nuclear-news

Don’t believe the UK government’s hype about small nuclear reactors and Great British Nuclear.

In response to Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps’ announcements
relating to ‘Great British Nuclear’, Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist for
Greenpeace UK, said – “As the government tries to whip up investment for
the latest generation of reactors, it is striking how many of the nuclear
industry’s speculative claims are being repeated by ministers as fact.

The hype seems to have been enough to convince our government that nuclear’s
last gasp is in fact a new dawn, but at their radioactive cores SMRs remain
the same bad bet. SMRs have no track record, but initial indications are
that the familiar problems of cost overruns and delays will be repeated,
and the accumulation of unmanageable waste will continue.

Maybe the hope is that splitting one big mistake into several smaller mistakes means each
reactor’s inevitable problems receive less scrutiny?

By continually obsessing about nuclear the government is taking its eye off the net zero
ball, which will have to be delivered through a predominantly renewable,
modern electricity grid. No number of SMRs will fix the government’s
lacklustre effort to address issues of delayed connections, smart local
grids and home efficiency.

The government may argue that renewables can
compete in the market unaided, while nuclear still needs state support to
survive, but atomic power has been showered with money and support for the
best part of a century without ever working well enough to pay its way.

This is a technology that has gone straight from adolescence to
obsolescence without passing through maturity.”

Greenpeace 18th July 2023

July 21, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, UK