enelto generate more of its own power , while Enel and Ansaldo signalize an agreement in March to search SMR technology . Also in March , Newcleopaired upwith Enel . ( Ansaldo was formerly owned by Leonardo , then known as Finmeccanica ; the twosplitin 2013 . )
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For now , Enel is move cautiously : Cattaneo said SMR power plants are about 10 - 15 years by , something that jibes with the timeline for several other SMR companies . startup will have to struggle with a deep - pocketed challenger , but at least they ’ll have a little breathing room .
