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Stuart Nathan
Features editor
The Engineer
Don't let nuclear go into the sunset
We’re constantly being told about the importance of nuclear power to the UK’s future energy landscape. It’s an integral part of the mix of generating technologies that we’ll need to meet emissions targets and ensure fuel security, along with cleaned-up gas and a range of renewables. It’s the only baseload generating technology with no associated carbon emissions, and it’s part of the main reasoning behind the redrafting of planning guidelines, to ensure that the new nuclear reactors we urgently need can be constructed quickly and smoothly. Nuclear, we are assured, sits right at the centre of the UK’s future energy strategy.
So it comes as something of a shock to see the House of Lords’ science and technology committee warning of ‘complacency’ over nuclear R&D in the UK. ‘It’s as though we’re setting off on a long journey without a map, without a driver, and without anyone to fix the car if things go wrong,’ said committee chairman Lord Krebs.
To be clear, this lack of R&D isn’t connected with the fleet of new reactors whose designs are currently undergoing assessment by the Health and Safety Executive; these are bought-in designs, from France and the US. The gap the committee refers to is in what comes after — the designs for reactors to replace these new ones, which would come into service in the middle of this century.
In some ways, this isn’t particularly surprising, although it’s a depressingly familiar story. The energy industry pretty much abandoned R&D in the 1980s following deregulation, when companies decided it was an unnecessary drain on resources. The short-sightedness of this policy was admitted by the industry when the Energy Technologies Institute was established in 2007.
Britain was a leader in civil nuclear technology in the 1950s, of course, with the first commercial nuclear power station in the world at Calder Hall. The country continued to lead the field with the design of magnox reactors, although the fleet of custom reactors this spawned has led to problems: the lack of standardisation is making them very difficult to decommission.
Nonetheless, British engineers literally wrote the books on high-temperature, graphite-moderated reactors, and these are the type of reactor which are likely to form the successors to the pressurised water reactors currently being built. The problem is, those books were written in the 1960s and 1970s, and the engineers who wrote them are now retiring.
There are far too many sectors in the UK where expertise and skills have been allowed to die out, and it’s usually been through government complacency and lack of foresight. Nuclear academics in the UK have been warning of this for several years now, and calling for a new generation of engineers who they can train in these skills. A good start would be for the UK to join the Generation Four International Forum, a group of countries pooling their resources on the design of a range of high-temperature reactors for future deployment; our older engineers can still make a valuable contribution to these efforts, and with their low-carbon profile, they could enthuse younger engineers as well.
But most worrying of all in the Lords report is a warning that our knowledge of nuclear technology is receding so fast that we risk losing our status as an ‘informed customer’ in buying current nuclear technology. It’s the equivalent of buying a new camera and not only not reading the manual, but not being able to tell which way up to hold it. If this is true, it’s highly alarming, and puts at risk any attempt to meet emissions targets. It could lead to the UK falling behind in the queue to order new reactors, and leave us with a generating ‘black hole’ which we won’t be able to fill.
It’s clear that there needs to be new scrutiny of training in nuclear technology, and some serious thought about energy R&D in this country. Nuclear should not join shipbuilding, steelmaking and train building as ‘sunset sectors’ where the skills base has been left to wither.
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Readers' comments (35)
Ed Neale | 23 Nov 2011 12:34 pm
Time and again I find myself asking exactly what purpose politicians and top business management serve. If nothing else, current events are showing that we cannot continue to keep taking the short term, money-making view if the UK is to continue(?) to be an advanced and prosperous nation. There must be a better way - any ideas anyone? Perhaps a literal industrial revolution is in order....
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Ed Neale | 23 Nov 2011 12:35 pm
Wither? I think 'rot' is a more apt term.
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AlmosJustice | 23 Nov 2011 12:52 pm
I'm afraid I'm completely in disagreement with you Stuart. Although Nuclear power can be said to be low carbon although whole build carbon costs are not accounted for, the real costs of nuclear build, maintenance and decommissioning taken together make it the most expensive energy generation technology available. Whole life costs for wind will be demonstrated to be much lower. Your argument that only nuclear can fulfil base load requirement is also false. With 40% of Europes wind resource and the fact that peak loading for energy is many cases in solar generation windows, a smart grid and upgrading of the national grid would allow the UK to be self sufficient, with the political will, in energy generation within 20 years. Of course the nuclear lobby and the Big Six energy oligopoly don't like this because they will lose most of their obscene profits.
