nuclear-news

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) are nothing but a Big Boondoggle.

Guardian 13th June 2025, Dr Ian Fairlie
Independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment; vice-president, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

The more I read about the government’s nuclear intentions, the more it sounds like HS2 all over again, ie another financial boondoggle. Where are the detailed costings? What is our experience with cost overruns, eg at Hinkley Point C? What is the overseas experience with pressurised water reactors (the kind proposed for Sizewell C) at Olkiluoto, at Flamanville, at Taishan? Uniformly bad in all cases, actually.

No matter which way you look at this, viz the future cost overruns, the facts that we consumers will be on the hook for them, that reactors are never constructed on time, that nuclear wastes are unaudited, that we have to import all our uranium, that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2023 that renewables are 10 times better than nuclear at lowering carbon emissions, all point to a remarkably poor decision by the government, sad to say. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/13/spending-billions-on-unclean-risky-energy-what-a-nuclear-waste

June 17, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors