Building small modular reactors at the “considerable” number of fossil fuel and coal plants that will be going out of service towards the end of the decade and beyond means workers can be cross-trained and millions of dollars saved by using existing infrastructure, the chairman and chief executive officer of SMR developer NuScale Power said.

John Hopkins told the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy and Climate Cooperation Business Forum and Ministerial in Warsaw, Poland, that “the fact is we can use most of the workers at NuScale”. He said the average 200 to 400-MW coal plant, many of which are in rural areas where jobs are crucial, has about 200 workers and “in terms of cross-training these people, we see no problem”.