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Anonymous | 23 Nov 2011 12:53 pm
Unfortunately, this is a constant and re-occuring trend with the UK governement. Short sighted interest in political point scoring which damages the long term economics of the country.
The engineers are still around; as a nation we are great inventors and thinkers, what is lacking is protection from copy cats or asset strippers.
Rome wasn't built in a day, but it didnt take very long for it to fall. As with our Space technology, Hovercrafts, linear motors, and a raft of other technological advances it's UK to the highest bidder.
Even the National Physical Laboratory is expected to make a profit, and the majority of their expertise directed at the interest of big corporations abroad who manufacture the modern day cutting edge technology.
Let's stop trying to make short term fat proffit and invest in our long term future of UK PLC.
But more importantly once we have lets not flogg it off to the first high bidder for a quick buck.
Now i'm cross.
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Stephen Mosley | 23 Nov 2011 12:55 pm
The generation and supply of energy for everything from personal transportation to manufacture is a topic for ever increasing concern. Unless we are expected to eschew all that we have and meekly retreat to the caves there has to be a system of solutions developed that do not "cause further problems to the planet" and that meet our needs. Why then do we throw money at windfarms (although we know that does not presently solve our problems) and have our leaders produce these warnings (highly focused and isolated areas of concern)? Surely if we threw a large amount of resources into a cross-technology National Energy Generation Laboratory which would cover everything from concept to decommisioning we'd stand a good chance of solving our problems and making money by selling the solution as a complete package to every other country? I see a huge opportunity for the first country to commit fully to solving this problem rather than just providing sticking plasters and reports and, once more, fear that our politicians don't have the vision or guts to make it us!
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Anonymous | 23 Nov 2011 12:55 pm
Research and Developement along with the skilled workforce of this country were effectively killed off during the Thatcher holocaust where no incentives were given for companies to re-invest in improving products or efficiencies.
The only consideration was for redundancies and sadly this continues to this day.
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Tim | 23 Nov 2011 12:59 pm
I hope the politics of the world mean we do not require more nuclear fission in the UK. It is clear by a few simple calculations that renewables can provide us with more than enough energy, and will likely cost less than nuclear. At least we wont be left with a load of nasty waste to look after - a real cost to us not always shown. I also suspect that there are few young engineers interested in nuclear energy.
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brian m | 23 Nov 2011 1:06 pm
Not to mention we have a lot to thank Greenpeace et al for. Perhaps it's ironic that their efforts to ban nuclear energy will (has?) made a significant contribution to green house gas emissions!
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Anonymous | 23 Nov 2011 1:06 pm
Tony, I use gas central heating but have Economy 7. It is (just) economical provided I run the washing machine and dishwasher at night. I wouldn't have an EV though since it wouldn't suit my mileage needs.
The biggest disadvantage at present with electric vehicles is the possibility of being "caught short" between charging stations. At the moment if I run out of fuel I can pull onto the hard shoulder and call the nice man from the RAC, who will arrive with a can of diesel, pour some into my tank, ask me for an exorbitant rate per litre, and then I'll be on my way. If the same happens with an EV, he would need to tow the vehicle to the nearest unoccupied charging station where the driver would have to wait till the battery held a reasonable charge.
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richard annett | 23 Nov 2011 1:21 pm
If there is one industry that the UK does not need it is the nuclear energy generating business.
The industry should be treated by our government in the same regard as the German, Italian and Belgium governments; that is we should phase out nuclear ASAP.
The only expertise we have which is strong is cleaning up nuclear waste and that is costing us 72 billion pounds of tax payers money. Ridiculous amounts of money for such a dirty radioactive industry and unnecessary had we moved to more sustainable means earlier.
I would recommend no one enter this immoral industry.
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