POWER MARKET DEVELOPMENTS | IP AND INVESTMENT
Driving R&D to build a nuclear industry
Some national efforts focus on R&D as a mechanism of fostering innovation and building greater momentum in nuclear. Measures like the Inflation Reduction Act in the USA and Europe’s Green Deal Industrial Plan are already having an impact, but what else can nations do to drive the nuclear sector forward?
By: Giles Pinnington, Partner at Marks & Clerk
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY HAS BEEN at the forefront of recent discussions in the journey to achieving net zero. According to the International Energy Agency, there are already 413 GW of nuclear capacity across 32 countries, which avoids 1.5 gigatonnes of emissions and 180 billion cubic metres of natural gas use per year. Nuclear is the second largest source of low-emissions power after hydropower. In recent years, countries have adopted varying
approaches to nuclear energy, with Germany closing the last of its reactors around the same time as Finland opened Europe’s largest nuclear reactor. Sweden, France and the UK are all looking towards nuclear power to not only meet their decarbonisation targets but to also improve energy security and reliability. Japan has also approved changes to its nuclear policy to extend the operation of existing reactors from 40 to 60 years and to develop next-generation innovative reactors to replace decommissioned reactors. Nuclear power is not only about decarbonisation of the
energy grid, but also ensuring energy security for nations, the creation of highly skilled jobs, as well as the potential export of technology around the world.
The UK The 2023 Spring budget delivered good news for the UK nuclear industry by announcing that nuclear power would be classified as environmentally sustainable, subject to final sign off. UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt also indicated that he wanted a quarter of UK electricity to be provided by nuclear by 2050.
The UK National Grid expects electricity consumption in
the UK to increase by 50% by 2036 and more than double by 2050. The proportion of electricity generated by nuclear for 2021 was 14.9%, which was the lowest level since 2008. As such, if Hunt’s ambitions of a quarter of UK electricity being provided by nuclear by 2050 are to be met, and if the electricity consumption in the UK is set to double in the same time frame, the nuclear power industry will need to expand even more rapidly than other means of electricity generation. Given that the approval process and construction of a nuclear power plant has traditionally taken many years, it is clear that a new way needs to be found to accelerate this process. The real test of the UK Government’s nuclear ambitions will therefore be whether there is a step-change in the
Above: Tax breaks are one mechanism the UK government is using to spur on nuclear R&D Photo credit: William Barton/
Shutterstock.com
26 | June 2023 |
www.neimagazine.com
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