Rolls Royce nuclear group visits

YNYS Môn MP Virginia Crosbie recently hosted a delegation from Rolls-Royce as the worldfamous company looks for sites to build Small Modular Reactors (SMR).

Mrs Crosbie met with chief executive of Rolls-Royce’s UK SMR Consortium Tom Samson and Director of Strategy and Business Development Alan Woods – with Wylfa tipped as a potential SMR site.

First, they visited the former Octel site at Amlwch and met with locals Keith Owen and Anne Tooze before a trip to meet Orthios owner Sean McCormick in Holyhead.

Finally, the group visited the new National Nuclear Laboratory offices in M-SParc to meet with Mark Salisbury, the Head of Reactors Strategy at the National Nuclear Laboratory.

“This was potentially a very important visit to the island by a major player in the development of SMRs for the nuclear industry,” said Ms Crosbie.

“Both men from Rolls-Royce wanted to look at sites where the company can build and operate the technology and I was on hand to tell them the island has a rich history and skilled workforce in nuclear power.”

Tom Samson said: “Today’s visit to the island of Anglesey has demonstrated to us that the local support, industrial heritage, clean energy ambitions and unique nuclear talent pool make Anglesey an ideal place to support the deployment of our Rolls-Royce SMR power plants.

“Add to that mix the gamechanging benefits that gaining a ‘Freeport’ status would provide to the island, then it becomes a perfect environment to combine our SMR with a range of clean energy products which can showcase how cost competitive clean energy solutions can be delivered at scale in the UK and is an ideal location to support the export of those same cost competitive clean energy products to global markets.”