Western Morning News (Saturday)
Nuclear power is still key ingredient
Decisions need to be made soon to secure our energy future, says
IHAVE written previously about an announcement two years ago by Rolls-Royce that it would construct a factory suitable to produce multiple numbers of small nuclear reactors, a project which has received financial support from Government.
As a futuristic concept, it was set to provide new energy at a time when the world was struggling to resolve the continuing threat of Covid-19, which was costing every country millions as they tried desperately to eliminate the pandemic.
With the UK national economy already in dire straits, any new concept of cheap energy in the future had to be welcomed.
Thankfully, now the worst ravages of the pandemic have seemingly passed, we learn that the Government has created a new agency, Great British Nuclear, which is to support all future developments of nuclear power.
It seems without much doubt the Government now believes nuclear will be a main source of cheap energy in the future.
Cabinet ministers have already expressed their wish to commission eight full-size nuclear plants by 2030 in order to reduce Britain’s reliance on oil and gas imports from Russia and elsewhere.
Yet, even where permission and construction starts by 2030, it will still take until 2040 or later before any new supplies of power get to the grid. To me, therefore, small modular reactors (SMRs) become a far more realistic, practicable and timely way forward.
If the UK were to produce SMRs similar in size to those installed in nuclear submarines, yet using a factory environment (assembly line system), this seems not only innovative but quite brilliant. Most of us have limited knowledge of the working of nuclear plants, although we can understand that manufacturing in numbers using a controlled factory environment should bring greater safety guarantees and quality control, as more ‘eyes of experience’ become involved.
Small SMRs will not only be cheaper and quicker to construct but would be ideal for installation in every region of the UK. They might even provide additional power to the grid as early as 2029 – according to Paul Stein, chairman of Rolls-Royce’s SMR division.
Every SMR would be capable of generating enough power to meet the requirements of 45,000 homes, making them very practicable when sited locally. Individual units require a site equal in size to a modern-day submarine, with the construction and commissioning timescale being as little as eight years.
Current construction and commission times for large nuclear plants mean it is 12 and 20 years before new power supplies get to the grid. There is a further bonus, in that additional SMRs could be installed, which could greatly assist local authorities in meeting their new statutory requirements for ever-increasing homes now demanded by Government.
We can all appreciate that offshore or land-based windfarms, ocean power systems, solar energy from solar panels and even large hydro systems have limitations, which is why we are so reliant on fossil fuel and imported energy, yet for the Greens this is an unacceptable way forward. Climate change activists opposed fracking, which in my view left the nuclear option as the final choice. Britain’s continuing demand for new homes is always going to exacerbate the inadequate power supply.
Had the Government gone ahead with fracking in 2022, the concept of cheap energy would have somewhat eased by now, but of course our current Prime Minister quickly saw fit to reverse the green light from his predecessor, Liz Truss, within days of his election.
Weeks later, we have now learned that our energy bills – whether gas, electric or oil – will substantially increase this year.
Finally, an announcement by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, to invest £20 million towards storage of 20 to 30 million tons of CO2 by 2030, sadly came to late to help pro-fracking campaigners like me. Fortunately, the Government then gave additional finance (£210 million) to Rolls-Royce to help to finance the further development of SMRs.
New sources of power are always going to test everyone in the power supply industry and yet it is still not clear whether fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) from home sources or abroad will be completely banned.
Offshore and onshore wind power, ocean power, storage of more water (reservoirs), mined hydrogen, solar panels and storage of energy by utilising battery farms all have limitations.
My belief now is that it will be delaying any decision that will threaten our lights being dimmed in the future.
Monday: Our weekly look at tales of life in the Westcountry from columnist Judi Spiers