Chicago can be on the forefront of a source of energy with close to zero carbon emissions and a secure supply
Chicago is a city that runs on energy — steel and chemicals on the Southeast Side, data centers blooming around key fiber routes, district cooling that keeps the Loop comfortable in July, and millions of households heating, charging, and moving.
The city’s electricity demand today sits near 30 terawatt‑hours (TWh) per year and is poised to climb 10–40 percent by 2035 as, buildings, and industry electrify. The AI (artificial intelligence) boom will add untold amounts of energy needs. The human brain operates quite well with 20 watts of power. Not so with its AI cousin. Meeting that growth with clean, reliable supply is the central challenge of the next two decades. Wind and solar could shoulder a big share, but unless there is a revolution in battery storage they are they are not a reliable alternative. The amount of land needed to produce energy through wind and solar projects is also massive, so that also makes them non-starters as well. That is why Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), factory‑built nuclear units in the tens to few hundreds of megawatts — are in the conversation for dense, infrastructure‑rich Chicago.
Traditional reactors are huge, custom‑built megaprojects that lost their attraction with the convergence of Three Mile Island and Jane Fonda’s nuclear meltdown hit. SMRs, by contrast, are designed for replication. Smaller cores and passive safety systems — natural circulation, gravity‑fed cooling, and in some designs high‑temperature TRI-structural ISOtropic fuel made of nuclear pebbles (TRISO), aim to reduce risk and simplify operations. Several light‑water SMRs around 300 megawatts electric (MWe) target conventional steam cycles familiar to operators and regulators; smaller 77–80 MWe modules aim at modular multi‑unit plants.
In urban contexts, the crucial advantages are a compact footprint, potential underground siting, and high-capacity factors that deliver round‑the‑clock, carbon‑free power. For Chicago, that means a technology that could live on an industrial brownfield and directly serve large, steady loads — industrial steam, district energy, and data centers — while supporting the broader grid.
At a 90 percent capacity factor, a single 300 MWe SMR produces roughly 2.37 TWh per year at about eight percent of Chicago’s current annual consumption. Smaller 77–80 MWe modules yield around 0.6 TWh apiece. If the city’s demand rose to ~38 TWh by 2035 (a plausible mid‑range), then a fleet of four to five 300 MWe SMRs could cover about a quarter of city demand; eight to nine would cover roughly half; and 16–18 could, in theory, offset nearly all current consumption. In practice, a mixed portfolio is more realistic: a handful of large SMRs anchored in the Calumet industrial corridor, possibly complemented by smaller modules integrated with district energy or industrial steam hosts. That hybrid can optimize land, cooling water access, and interconnection while lowering project risk.
SMRs are land‑efficient, measured in tens to low hundreds of acres which simply aren’t available in Chicago. The city does, however, have brownfields, retired coal sites, and heavy‑industrial corridors with transmission access. The Calumet industrial corridor is the strongest technical candidate: it offers space, rail and water access, and an industrial buffer that reduces land‑use conflicts. Retired coal sites like Fisk (Pilsen) or Crawford (Little Village) offer symbolic ‘coal‑to‑clean’ narratives but face intense environmental‑justice scrutiny.
Any Chicago proposal would need binding community benefits, third‑party monitoring, and a visible local jobs pipeline to earn trust. For those old enough to remember, Charlotte Newfeld made a name for herself by opposing lights at Wrigley Field. If somebody can stir up a hornet’s nest for something as innocuous as lights at a baseball park you can bet your bottom dollar there will be plenty of saviors to prevent a nuclear Armageddon in their neighborhood.
Illinois has opened a legal pathway for small reactors (≤300 MWe) alongside federal licensing through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A 2023 NRC rule enables performance‑based emergency planning for advanced and small reactors, which can justify smaller emergency planning zones — critical in dense areas — if safety analyses support it. On the finance side, the federal Loan Programs Office can reduce borrowing costs. Locally, Enterprise Zones can help with site remediation and interconnection. But none of these replace the need for strong offtake: long‑term contracts with industrial customers and district‑energy operators are the backbone of a bankable Chicago SMR.
On pure dollars per megawatt‑hour (MWh), first‑of‑a‑kind (FOAK) SMRs are expensive. Credible estimates cluster around $90–$150/MWh for initial deployments — generally above gas power at today’s fuel prices. However, SMRs are expected to get cheaper as designs mature. The long‑run, nth‑of‑a‑kind (NOAK) ambition is roughly $60–$90/MWh, reflecting factory repetition, shorter build cycles (three to five years instead of a decade), and lower financing costs. Serial deployment on a single Chicago site further reduces costs by spreading security, control, cooling, and interconnection across multiple modules. The infrastructure portion of cost does not vanish, but the modular hardware, licensing amortization, and financing all have room to fall.
Natural‑gas power remains a formidable benchmark, commonly falling around $40–$70/MWh depending on gas prices, plant utilization, and financing. Early SMRs exceed that; later units could overlap band. At $100 per ton, gas moves toward $80–$100/MWh. In those scenarios, a mature SMR at $50–$70/MWh becomes competitive or cheaper on a pure cost basis, particularly industrial steam hosts and data centers seeking round‑the‑clock clean power.
Because Chicago sits in the PJM (Com Ed’s wholesale power market) and ComEd is wires‑only, a new nuclear unit is unlikely to be rate‑based in the traditional sense. More plausible is a developer‑led project backed by federal loans and tax credits, with long‑term power and steam contracts to anchor financing. That model contains consumer exposure: the bulk of cost sits with developers and off-takers who choose the product. Importantly, SMRs paired with district energy can produce both electricity and useful heat, creating additional revenue and reducing the per‑MWh price needed to pencil out.
SMRs are engineered for passive safety and, in some designs, use fuels that can tolerate extreme temperatures without failing. Underground siting and smaller emergency planning zones are possible, subject to rigorous analysis. Yet public acceptance will hinge on more than engineering: transparent monitoring, independent oversight, and clear community benefits are decisive. Chicago’s experience with industrial siting means communities will demand more than assurances — they will expect binding commitments, local jobs, and environmental reporting they can see and trust.
A realistic path would begin with one site (likely in the Calumet corridor), one vendor, and one large unit paired to an industrial steam or district‑energy anchor. Secure offtake first; align site remediation, interconnection upgrades, and community benefits next; then sequence additional modules as demand grows. If the first unit achieves on‑time construction and reliable operations, Chicago can replicate on the same site or a second brownfield with lower incremental risk. Near‑term (early 2030s), one to three SMRs could cover 8–25 percent of present demand. Longer‑term (late 2030s to 2040s), a cluster of five to 10 could cover 40–75 percent.
Could SMRs be cheaper than gas in 20 years? It is possible, but certainly not guaranteed. Like every commodity it all depends on supply and demand. There does seem to be an ever-growing supply of natural gas, whether through new discoveries or new technology (fracking.) If factories are producing modules at scale, build times are short, mature SMRs land in the $50–$70/MWh zone.
SMRs are not a free market panacea, but with the advent of unimaginable demand for electricity due to AI they do have a greater recoverable supply in uranium versus natural gas. Like roads, sewers and needed bridges it is a worthy infrastructure project.
