Is SMR Stock a Buy Under $20? A Long-Term Look at the Opportunity.

Nuclear energy is seeing renewed interest from governments and companies around the world, particularly in light of the power needs of artificial intelligence (AI).

And one of the most interesting developments in nuclear power, particularly in relation to AI, is the small modular reactor (SMR).

SMRs work the same way as large reactors; they use the heat generated from splitting uranium atoms to boil water and spin a turbine with the steam. They just do it on a far smaller scale.

That allows them to take up much less land than their full-scale counterparts.

Image source: Getty Images.

As far as data centers go, the idea is that you could plop an SMR in the middle of a cluster of data centers to keep them supplied with power that doesn't rely on or spike prices in the local power grid.

There are several companies working on SMR technology, but one of the most prominent is NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR).

And right now, NuScale is trading for less than $20 and is perhaps the closest of any of the companies working on the technology to deploying an SMR in the field. So, is it a stock you should consider?

A big thing in a small package

If the company's symbol wasn't clear enough, NuScale's sole focus is developing SMR technology.

And it has been selected by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and awarded a $400 million grant to deploy 6 gigawatts of power from SMRs across the seven-state region the TVA operates within. Commercial operation of the plants is targeted for early in the next decade .

Now, this is as close as any SMR company has come to deploying the technology in the wild. Each TVA plant will have 12 NuScale Power Modules generating electricity within it. The reactor is the only SMR approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

There are other companies working on SMR technology that are in much better financial states than NuScale, namely BWX Technologies and Rolls-Royce, but neither of their reactor designs has approval from the NRC.

That's all great, but what's the catch?

Revenue, or, rather, the irregularity of it.

The company does generate revenue, mostly from a deal with Romania's RoPower for an ongoing project to deploy six NuScale SMRs to a power plant in Doicești, Romania. Between the second quarter of 2024 and Q4 2025, NuScale generated $63.1 million in revenue from the project.

However, that revenue is dependent upon the continuation of the project, and it has declined over 2025 from $13.4 million in Q1 to $8.1 million in Q2 and $8.2 million in Q3 before dropping to $1.8 million in Q4 as NuScale completed work on its services for that phase of the project.

So, while the company can generate revenue under its own power, it is still heavily reliant on investor dollars and government projects. If NuScale is a buy, it's one that comes with a very large caveat in the form of risk.

NuScale is certainly closer than anyone else to bringing the first SMR online, but I wouldn't expect it to generate revenue regularly until that time, which makes it a risky proposition. Worth a look? Definitely. But consider it a speculative play for the next few years at least.

James Hires has positions in BWX Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends BWX Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends NuScale Power and Rolls-Royce Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.