Prompt decisions on new nuclear power stations are essential if the UK is to enjoy a clean economic recovery and meet its 2050 Net Zero ambitions, according to a report published by the trade body for the UK civil nuclear industry.
The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) report Forty by ’50: A Nuclear Roadmap claims that an ambitious programme of nuclear new build – based on existing and new technologies – could provide up to 40 per cent of clean power by 2050, whilst creating 300,000 jobs and generating £33bn of added annual economic value.
Nuclear currently contributes 40 per cent of the UK’s clean electricity, but demand is expected to quadruple from the replacement of fossil fuels and a boom in the electric vehicles and heating sectors.
“Net Zero needs nuclear, and the sector is developing fast,” said NIA chief executive Tom Greatrex. “The next large-scale projects are now deliverable much more cheaply by building on repeat and tried and tested designs, capturing learnings from our new build programme, and making important changes to the way projects are financed.”
Greatrex added that giving the green light to new projects already in the pipeline would trigger a ramp-up in investment and job creation in parts of the UK facing the biggest economic challenges and clear the way for long term decarbonisation through the hydrogen economy, helping establish the UK nuclear sector as global leader in the field. “If we do nothing, we are effectively sitting on a winning hand for a greener future,” he said.
The report sets out a series of steps that will be key to delivering on this ambition which include driving down the costs of new build projects, and a clear long term commitment to new nuclear from the government.
Duncan Hawthorne, Chief Executive of Horizon Nuclear Power (which hopes to build new plants on Anglesey and at Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire) said: “This report makes clear not only the key environmental and economic role that nuclear has to play but also the steps that must be taken to ensure the sector can deliver for its communities, its workforce, and the country.”
Simone Rossie, CEO of EDF added that the Hinkley Point C project demonstrates how nuclear projects can act as a catalyst for national and regional economic recovery after the Coronavirus crisis. “Hinkley Point C…. has already delivered £1.7bn of investment into the South West, beating its target five years ahead of schedule, and created 450 new jobs since the start of the pandemic across the UK’s regions,” he said.
Commenting on the opportunities nuclear investment will create for the rest of the manufacturing sector Andy Storer, CEO of the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, said: “British companies can lead the development of new technologies such as small and advanced modular reactors and fusion power, using their manufacturing expertise and innovation to reduce the cost of the low-carbon transition while driving economic growth and creating jobs in the North of England and across our industrial heartlands. We really need to push forward now to grasp the opportunity and deliver on our clean energy commitment.”
Investment in this area is essential and immediate action is necessary.
Several of our universities are now offering degree courses in fusion power and hopefully as the graduates emerge there will be an acceleration in the application of the technology.
Also the government has promised increased investment in this area and hopefully the UK will emerge as world leaders.
To my mind fusion is the way to go, in the meantime we should press ahead with the present technology.
At last some common sense, what a shame that successive governments bowed to minority political pressure years ago which took us from being a country with world leading nuclear technology to one which now has to buy in the expertise. I personally would like to see an emphasis on many smaller nuclear power stations which would be quicker to build and provide benefits sooner than the mega structures. Maintenance would be easier and it would be possible to close individual ones down from time to time without having a dramatic effect on the country’s capability. If we do still have any expertise e.g. at Sellafield or Rolls-Royce, please can we use it and start to redevelop our own industry?
Too many people’s view (to misquote Leo Tolstoy):
“I sit on an industry’s back choking it … and yet assure myself and others that I wish to lighten our carbon footprint by all means possible … except by getting off its back”
Agree with your comment Ivan and would welcome smaller nuclear stations.
I think Westinghouse have developed a modular system, perhaps this could be adapted to increase our electrical generating sources throughout the UK rather than at a smaller number of larger sites. The larger facility would be a prime target in times of conflict and would bring our infrastructure to a complete standstill.
Trouble is, the EPR (as in Hinkley C) is too expensive. Meanwhile Hitachi and Westinghouse have cold feet over their designs for Wyfla (ABWR) and Moorside (AP1000). The next “reactor off the block” is the Hualong One, which is a Chinese design and looks promising and affordable – but will probably be killed off by politics and the Trump-China economic war.
It would be nice to have Korea’s APR1400, but there is insufficient political support in Korea.
