nuclear-news

Can the UK’s 24GW of new nuclear by 2050 target be met? Revisiting the Nuclear Roadmap

29 Apr 2025, Stephen Thomas, University of Greenwich,
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5194931

Abstract

The UK government faces the prospect of having to make major public spending cuts in it June 2025 Public Spending Review, a review covering public expenditure over the following five years. Its plans for expanding nuclear power would require investments of public money in tens of billions of pounds in that period and these must therefore come under scrutiny.

The key decisions are whether to make a Final Investment Decision on the Sizewell C nuclear power plant, which would be majority owned by the government and whether to continue with Small Modular Reactor competition that would see orders placed for four reactors fully funded by government.

I argue that these projects represent poor value for money and will do little to help UK achieve its legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

May 17, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK