Perhaps most notably, governance‑related concepts such as community engagement, siting justice, and public trust are largely absent from the dominant keyword clusters revealed through TF‑IDF and LDA analysis. This pattern contrasts with long‑standing evidence that nuclear deployment outcomes hinge on procedural fairness, transparency, and risk communication. As cities face rising electricity demand, climate‑driven outages, growing data center loads, and new siting pressures, the lack of urban‑relevant framing in national SMR strategies may limit the technology’s ability to support equitable and resilient energy systems.

The authors conclude that viewing SMRs chiefly as engineering solutions risks missing their potential contributions to multi‑service energy portfolios and resilience planning. They argue that meaningful integration of SMRs into smart energy cities will require a broader policy architecture—one that explicitly addresses governance, cross‑sectoral applications, spatial justice, and local participation. Expanding future analyses to include state, provincial, and municipal policies will also be essential, given that these levels of government oversee land use, community engagement, and emergency management—factors central to nuclear siting and energy justice.

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