Then we have SMRs. Nuscale’s is ready for licencing, but doesn’t look cheap. Maybe it would be best to leap ahead, ditch PWRs, and develop Molten Salt Technologies, of which there is at least one British design (Moltex), which can also consume Britain’s stockpile of plutonium.
The decision for the state to build new plant should have been taken when New Labour took office in 1997 – it’s too late now. Old-tech nuclear power belongs in the last century and we can’t afford it. Why subsidise the French and Chinese governments, in the guise of EDF and the CGNPC?
“. . driving down the costs of new build, and a clear long-term commitment to new nuclear from the government.” Dream on – the only way to drive down the cost of borrowing to build such a project is for the government to pay for and run it, and they are ideologically opposed to that.
If a new SMR can guarantee electricity at £30/MWh, go ahead. Otherwise don’t bother. As for fusion – forget it. It’s a wasted investment with no export potential. Steam turbine generation, other than geothermal, is inferior to Marine Renewables + ‘cold’ storage and water turbines.
The RAEng’s Bristol Channel Barrage, from Aberthaw to Minehead was a far better way to get 25TWh/year, for a century or two. Hinkley Point C will be a dead liability, sixty years after it comes on stream. What then – build another expensive white elephant, putting waste heat into the sea?
If Rolls Royce can’t make money on jet engines any more, perhaps they should turn their hand to variable-displacement water pumps and hybrid vertical axis turbines? First, we’d have to secure the IPR, otherwise Chinese companies will grab the opportunity to supply the world and expand their ‘Belt and Road’ initiative even further.
“By investing in infrastructure, Mr Xi hopes to find a more profitable home for China’s vast foreign-exchange reserves, most of which are in low-interest-bearing American government securities.”
I think it’s mad to build any other design than an exact copy of the one we are building now. What madman wants to run a string of one-offs? Number 2 ought to be cheaper.
Yes quick decisions are necessary concerning
nuclear power before somebody important works out that it is a big con. I seem to recall a very old adage- Marry in haste and repent at leisure. Nothing could be more apt here.
I am afraid while you guys work out how to redo 50 feet of tube , some one has planted 10 wind turbines.
Turning excess electricity into hydrogen is simple and will power transport of the future .
Hinkley if it ever generates any electricity at all will be a dinosaur.
Way too many nuclear plants are ridiculously over budget and many years behind being delivered. Some so much so the never used kit is out of date and needs to be replaced.
T. May,when she was PM (Cons)announced that New Build @ Moorside was a commercial matter that govt couldn’t invest(best interpretation of sitting on a winning hand I ever heard)so resulting in redundancy of UK nuclear expertise,who will long ago found employment elsewhere in the nuclear industry & be foolish to consider leaving that employment to return to “…sitting on a winning hand”
Imagine two companies bidding to construct a new nuclear power station. One offers a plant with 95% availability, at a cost of £90 per MW-h. The second says “we can produce electricity much cheaper – £50 per MW-h. However our plant is rather high maintenance and we can only guarantee output for 35% of the year” When challenged about the other 65%, they mutter “storage … or something … perhaps fire up some coal power stations … really not our problem” Who do you choose?
That is pretty much the situation with nuclear versus renewables. Setting aside solar PV (with a laughable ~10% capacity factor), wind and tidal capacity factors are both around 35%. This is not a criticism of the engineering, but merely a consequence of the variability of those sources and the power to velocity³ proportionality equation
Final one from me: there are better ways to turn nuclear power into hydrogen than electrolysing water, using electricity generated by a steam turbine, spun by steam from a giant kettle.
As far back as the 1970’s researchers were investigating thermochemical cycles (“Agnes”, “Beulah” and “Catherine” for instance) for converting nuclear heat directly into hydrogen via reduction/oxidation cycle chemical reactions.
Or, we could use the hybrid thermochemical system, which while it does use electrolysis, it’s at a much lower cell voltage – 0.3V rather than 1.2V – in other words a four-fold increase in the power-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency
@ Trevor. . .
Imagine four governments, each needing to supply their countries with electricity. Two (UK and US) are obsessed with giving the private sector a small fortune for doing the job, and the other two (France and China) take the less expensive option of putting the responsibility on the state.
