The UK government has unveiled a series of measures aimed at driving growth in the nuclear sector, and positioning the UK as a world-leader in next generation nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors
At the heart of the package is a pledge to provide up to £56m to support r&d into advanced and small modular reactors.
The first stage of this finding package will see £4m made available for feasibility studies and up to £7m to further develop the capability of nuclear regulators who support and assess advanced nuclear technologies. If this goes well, up to £40m will be made available for advanced modular reactor R&D projects and up to a further £5m for regulators. The government also plans to support early access to regulators to build the capability and capacity needed to assess and licence small reactor designs and will establish an expert finance group to advise how small reactor projects could raise private investment in the UK.
In addition, the government plans to shortly launch the second phase of its Nuclear Innovation Programme, including up to £8m for work on modern safety and security methodologies and studies in advanced fuels.
Meanwhile, a further £86m has been earmarked for a new national fusion technology platform at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire.
This new investment will reinforce the UK’s world-leading fusion research and development capability, and allow UK firms to compete for up to a further £1bn of international contracts for fusion technologies, including for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
Science minister Jo Johnson said: “This new funding for nuclear fusion research will establish a unique set of research and innovation capabilities that will safeguard the exceptional work already taking place in Culham by scientists and engineers from across the world, and emphasises the UK’s commitment to international collaboration.”
As reported recently by The Engineer, ITER, the successor project to the EU’s Joint European Torus (JET) reactor in Culham, is currently under construction in France.
Speaking at the Nuclear Industry Association’s annual conference on December 7th, energy minister Richard Harrington also set out the next steps to allow large new nuclear projects to apply for planning consent after 2025 and also signalled that the government would bring forward consultations in the New Year on the development of a long-term geological nuclear waste disposal facility.
About time. Governments have prevaricated over this for nearly two decades in the insane belief that renewables will provide a constant source of cheap power. They won’t. Winter anti-cyclones with still gloomy days effectively negate renewables at periods of maximum demand. The SMR option seems to have taken far too long to be recognised as a practical and pragmatic way forward and looks like aa neat conversion of “swords into ploughshares”.
No doubt the anti-nuclear lobby will bemoan this decision. If they are happy to rely wholly on solar and wind power then perhaps they should elect to adjust their power supply positions accordingly. Unctuous but cold and dark I suspect.
Agree whole-heartedly with PM, this is a long delayed but very welcome move. The secondary need is to involve UK manufacturing industry in the build as for over 25 years we have imported all large power boilers and steam turbines from Europe, costing hugely in term of balance of payments and employment in skilled manufacture.
The adventurous approach would be to replace the Hinckley project with a SMR project, but that would be a lot of steps too far for our Oxbridge educated ruling elite to manage.
I am, however, doubtful as to whether we could start supplying power plant again given the woeful state of UK heavy industry.
I think it’s obvious why SMRs are far behind: the whole nuclear energy industry is one that innovates slowly for concerns over safety and that’s why most alternative energy options have an inbuilt advantage. Whatever you might think of them now, they improve rapidly and the consequences of any mistakes in their design and economics need not be devastating. The next iteration can fix it.
It is very sad that the one company – GE – with a UK base that historically was capable of providing the turbine generators for these reactors has just decided to continue it previous incarnation Alstom’s strategy of destroying UK industry to preserve French jobs – with further job losses at Rugby and Stafford.
I agree with Jack – it seems like a totally disjointed industrial strategy by investing only in reactors, but not supporting new UK turbo-machinery designs to complement those reactors.
It is a sad fact that the UK led the world in building nuclear power stations in the 50’s and 60’s but failed dismally to invest further like the French & Germans. Hopefully we will not make the same mistake again, but who knows?