The UK SMR consortium could create 6,000 jobs in five years if government commits to a fleet of 16 small modular reactor (SMR) power stations built by 2040.
Led by Rolls-Royce, the consortium believes that up to 80 per cent of contracts to build SMR components could be fulfilled in factories in the Midlands and northern England, before being transported to existing nuclear sites for assembly inside weatherproof canopies.
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The consortium further claims that as well as a further 34,000 long-term jobs by the mid-2030s, the power stations will provide low carbon energy to produce net zero synthetic aviation fuels and hydrogen.
In a statement, Tom Samson, interim CEO of the UK SMR Consortium, said: “We have developed a manufacturing and assembly process that will make reliable, low carbon nuclear power affordable, deliverable and investable.
“By creating a factory-built power station that rolls off the assembly line we have radically reduced many construction risks associated with new nuclear power stations; and by using proven nuclear technology alongside standardised and simplified components, we make it much more cheaply.”
The UK SMR consortium is comprised of Assystem, Atkins, BAM Nuttall, Jacobs, Laing O’Rourke, National Nuclear Laboratory, Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, Rolls-Royce and TWI.
Samson, said: “The UK SMR Consortium presents the UK with a domestic nuclear energy solution for the first time in a generation, with a product that is engineered, designed and manufactured in the UK. This creates a unique opportunity to revitalise the UK’s industrial base and paves the way for the future commercialisation of advanced reactor solutions, including fusion technology.”
The first 440MW unit would be operating within 10 years of the first order, with factories producing two units per year thereafter.
The total export potential by 2050 is expected to be at least £250bn, which could lead to the creation of more UK jobs. Two new agreements have been announced this week: Exelon Generation has agreed to pursue the potential for it to operate SMRs in the UK and internationally, whilst CEZ in the Czech Republic has signed up to see how SMRs could be used in its domestic programme. Turkey is also said to be working through a feasibility study for domestic use, as well as possible joint power station production.
This is the first initiative to bring industry back to the UK for many years. The UK needs to trade and have tradable products, apart from military products of course. We have lost all of our traditional power station engineering expertise and manufacture over the last 30 years, could this re-shore it?
And which UK company is going to make the steam turbines?
I agree with Tim, our business needs the rotating plant – pumps, motors, steam turbine and generators – to be made in the UK. Any large scale project like this needs a very high UK content in the non-nuclear side to make it worth while for the greater majority of British engineering companies.
Even if the first order were to be placed today, it would require more than 17 of these units just to replace the generating capacity lost between now and 2030 resulting from the closure of the existing nuclear power stations.
Most of the world’s 440 nuclear power stations use pressurised water reactors (PWR), because they are arguably the safest, yet here in the UK we only have one at Hinkley Point B; all the rest in the UK are 14 advanced gas cooled reactors (AGR) which are reaching their sell-by dates. Hinkley Point C is being built and might be generating electricity in 10 years time; Sizewell C is starting to be built with the same design as Hinkley Point C after much political procrastination, so that should speed up the process. We have less than 29 years to remove the use of fossil fuels in our economy, which means delivering all our primary energy demand with green electricity; our demand was 2,226 TWh in 2019 when renewables and nuclear electricity were only 8 TWh out of 16 TWh of electricity generation, so we have a long way to go! Renewables can be increased massively, but cannot do it alone. We need a quantum change in nuclear generation. Huge nuclear power stations like Hinkley Point C cannot do it alone, so we need a lot of SMRs to fill the gap, and many of them should be used to retrofit our gas fired power stations.