Up to £2billion could be put into a project to design and build mini-nuclear power stations. Ministers are considering the huge injection of funds as the UK’s nuclear industry reels from crippling setbacks that could leave a gaping hole in the electricity supply. The project to build 16 sites by 2050 could also revive ailing engineering titan Rolls-Royce, which is leading the nine-member consortium to design the ‘rapid assembly’ power stations. The group includes the National Nuclear Laboratory and Laing O’Rourke. The pledge of between £1.5billion and £2billion is being discussed and is likely to be announced in the Treasury’s next spending review this year, sources told the Financial Times.
Daily Mail 7th Oct 2020 read more »
Hitachi’s abandonment of nuclear investment at Wylfa in Anglesey together with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s harder line on human rights in China may do Britain’s struggling engineering warrior Rolls-Royce a favour. For the last several years, the group’s researchers have been championing British-designed and manufactured small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide a solution to energy needs. The Government has kept the project alive with modest R&D support, but way below that necessary to bring the it to fruition. As it looks at options ahead of the Treasury’s upcoming one-year spending review and an energy White Paper, SMRs are right up there in the nuclear mix. The Government is looking at choices for financing next-generation nuclear to provide a low-carbon power base load as the current fleet is taken offline.
Daily Mail 7th Oct 2020 read more »
Government could be set to invest more in small modular reactors as part of the green recovery plan. They could provide the natural successors to large nuclear reactors, supplying baseload in a future where intermittent energy will play an increasing part. But only if there is commitment to the necessary volume to deliver progressive cost reduction, say Julianne Antrobus and Robbie Lyons. A key element of the Nuclear Sector Deal is to pursue significant cost reduction in nuclear new build projects. Small modular reactors (SMRs) seek to deliver lower costs by implementing three key principles. The first is standardisation of design across the whole plant, reducing recurrent engineering work; the second is to manufacture standardised modules off-site; the third is to adopt a building programme which delivers multiple standardised plants in series. This approach can overcome the lack of economies of scale that have conventionally led to small reactors being written off as not commercially viable. However, this requires a nuclear supply chain that is willing and able to adapt to this new approach and use a model which has proved to be successful in the offshore wind sector and aircraft manufacture.
Utility Week 7th Oct 2020 read more »