You can blame the neoliberal vultures for the crazy £92.50/MWh price. It would be £50 if the government had planned, built and run the whole thing. EDF depend on our largesse in order to stave off bankruptcy. France won’t be replacing their old nuclear plant.
“When challenged about the other 65%, they mutter “storage … or something … perhaps fire up some coal power stations … really not our problem”. You won’t convince anybody by making up false arguments. The lack of energy storage is 100% the fault of the government and privatisation.
Very simple innovative engineering can deliver ALL the storage we need at ZERO cost.
Zero cost … what’s that smell ? Like perpetual motion there is no such thing as zero cost, it’s just an indication that people haven’t considered the whole system.
“NIA calculated proposed nuclear plants at Sizewell in Suffolk, Wylfa on Anglesey and Bradwell in Essex were all likely to cost in the region of £60/MWh.
“In comparison, offshore projects selected in the Contracts for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 3, held last year, will be delivered at a strike price as low as £39.65/MWh.”
“The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said renewables, for the first time, are expected to come online below market prices, without additional subsidy on bills.” If nuclear can ever guarantee the same (scrap the CfD), build it. Until such time, forget it. Nuclear is not an essential part of UK power, it’s optional, as many other countries have already proved.
“The NIA report said the £60 cost could only be achieved for subsequent reactors once supply chains were improved, delivery risk reduced and “first of a kind” costs such as reactor design approvals secured.” Given those provisos and the fact that nuclear plant has never once been delivered on budget, the government should cancel the Sizewell, Wylfa and Bradwell projects.
@ Another Steve. “people haven’t considered the whole system.”
On the contrary, it is only by scrapping the brainless neoliberal ‘dis-integrated’ system, of different technologies in competition with each other, that one can create a holistic, whole-system design, based on more efficient vertical integration.
“Over the past 30 years European governments have been trying to deregulate energy markets, privatising state-owned companies and splitting electricity generation from transmission and distribution. The aims were to increase competition, boost efficiency and cut prices.” That has been a spectacular failure on each and every count! We should’ve built up the CEGB to do the job. (3,000 staff employed on R&D!)
Let’s take a simple example: 40GW of FOW to existing designs will cost about £3bn per GW. It is a piece of cake to redesign that with integral storage, so that it’s transformed into flexible generation with a 20GW peak output. That is more valuable as you only sell electricity when there’s a demand for it and you pay NO compensation for curtailment. By not building the 20GW over-capacity that’s inevitable with VRE, you’d save £60bn – more than enough to install the required storage capacity.
Ergo, Marine Renewables – wind/wave and tidal – will have energy storage at zero cost. Take a look at my other comments posted in the past few days.
I do understand your point, which has merit. However, my point is that Solar, Marine, Wind, et al. have to use certain ‘precious’ and non precious materials which have to be ‘acquired’ from other countries, at cost to the indigenous populations, these then have to be transported to the UK, with associated emissions, this will be at cost to the planet/us. At end of life these technologies have to be disposed of, at a cost, currently, that is an issue for items such as PV Panels, turbine blades, etc. which are ending up in landfill. So there IS a cost, usually to ‘other’ populations outside the UK. Maybe in this brave new world we need to be honest that cost and value are two different things. Do we continue down this road or do we start fairly compensating the peoples we exploit ? Not disagreeing, efficiency is good, just saying zero cost is a fallacy.
The nail in the coffin (not mentioned in this article) is contained in the NIA Report:-
“The cost of capital currently represents up to two-thirds of a nuclear project, a price which is ultimately borne by customers through their electricity bills.” That is an entirely political decision, so sack the government. (for the lying con they’ve perpetrated on the people.) Power generation is infrastructure, same as HS2, so pay for it the same way. (Scrap the HS2 vanity project and put Boris in an asylum, before he spends any of our money on an Ireland-Scotland bridge.)
“A £1bn reduction in the construction cost (c5-7%) would take around £2-3/MWh off the cost to the customer; whereas just a 1% reduction in the cost of capital would reduce this by £8-9/MWh.”
“Addressing the costs of both construction and financing would make c£60/MWh achievable for the next wave of plants, reducing to c£40/MWh for further units.”
