AT LAST, we’ve got there! The Government has realised that the only way to give the UK what it needs – constant and emission-free electricity – is to go nuclear. Suddenly, red tape is being slashed and planning rules reformed, along with the promise that there’ll be thousands of new highly skilled jobs. This is all because we’re going for something less ambitious and easier to build: Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) scattered throughout the country.
These SMRs are a good thing, seemingly, because they are much smaller and cheaper than behemoths like Hinkley and Sizewell, can be largely prefabricated off-site, placed in or near cities and installed one by one as electricity demand grows. That will be when we all obediently agree to buy electric cars so we can worry about chargers and range, ditch our lovely warm gas central heating and spend all our savings on inefficient and noisy heat-pumps, larger radiators and insulation half-a-metre thick.
Forget those minor irritations. The problem of constant power has been solved. Just keep gas, wind and solar going for a year or two while the transformation takes place, then scrap the lot. Farmers can have their solar farmland back; the onshore turbines can be made to reawaken Olde England by turning them into maypoles; the offshore swarms can be left to rust. Let the celebrations begin!
The Drax power station, that dreadful wood-burning monstrosity that creates more emissions than a coal plant, could be kept and turned into a Museum of Mistaken Ideas. The fifty-odd gas power stations will fall silent and local entrepreneurs will turn them into coffee-shops, nail bars and arts centres.
Nuclear power stations that are huge, expensive and take a long time to build are now outdated, prehistoric and so last year. Despite the SMRs’ sudden leap to fame, we have to continue building Hinkley Point C’s two units and, presumably, Sizewell C’s two units too. If you have any doubts, be reassured by the claims of the companies: Hinkley Point, when complete, will serve six million homes, and Sizewell another six million. Each SMR, if from Rolls-Royce, will cover one million. That’s it, then?
No, it isn’t. There are about 30million homes in the UK; to go fully nuclear, we will eventually need Hinkley plus Sizewell plus a lot of SMRs, not to mention however many more for industry and commerce. Maybe, we should stop here and think. We need a picture.
This shows the existing nuclear stations, their life span, and when the new ones might come on-stream:
Note that we should be getting 5.96 GW from the current five that are operational. The actual figure (February 10-17) is 4.3 GW, only 72 per cent of total capacity. It is apparently rare for the output to reach more than 80 per cent of the rated figure.
Every picture tells a story, they say, and this particular picture has much to tell.
Story 1: that our current nuclear output (4.3 GW) is a very small fraction of the maximum evening demand which is averaging around 45 GW. This nuclear contribution will get even smaller over the next seven years. Maybe our emission-free nirvana is not quite around the corner.
Story 2: that the completion dates for the Hinkley Point reactors, the Sizewell C project and the SMRs are all uncertain, doubtful and all other words indicating a lack of confidence.
Story 3: that 2031 could be a very critical year, as older nuclear power stations are being closed down and new ones not yet ready. That word ‘critical’ does seem apt when you bear in mind the over-run HS2’s overspend.
Story 4: that even with a couple of SMRs, the nuclear portion into the 2030s would still be less than 20 per cent of the forecast demand, by then 50-55 GW. Just hope that cold winters have at last realised that the world is warming up, if it truly is, and someone has thought to keep gas going for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
Story 5: that to do away with gas and go fully nuclear with a maximum demand of around 50GW, we would need Sizewell B, Hinkley Point, Sizewell C, plus – oh dear, this is not going to look even remotely possible – 80 SMRs.
Story 6: that energy prices surely cannot fall while we’re building Hinkley Point (£46bn), Sizewell C (£40bn) and the SMRs (£2bn each), as well as keeping gas going, upgrading power lines across the country and importing shiploads of Chinese wind turbines and solar panels.
I wonder if our Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has a picture like that on his office wall.
