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Examining Britain’s 10 Point Plan – Small Modular Nuclear Reactors downgraded, as renewables are cheaper and better?

New Civil Engineer 19th Nov 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s 10 Point Plan for a “green industrial revolution” – announced yesterday – is “pretty vague” about the future of big nuclear energy projects and disappointing for the mini nuclear industry, according to Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit head of analysis Jonathan Marshall. In the plan, Johnson backed the development of nuclear energy, committing £525M “to help develop large and smaller-scale nuclear plants, and research and develop new advanced modular reactors”.

However, according to Marshall large nuclear support is”buried” in the proposals and investment in small modular reactors (SMRs)
is less than expected. “If I was in the SMR game I’d be disappointed with this because that £2bn support for a small initial fleet of reactors has been pared back to just over £500M,” Marshall said.

“It’s a lot of cash and still a lot of support – it’s more than most unproven technologies get – but it feels a bit like SMRs have been put on the backburner now. For a while it felt like the government was believing that the SMR industry could be the future. “Paring back on what was expectedto be offered might show that the government is cooling or laying down a tougher set of challenges to Rolls Royce and others in the SMR world to prove the claims are true before they get more money.”

Marshall attributed this change to the increasing support for renewables. “The EU has set out huge ambitions to boost offshore wind capacity, the UK has already done that, all the rest of the world is investing in renewables whereas not many are investing in nuclear now,” he said. “None of these cost reductions that were touted for years for nuclear industry seem to be happening whereas the evidence shows the cost of renewables is plummeting and the cost of what’s needed to balance the grid is plummeting too.”

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/future-of-wylfa-and-sizewell-c-nuclear-developments-still-unclear-despite-government-green-plan-19-11-2020/

November 21, 2020 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

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