This article puts a different complexion on things:-
https://renews.biz/61228/uk-offshore-wind-cheaper-than-new-nuclear/
“NIA calculated proposed nuclear plants at Sizewell in Suffolk, Wylfa on Anglesey and Bradwell in Essex were all likely to cost in the region of £60/MWh.
“In comparison offshore projects selected in the Contracts for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 3, held last year, will be delivered at a strike price as low as £39.65/MWh.”
“The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said renewables, for the first time, are expected to come online below market prices, without additional subsidy on bills.”
If nuclear can ever guarantee the same (scrap the CfD), build it. Until such time, forget it. Nuclear is NOT an essential part of UK power, it’s optional, as many other countries have already proved.
“The NIA report said that kind of ‘low cost’!?! could only be achieved for subsequent reactors once supply chains were improved, delivery risk reduced and ‘first of a kind’ costs such as reactor design approvals secured.”
Given those provisos and the fact that nuclear plant has never once been delivered on budget, the government should cancel the Sizewell, Wylfa and Bradwell projects, right NOW.
@ Another Steve.
To be frank, Steve, in rushing to reply (and moving the goalposts?) you have overlooked the fact that my designs have already addressed (ten years ago) ALL of your objections:-
Shallow-draft floating wind/wave uses NO precious rare earths and precious little copper. It will eliminate all HV gear from the marine environment, by marrying variable-displacement water pumps to VAWTs, which are constructed from recyclable materials. The design premise was/is a circular economy for RE harvest. (a doubling of service life, no heavy-lift installation vessels and cutting the cost of O&M) Without Before-Generator Energy Storage, Marine Renewables cannot be efficient, sustainable, or cheap. It will literally cost nothing to displace VRE design convention with engineering technology that actually works – essentially, for ever. (maintain, re-use, refurbish and of course, recycle – always.)
Instead of having 100 unreliable HAWT 10MW permanent magnet generators, miles offshore, you’d install, say, 10-15 simpler and cheaper, impulse hydro-turbines, rated at 50MW, in an onshore power station. These give you flexible generation, which demotes ‘base-load’ nuclear to second class.
BGES mitigates using Lithium, (or any other battery – replaced every 15 years?) for grid storage. PV is already recycled and offshore HAWTs are superseded, so there’d be no ill-conceived GRP blades to be disposed of. What’s not to like?
Please go to this comments thread and follow the links I provided:-
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/electric-vehicles-advanced-propulsion-centre/
Sizewell B was supposed to be the first of a family of identical power stations where the first of a kind costs would have been spread across the whole family. That family, with the exception of Sizewell B, never went ahead with the result that the first of a kind costs were borne by Sizewell B.
Let’s not make the same mistake.
David S
Like your idea but it seems that the pressurised water or air is quite a bit less efficient at harvesting energy than an electrical based system ? Perhaps the hydraulic Artemis system but with one central generator would be a compromise?
I know that Carnegie have abandoned their Ceto pressurised water wave power buoy and moved to on board electrical generation for Ceto 6, see https://www.carnegiece.com/technology/
What low cost, large pressurised storage would be proposed on land or at sea?
It would seems that floating offshore wind kites would be much less resource intensive .. it can drive variable-displacement water pumps… certainly the EROEI is much, much better than HAWT (horizontal axis wind turbine).
Have you done some preliminary cost estimates Euros/MWh or LCOE analysis ?
Unless their is a funding premium put on integrated storage it seems that it will be difficult to stack up financially?
An alternative is using bio-methane /hydrogen from various sources in the existing CCGT (the state can buy them cheap 🙂 and new low cost OCT turbines for the brief times that instantaneous renewable electricity is not sufficient eg. 5 to 7 day winter lull. Some methane/hydrogen would be set aside for heavy transport, industrial feed stock… but the domestic gas grid would be converted (as a return hot water pipe) to DH District Heating in urban areas.
The pertinent (damning) evidence is written in blue and white on p6 of the NIA Report:-
“The cost of capital currently represents up to two-thirds of a nuclear project, a price which is ultimately borne by customers through their electricity bills.” Governments have been lying.
It’s just witless politics, proven wrong by Hinkley Point C. Power generation is infrastructure, same as HS2, so pay for it the same way. Bin the pointless HS2 vanity project, bury plans for an idiotic Ireland-Scotland bridge and build the Aberthaw-Minehead Barrage – WITH STORAGE.
