Why Britain needs Rolls’s mini nuclear reactors
The plants could provide the boost required to guarantee the lights stay on, says Howard Mustoe
As the world tries to turn off Russian oil and gas in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, ministers want Britain to rely far less on imported energy to keep the lights on.
That shift comes is a boost for Rolls-royce, which is developing a mini nuclear power station that promises carbon-free electricity at a fraction of the usual cost because they can be factory made.
Rolls passed a key landmark this week in getting government regulators to assess its designs for its small modular reactors.
“We’re ready to work with governments and other parties who are ready to start removing barriers to deploy this technology much faster,” Rolls-royce’s Tom Samson said, adding that the approvals process for sites needs to be speeded up. “In the UK, where we’ve got an existing nuclear decommissioning estate, we’ve got sites that have been under consideration for nuclear for many, many years.”
With help, Samson says reactors can start supplying the grid by 2030.
The argument for and against nuclear power balances the demand for dependable carbon-free energy with the challengeof waste disposal, with safe storage for the worst of its byproducts needed for thousands of years.
Nuclear power remains mired in controversy around the world, especially in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. While radiation poisoning is likely to have killed only one person, the subsequent evacuation led to hundreds of deaths and suicides.
The industry points out that newer reactors have more safety features built into them in the wake of the disaster and that the UK has almost no risk of a tsunami like the one that hit the Japanese reactor.
Aside from geothermal power, which is rare in the UK, no carbon-free power source competes with nuclear for dependability as it keeps operating night and day, regardless of whether the wind blows.
But with at least an eight-year wait before Rolls’s small reactors can start delivering power, critics say the price of storage is likely to decline, rendering the technology obsolete.
Wind and solar accounted for 42pc of UK electricity generation last month, with natural gas delivering 22pc and nuclear 14pc. The rest was a mix of imports, biomass, hydro and coal at 3pc.
While it would be a mistake to shut them off, or to immediately abandon gas usage while renewable capacity is built up, ultimately power can be made and stored cheaply enough using wind and solar, says Harald Överholm, former solar markets adviser to the Swedish government and founder of Alight, which operates solar farms.
He says the answer is to “over-build” renewables such as wind and solar and then use them to generate hydrogen on windy and sunny days to act as a power bank for when demand outstrips supply. Hydrogen made from water using electricity can then be burned, producing water again.
“The long game of transition is 100pc solar, wind and electrification. This is a valid plan. This really works,” he says. It will take time and involve declining costs for energy generation and storage, however.
But for Juan Matthews, a visiting professor at the University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute, nuclear power is critical to keeping the lights on, even as more and more cheap wind and solar power is delivered. He says that the volatility of wind and solar power means that a few days’ worth of electricity storage would be needed, something that can only be delivered at great expense today.
“I do support renewables, but renewables have a big problem,” Matthews says. “What we need is a balanced selection of energy generation sources that have a low impact on the environment with low carbon emissions, and nuclear is one of those.”
While excess energy from renewables can be stored, for instance by powering pumps to send water to reservoirs at height, to be harnessed as hydroelectric power when needed, this is an expensive process.
And for making hydrogen, using expensive electrolysers only part of the time to build up reserves is a waste and requires similarly expensive storage.
He says nuclear is a better bet for making hydrogen too, because the electrolysers needed to strip water molecules of their hydrogen atoms need to be run continuously to be at their most efficient, and nuclear can provide power day and night.
Supporters of pure renewables point out that the cost of electrolysers is likely to come down, although many use rare metals such as iridium, which has doubled in price in the past two years. There are also opportunities for storing power in the nation’s growing fleet of electric cars and banks of batteries that continue to get cheaper.
But nuclear has another advantage in that the energy starts off as heat, allowing for more options with storage when a power bank is needed, Matthews says. Nuclear power stations can be built with extra generation capacity to make use of extra heat stored in rocks or as molten salt, making up for gaps in renewable production.
The heat can also be used in new processes to make hydrogen from water that do not require expensive catalysts, further cutting costs.
Finally, he says, Rolls-royce’s technology can be made largely in Britain. The mini reactor project has attracted £490m of capital – a sign investors are confident in its necessity, says Samson, and a way out of Russian gas. “The UK is responding to this crisis with a technology solution. This is an exportable product that can help other countries in their energy independence and security and supply as the landscape changes for Russian fossil fuels and gas.”
‘The UK is responding to this crisis with a technology solution. This can help other countries in energy security’