EDF | PREPARED BY SCROLLY SCIENCE · OCTOBER 2026
Dr Marisol Garrouste
A Creative Proposal
The argument about nuclear has always been about electricity. Run the numbers across American industry, and the real opening turns out to be somewhere else: the heat and hydrogen behind steel, ammonia and fuel.
Studio
About Scrolly Science
Scrolly Science is a science communication brand built for researchers, institutions, and mission-led organisations.
Research
The Paper
Technoeconomic competitiveness of small modular reactors across U.S. power and industrial sectors — Garrouste M, and co-authors. Nature Communications, 2026.
There is a lot of noise about small modular reactors, and most of it is about electricity. Your paper cuts through it with a simple discipline: instead of asking whether reactors can beat the grid in the abstract, you ask where, across the real map of American industry, a reactor would actually pay for itself.
To answer that you modelled the industries that are hardest to decarbonise and run on heat and hydrogen rather than on electricity. Every ammonia plant in the United States, the integrated steel works, the refineries, and hundreds of other high-emitting facilities that need process heat.
For wholesale electricity, the economics don't yet close. For industrial heat and hydrogen, the picture flips. With the hydrogen production tax credit in place, enough reactor capacity becomes profitable to rival a large share of the country's existing nuclear fleet. Remove that credit, and the window very nearly closes. The policy is not a footnote — it is the hinge the whole result turns on.
That is a message built for people who make decisions. The people who most need that steer are not the ones who routinely read Nature Communications. A film gives the argument a second, wider door.
Paper (open access): doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76077-3
Profile: linkedin.com/in/marisol-garrouste
Data and code: github.com/mgarrouste/SMR_deployment
Where Nuclear Actually Pays
The Script
Running time written for 60 seconds, five scenes, and scales cleanly to 90 or 120. A first draft, built from your paper — a starting point for the conversation rather than a finished thing.
Timing
Visual
Voiceover
0:00–0:12 · The hook
A reactor sits beside a power line, electricity flowing to the grid. The image is familiar. Then the grid fades back and the reactor stands alone.
When we picture nuclear power, we picture electricity heading to the grid. But run the numbers across American industry, and that turns out to be the one place a small reactor can't yet compete.
0:12–0:30 · The real problem
The scene widens to a working industrial country: steel works, ammonia plant, refinery. The common thread is heat and hydrogen, not electricity.
The harder problem is heat and hydrogen. Making steel, ammonia and fuel runs on burning fossil gas. So this research asks: could small reactors do that job instead, and where would it actually pay?
0:30–0:48 · The method
A map of the United States fills with points — every ammonia plant, steel works, refinery. At each point a small calculation runs.
To find out, the team modelled American industry site by site. For each one it worked out how many reactors of which kind it would take, and costed it against real prices.
0:48–1:05 · What they found
The map responds. For electricity, points stay dark. For heat and hydrogen, regions light up. The hydrogen credit switches off — most of the lit map goes dark again.
For electricity, the sums don't yet close. For industrial heat and hydrogen, they can. With the hydrogen production credit in place, reactors could profitably supply enough energy to rival much of America's existing nuclear fleet.
1:05 · The close
The lit map settles, with the first, strongest sites marked. Paper title, authors, journal, open-access link.
A clear case for where the first reactors should go, and the one policy that decides whether they get built. The full study is open to read below.
This script is a first draft. Every word is open for refinement together — we'd expect you to check the technical language closely for precision.
Look and feel
Visual Direction
Two written directions. Both are described so you can feel the register before anything is drawn. Our recommendation is to build one visual system and lean it toward whichever aspect you most want to lead with.
Option 1 · The Industrial Map
Recommended for scale
The map of American industry becomes the world of the film. Facilities appear as points of light by sector — electricity sites staying dark, heat and hydrogen sites lighting up, the hydrogen credit switching whole regions on and off. Clean, data-led, closer to a high-end analytical explainer. Decision-makers see where the opportunity is concentrated in a single national view.
Option 2 · Follow the Energy
More physical, more human
The film follows the energy through a single plant — an ammonia works, say — from the gas burned today to the reactor that could replace it. Then it pulls back to the national scale. More grounded and memorable, but it shows the national breadth a little less fully than Option 1.
Deliverables
What We Will Build
The deliverable is a complete, launch-ready film built to the highest production standard.
Master film
Scrolly Explainer
Professionally recorded voiceover, original sound design and music. Full resolution 16:9 for conferences, briefings and channels.
Short-form cuts
30s and 15s
Edits from the master for social and targeted promotion — the argument compressed without being simplified.
Square and vertical
9:16 and 1:1
Reformats for LinkedIn, X and other platforms. Reframed and re-edited where composition demands it.
Full ownership
Every format
All final files in full resolution. You own the finished work outright, with no licensing restrictions or ongoing fees.
Process
How We Work
Four stages from alignment to delivery — approximately four to six weeks for the standard build.
Alignment
01
We make sure we fully understand the paper, the audience and what the film needs to do. We refine the script together until every line earns its place — including how the economics and the tax credit are characterised.
Visual development
02
We build the chosen visual direction into a full storyboard, scene by scene. You choose the direction and, if you want narration, the voice. Nothing goes into production without your sign-off.
Production
03
Our team builds the film. You have a review point at rough cut for consolidated feedback before the final pass. You're involved at every milestone.
Delivery
04
Final files in every format you need, with a guide on where each cut is best deployed, then the distribution campaign if you choose to run one.
Opportunity
Why Now
There's a real reason to move now.
Path forward
Next Steps
Confirm the direction
01
Confirm that a film for industrial, policy and investment audiences — with the industrial-map or follow-the-energy visual system — reflects your goals.
Refine the script
02
Review the draft script together and check the technical language for precision, including how the economics and tax credit are characterised.
Choose the visual lean
03
Decide whether to lead with national scale (Option 1) or industrial tangibility (Option 2) at the alignment stage.
Begin production
04
Once scope is agreed, begin alignment and script refinement, then storyboard and production on a four-to-six-week standard build.
Legal
Legal and Commercial Terms
This proposal is prepared for Dr Marisol Garrouste and her co-authors, and is otherwise confidential. The script, visual concepts, creative direction, and structural approach in this document are the intellectual property of Animara Studios Ltd until a formal agreement is signed and a deposit received. This document is not a contract or binding agreement. All pricing, timelines, and deliverables will be confirmed in a separate Statement of Work. Animara Studios Ltd operates under English law.
Animara Studios Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Company number 16074216. 701 Stonehouse Park, Sperry Way, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, GL10 3UT.