The Case for Nuclear Energy

We would always hope and expect that a Conservative government would tirelessly work in the long-term interests of the country. Sadly, in terms of energy policy ever since the resignation of Mrs. Thatcher, it has been a tale of political expediency and short-term gain for long term expense.

My goodness if the Thatcher vision of 20+ new nuclear power stations had not been quietly dropped by the Major government, we would be sitting rather prettier now than we are.

Britain was the original pioneer of civil nuclear generation with a pretty unblemished safety record. Though Mrs Thatcher did not see the 1986 Chernobyl disaster as being a reason to abandon nuclear power, her rather “wetter” successors saw gas from the North Sea as on opportunity to expediently abandon her ambitious plans for Nuclear. For a fuel as versatile as gas to be wasted on generating electricity is verging on a criminal misuse of resources, and over the last year has accounted for over a third of our electricity.

Coal which had traditionally provided a substantial chunk of Britain’s electricity, and could be switched on an off as demand changed, is a very dirty fuel. In addition to the carbon dioxide emissions that everybody concentrates on, there are all sorts of other chemical compounds in coal that when burnt cause environmental damage, as well as being detrimental to human health.

The hypothesis that carbon dioxide causes global warming has driven rapid development in both wind and solar generation reducing installation costs for both. I write this under 84kW of solar panels – with the sun shining we are generating 45kW, which is great for a business that only works during the day. However, the sun does not shine at night when we need the power in our homes, and obviously with the shorter days in winter and a weaker sun, our panels will only generate a small fraction of that on an August morning. Just to signal my virtue, we also have a wind turbine but it doesn’t work as it has a cracked blade; the replacement cost of which will be more than the value of all the power it ever generated.

While the solar panels require virtually no maintenance and produce almost exactly the same amount of electricity every year, wind turbines require a lot of maintenance which is expensive. The other problem with wind is that during periods of high atmospheric pressure, we get virtually no wind and therefore there is no generation. Though both are effective when they work, they are inherently unreliable.

To address this the policy is to massively increase the solar and wind capacity, so that even on relatively calm days enough will be generated to meet our needs both now, and as the economy is increasingly electrified. In order to cover the periods when these methods are not generating enough electricity, the energy would be stored both in large batteries and also through the manufacture of hydrogen using surplus power, and then converting the hydrogen back into electricity via fuel cells or combustion. This also sounds great in theory however, batteries are very expensive at in excess of £500 per installed kWh of storage, production of green hydrogen is great but using it as a battery is extremely inefficient as of the original electricity generated one would be doing well to get 20-30% output at the end of the processes. There are lots of uses for the hydrogen produced, but electricity generation is probably not one. There are other forms of energy storage including compressed air and the Newton battery pioneered by Gravitricity and Energy Vault, plus of course pumped storage which the UK has utilized for many years.

Though this plan would appear to tick all the right boxes to keep Miss Thunberg happy, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. There are two key problems in that wind turbines only have an expected life of 25 – 30 years, after which they will have to be replaced despite almost continual maintenance; this is applicable both for those on and offshore. The other problem is that the power needs to be transmitted into the grid, and as most wind farms are either in the wilder parts of the country or offshore, this means pylons or expensive and large underground cables.

One of the excuses for not developing new nuclear power stations has been the substantial cost and time to build. However, for nearly twenty years Rolls Royce has been banging on ministers’ doors, suggesting that the nuclear powerplants used in the Royal Navy’s submarines could be used to generate civil electricity. Finally, the knocks were answered and Rolls was provided in 2021 with some funding to develop their plans for what has become known as Small Modular Reactors. It has to be remembered that this is tried and tested technology used in RN submarines since the 1960s. Rolls have been ready to move to the next stage and build a trial unit for nearly a year now, but once again politicians have prevaricated and dithered. Now, in order to kick the whole question into the long grass they have, after investing £210m in Rolls, established a competition for all-comers to see which is the best design to proceed with. This is purely window dressing, and is I believe to simply put off the final decision while the rest of the world catches up with what Rolls has developed with taxpayer backing.

The problem is that Ministers and MPs just don’t understand Nuclear; they think Chernobyl and Fukushima, they neither think of the cheap clean electricity, nor remember that the number of people killed or permanently maimed by these events is minute compared to those killed or hurt by other human activities such as driving.

Each SMR will generate about 400Mw and will occupy about 3 acres, meaning that they can be located both near where the power is needed and on sites of, for example, decommissioned power stations with existing grid infrastructure. They will be built in factories and transported to and assembled on site. This means that once the production lines start running, they can be churned out fairly quickly and at relatively low cost compared to the much larger traditional stations where each is effectively tailor made. Once started, these reactors will run continuously for years with only occasional stoppages for maintenance, and their expected life will be fifty to sixty years. While estimates are in the region of 5000 square miles of land needed for sufficient onshore wind turbines, we could generate the total demand required at this moment of 27.2Gw from little more than 225 acres; less than half a square mile.

No need for more pylons or more onshore wind turbines, no more agricultural land being taken for solar farms. A supply of base load electricity without the need to burn valuable fossil fuels would seem to be a no-brainer, but it gets better.

My benevolent dictator strategy would be to authorize Rolls to build a first batch of 12 SMRs to be spread over 4 decommissioned sites. This would quickly give us 4.8Gw of capacity, replacing the equivalent of the recently shut nuclear power stations. Considering it took us only 11 years after WWII to develop and build the World’s first nuclear power station at Calder Hall, applying the same urgency it should take a much shorter time to get the first Roller delivering cheap power. The competition being run at the moment should apply to the second and third batches because what is exciting is that there are other British and British connected companies that have been beavering away in developing Molten Salt reactors. The great advantage of the Molten Salt design is that it allows the Reactor to be quickly switched on and off, meaning that they can be used as standby power to cover demand peaks. Moltex based near Warrington, one of two companies at the forefront of the molten salt SMR design, has a variant that will use nuclear waste as part of the fuel mix reducing the need for long term waste storage.

It is a no-brainer; as a county we need cheap reliable electricity. Energy lies at the core of everything we do. It is vital to our economic competitiveness, to sustaining economic growth and our way of life.

As it has been decided that the economy needs to be electrified, we are going to need much more electricity than we are generating or importing at the moment. Just to satisfy that required to power the new electric cars being sold after 2030 will require almost an extra GW of capacity each year.

For all our sakes we need to stop the wishful thinking that our electricity needs can be met from renewable energy alone, and give Rolls the immediate go ahead for the first batch of its SMRs.

Alastair MacMillan runs White House Products Ltd, a manufacturer, distributor and exporter of hydraulic components to over 100 countries. He is a supporter of the Jobs Foundation.

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