As of November 30, 2025, it’s too early to know whether the U.S. will ultimately see large‑scale deployment of SMRs or whether NIMBY opposition will be the decisive factor preventing it.

Key points:

• No large-scale SMR deployment yet, but multiple first-wave projects are advancing. As of 2024–2025, operational SMRs exist only in Russia and China; none are in commercial operation in the United States.(en.wikipedia.org) The first U.S. deployments are still targeted for late this decade or the early 2030s—e.g., Holtec’s plan for SMR‑300 units at the Palisades site in Michigan by 2030 as part of a 10 GW North American SMR fleet in the 2030s; TerraPower’s Natrium demonstration plant at Kemmerer, Wyoming, which has broken ground on non‑nuclear facilities and received key state and NRC environmental approvals; and Dow/X‑energy’s Xe‑100 SMR project in Seadrift, Texas, now under NRC construction‑permit review.(reuters.com) These show a serious build‑out attempt is underway, but it is still pre‑deployment.

• So far, the main obstacles have been economics and project risk, not local NIMBY backlash. The highest‑profile SMR project to be canceled in the U.S., NuScale’s Carbon Free Power Project in Idaho, failed primarily due to escalating costs and insufficient utility subscription, not community opposition.(markets.financialcontent.com) Early advanced‑nuclear sites like Kemmerer, WY (TerraPower), Dow’s industrial site in Seadrift, TX (X‑energy), and planned tech‑driven SMR projects (e.g., Amazon/Energy Northwest’s Xe‑100 project in Washington) have generally emphasized local economic benefits and report cooperative local or state engagement rather than sustained NIMBY‑driven blockage.(terrapower.com)

• Public opinion is moving toward more support for nuclear, not away from it. Recent Gallup and related polling in 2024–2025 finds that a clear majority of Americans (around 55–61%) now favor the use of nuclear energy, the highest support in over a decade, even if people remain more cautious about plants in their direct vicinity.(news.gallup.com) This undercuts the blanket claim that “no one wants a nuclear plant in their backyard,” though localized resistance could still emerge as siting diversifies beyond existing industrial or coal‑plant locations.

• The time horizon of the prediction is effectively multi‑decadal. SMR vendors, utilities, tech companies, and the U.S. Department of Energy are all planning deployments stretching through the 2030s (e.g., Holtec’s ~10 GW SMR fleet, DOE tenders supporting multiple SMR consortia, Google and others signing long‑term SMR MOUs), which, if realized, would constitute the very kind of large‑scale build‑out Sacks said “is not going to happen.”(reuters.com) But because these projects are still in permitting, early construction, or financing stages, their eventual success or failure can’t yet be judged.

Given that:

• large‑scale U.S. SMR deployment has not yet occurred,
• substantial evidence of future large‑scale deployment efforts now exists, and
• NIMBY opposition has not yet clearly emerged as the dominant limiting factor (compared with cost, regulation, and technology risk),

there isn’t enough outcome data to say Sacks is clearly right or clearly wrong. The prediction remains inconclusive (too early) rather than demonstrably correct or refuted.