Nuclear- The Comeback
It’s safe to say that nuclear power in the UK has some hurdles to overcome if it is wants to turn ambition into delivery. but the development of a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) alongside larger stations could propel the industry into a new atomic age with serious energy security and net zero benefits.
The government has set a target of 24 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050, up from around 6 GW now. It represents a huge ramp up, which will help transform the energy sector as we move from fossil fuels to a low-carbon system. The government has set a target of a completely decarbonised power grid by 2035. The clock is ticking.
Record gas prices and the need for more secure and sovereign sources of power have, in part, made the push for new nuclear a matter of urgency, so could it be that 2023 is the year nuclear makes a comeback?
We posed this and other questions to a panel of industry experts.
Does this, energy security, climate change and the push towards net zero the government’s recognition of the need for more nuclear mean that 2023 is the year nuclear makes a comeback?
We posed this and other questions to a panel of industry experts.
Julia Pyke, Sizewell C Director of Financing and Economic Regulation,
Tom Samson, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce SMR, and industry advisor Simon Bowen, who’s been working with the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy on Great British Nuclear.
Will 2023 be a watershed year for new nuclear in the UK and why?
Tom: “It should be. We’ve already done a lot of work as an industry to get to this point and we now need to capitalize on that. And I think the signs are there that we’re on the right trajectory with the emergence of Great British Nuclear.”
Simon: “I think it genuinely is and why we’ve created a great deal of excitement around the industry through the multiple technologies that are being developed and the pace at which they’re maturing plus the support of government.”
Julia: “The case was made that it would be cheaper for consumers with the right amount of nuclear well before the Ukraine crisis.
“What the Ukraine crisis and the subsequent gas price crisis showed is how very much cheaper nuclear is. If Hinkley was on today, it would be saving around about four and a half billion pounds a year to consumers.”
How can we make financing new nuclear power stations an attractive proposition?
Julia: “The Government’s made a lot of progress in introducing a regulated asset-based model, which is how a lot of other infrastructure in the UK is financed.”
Tom: “Financing nuclear really is governed by risk allocation and whether financial players are prepared to accept certain risks.
“What we have tried to do in Rolls-Royce SMR is help manage and mitigate that risk allocation to maximize the introduction of private capital to help finance nuclear, and by making the projects small enough and more digestible hopefully to make nuclear more attractive to a wider range of both investors and potential customers for possible off-grid or PPI type solutions.
Simon: “You’ve got to create an environment in the UK where you do have a program of nuclear new builds.
“Risk allocation is critical, and government has got to take its fair allocation of risk.”
What role can nuclear play in alleviating and helping with the UK’s energy security?
Tom: “Essentially, energy security is something that we as industry can support, but it can only really be done by directive and interventions from governments to put in place the architecture.”
Julia: “It’s great for energy security if we have our own fuel facilities.”
Simon: “Nuclear has a crucial role to play in the energy security mix because it is low carbon and it is always on. And because of the life of the reactors, it is a relatively cheap source of energy.”
How do we avoid the past mistakes of failing to replace the capacity as it comes offline?
Julia: “How we avoid this, I hope, is by taking into account that the nuclear industry builds best when it builds in sequence.”
Simon: “Great British Nuclear should lead a program and that program should be able to build on the experience of Hinkley, the experience of Sizewell.
“And then as we get to build suites of SMRs, use the capability, the skills, the experience and the supply chain to just keep growing.”
Tom: “There is actually a huge role for SMRs to play in replacing that future capacity, in increasing the capacity on the grid during the 2030s and increasing capacity for our off-grid applications around the country.”
How can the UK build up its sovereign capabilities and industrial skills in Nuclear?
Julia: “It’s about long-term thinking.
“What we all have to do is to balance confidence that the project is going to happen in a particular time frame with the lead times for bringing forward skills courses, and getting them accredited by the supply chain.”
Tom: “People don’t build factories waiting to get an order. They need to be responding to the demand signal and we need a decision as to how are we going to create that demand signal?”
Simon: “I think the first thing to do is acknowledge that there is a huge amount of work going on across the nuclear industry to attract the right skills into the industry and there is a lot of work in government.
“One of the things I’ve been really encouraged by is there is recognition within defence.”
How can Nuclear provide solutions beyond grid electricity?
Tom: “I think there’ll be other opportunities for nuclear to be more closely linked with new data centres and clean energy campuses that require a variety of energy solutions off grid, as well as providing backup to the grid. This will become the defining features of the future.”
Julia: “Very cheap heat. And with that heat, we are looking at how best to use it. So we can be looking at heat assisted hydrogen production which will bring down the use of electricity therefore cost.”
Simon: “What makes it more flexible is its ability to do things like the direct production of hydrogen and the direct production of heat.
“There’s some really exciting technologies around which are designed to be walk away safe, and the benefits of that is you could start putting them on non-nuclear sites … in any areas of high electricity usage.”