“A £1bn reduction in the construction cost (c5-7%) would take around £2-3/MWh off the cost to the customer; whereas just a 1% reduction in the cost of capital would reduce this by £8-9/MWh.”
“Addressing the costs of both construction and financing would make c£60/MWh achievable for the next wave of plants, reducing to c£40/MWh for further units.”
Since when is any business plan approved for production above the current wholesale price?
“The NIA report said that kind of low !?! cost could only be achieved for subsequent reactors once supply chains were improved, delivery risk reduced and ‘first of a kind’ costs such as reactor design approvals secured.”
Given those provisos, the high cost and the fact that nuclear plant has never once been delivered on budget, the government should cancel the Sizewell, Wylfa and Bradwell projects.
I had a look at the roadmap ;-{; it says very little about the technologies and how they are being developed. More a political document – ignoring the real issues and technologies.
Much is made about process heat and hydrogen production – but the issue of the high temperatures required, (and their concomitant materials issues is not).
More interesting are the comments made.
There is much to learn from existing technologies – especially in the UK. The AGRs were, as I found in an article, classed as high temperature – with the fuel reaching 800 degC – and the CO2 650 degC. And one of the main issues was that the steam generated was at high temperature and high pressure – which boosted its corrosion and caused creep (an failure?) in the heat-exchangers.
This lesson is most relevant to reactors using lead or salt,which are corrosive, – or sodium exchanging heat to H2O; far better to use a gas turbine – possibly coupled with a steam turbine (combined cycle).
Moltex has been mentioned; which seems quite interesting (though not mentioned in the “roadmap”).
Moltex make claims of being a possible actinide burner – which is a good way of easing the quantity and radioactivity of waste – a most important issue in its own right (does not rate a mention in the “roadmap”)!
From what I gather of the Moltex approach it uses a liquid fuel in tubes (an important advance for thermal stability,as well as dealing with “poisons” that limit life of solid fuel) – and cooled by a molten salt; which aids in the confinement of the radioactivity. And its temperature limit is comparable to the AGRs – so closed cycle gas turbines could enhance further the isolation (and reduce the dangerous issues associated with steam).
I must admit that I am a mind that a gas cooled version of this (with same integrated thermal storage option) might have an advantage for such a fast reactor.
Though there is a lot of talk, in the “roadmap”, about producing process heat (a laudable aim) it is not clear which reactors are going to be able to do this – or attain the required high temperatures (certainly not the water ones..) – my guess is that these would have to be from the new designs – properly manufactured and designed.
I feel that if the CEGB was still in existence they would have been able to ask the right technology questions (and most likely ensured that the right material science and manufacturing technologies had been researched before builds were designed)
Two comments:
1. the cost benefit analysis of any storage system depends on the duration of the storage system’s utility: for batteries its about 10 years but mechanical storage systems (gravity, FESS etc) are completely ‘Green’ and can be used in the same way for decades, if not centuries, with no loss of capacity, efficiency or performance.
2. This article amplifies the hilarity of another article which still appears here with the tag-line: ‘Electric cars could benefit the UK economy by £24bn provided suppliers can rapidly ramp up their capacity to TEN TIMES current levels…!’.
Here is one, I found, for the books. Perhaps the ultimate in use of liquid fuel.
And it link directly with the hydrogen economy!!!
The “Aqueous homogeneous reactor” (see wiki) was developed and it uses liquid moderator too! ; producing hydrogen and oxygen (it seems to boil – but that is, apparently, only the bubbles of gas).
It has been developed for producing medical isotopes – but could, possibly be used for breeding (or actinide burning).
If it produced enough hydrogen then this could be burnt within a gas turbine engine – and the output fed directly into a steam turbine.
As this sounds, basically, like a chemical VAT approach to a nuclear reactor – the economics could be startingly different.
An innovative development ? Certainly might get rid of a lot of the high-tech structures and heat exchangers. Might be valuable for getting rid of waste…
Whatever will it take to stop us humans messing up the Planet? Building a fission reactor that generates a man made product that true nature cannot safely dispose off makes no sense whatsoever. The final cost of decontaminating and deconstructing these reactors must be priced for at the time of constructing these things. Do the sums yourselves. The figures don’t make economic sense