Government investment in new nuclear power is welcome, and very overdue.
Decarbonising the UK’s power supply would be a lot harder and more expensive without a significant share for nuclear, whether that comes from current designs of gigawatt-scale reactor or new smaller designs. Third-generation nuclear fission is a proven technology, and the main challenge is the industry’s ability to deliver to schedule.
I don’t imagine anyone will be surprised that Rolls-Royce SMR has been selected as preferred bidder to build the UK’s first small modular reactors. It’s been a long journey to get there, given the government’s SMR competition was first announced almost a decade ago, in George Osborne’s 2015 autumn statement.
That first SMR competition was halted after the first phase, with the government then directing development funding to Rolls-Royce through the UK SMR Consortium. (Declaration of interest: I was part of the comms steering group for UK SMR, as part of my role at the Nuclear AMRC.)
The new Great British Nuclear quango (now rebranding as Great British Energy – Nuclear) then relaunched the SMR competition in 2023, with six developers entering the running. (Again, I was involved with supporting most of the runners in various ways at the Nuclear AMRC.)
If there is any surprise here, it’s that Rolls-Royce is the only preferred bidder. Great British Nuclear originally announced it would support up to four SMR technologies, with successful bids announced in spring 2024. The expected number of winners shrank as the deadline lengthened, but recent industry rumour was that GE-Hitachi’s boiling water reactor was likely to be picked alongside RR’s pressurised water reactor to provide some diversity of technology.
Sizewell and beyond
A move forward on Sizewell C is also welcome, though the £14.2 billion government support announced in the spending review will depend on a final investment decision from EDF and commitment from third party investors.
Sizewell C has been in the pipeline for about 15 years. The big change here is the level of direct government investment – when the nuclear renaissance was first announced back in the Blair/Brown era, the mantra was that any new nuclear plant would be privately funded. That’s not been the approach in other countries, and it wasn’t successful here.
I think there are legitimate concerns about the low-lying Sizewell site (seen, in the image above, from the neighbouring RSPB Minsmere), given the potential rises in sea level over the lifetime of a new reactor. I look forward to seeing more detail on defences from the developers.
Building two EPRs at Sizewell C will not be quite as huge an opportunity for the UK manufacturing supply chain as it’s being painted in some quarters. The promised 70% of contracts going to UK supplier is in line with every other new build project promised over the past decade or more. The reference in the government release to “new jobs in construction, welding, and hospitality” is an indicator that there won’t be much at the high-value end of manufacturing.
Similarly, some of the highest-value components for the Rolls-Royce SMR including the reactor pressure vessel are set to be manufactured in Central Europe after the company won earlier government commitment in that territory.
I will raise a glass to £2.5 billion for fusion power development, including the STEP prototype power plant over in Nottinghamshire. Given the engineering challenges, fusion won’t play much of a role in decarbonising electricity over the next decade, or even hitting net zero emissions by 2050. But in the longer term, it has a huge potential role to play in providing reliable baseload power without the waste challenges and accident risks of current nuclear fission technologies. It’s also an area where the UK can honestly boast a global lead in technology development.