SMRs | GB NUCLEAR
The repeated requirement from witnesses across the nuclear industry was for a much clearer and more concrete strategic plan than currently exists. The committee sought fast action: it recommended that a comprehensive Nuclear Strategic Plan should be drawn up, consulted upon and agreed before the General Election, due to be held next year.
The report said that for 70 years since the UK built its
first civil nuclear reactor in 1956, “Britain’s nuclear energy policy has been characterised by intermittency”. Of the latest initiative to build 24 GW of nuclear, including small modular reactors (SMRs), it said “targets are not a strategy”. An Energy Security Strategy published in March 2022 was followed by an Energy Security Plan in March 2023. But “Even taken together, the 2022 Energy Security Strategy and the 2023 Energy Security Plan, do not amount to the comprehensive, detailed and specific strategy that we believe is required if the Government’s aspirations are to be delivered.” Some progress has been made. The committee report
said, “A common theme of evidence to our inquiry was ambiguity as to what GBN’s role would be.” Interim chair of GBN Simon Bowen told the MPs that GBN requires statutory powers and they will be granted as part of the Energy Bill now under parliamentary scrutiny. The committee said, “We are pleased to see this progress, as during our Inquiry the government had not been able to provide us with any clarity on GBN’s role or how it would be set up”. But “there is still ambiguity over what GBN’s exact remit will be in the future, beyond running a SMR competition.” Giving evidence to the committee Professor Grubb,
University College London, said GBN “appeared to have multiple yet conflicting roles”. After Simon Bowen was appointed as industry advisor to
Above: Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation is to receive funding to further develop the design of a high temperature micro modular reactor
the proposed GBN in April 2022, his team was tasked with determining the scope and structure of the body. A report presented to the then-Prime Minister in September 2022, which included 25 recommendations for GBN, remains unpublished. The Select Committee wants the government to set out
Select Committees are cross-party groups of set up to scrutinise the work of government departments and also conduct ad-hoc inquiries in their sectors. The committee’s report, Delivering Nuclear Power, was also published in July and it warned that “the role of the recently-launched Great British Nuclear is unclear beyond its initial task of running a selection between competing SMR developers.” The committee warned that the government’s stated
target of 24 GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2050 and its ‘aspiration’ to deploy a new nuclear reactor every year were “more of a ‘wish list’ than the comprehensive detailed and specific strategy that is required to ensure such capacity is built”. The committee’s chair, Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, was supportive of the government as it identified nuclear power as an important contributor to meeting electricity needs. But he said that achieving 24 GW of nuclear power by 2050 “would be almost double the highest level of nuclear generation that the UK has ever attained. The only way to achieve this is to translate these very high-level aspirations into a comprehensive, concrete and detailed Nuclear Strategic Plan which is developed jointly with the nuclear industry, which enjoys long-term cross-party political commitment and which therefore offers dependability for private and public investment decisions.”
44 | August 2023 |
www.neimagazine.com
a comprehensive statement of GBN’s remit, operational model and budget, and its intended role with respect to ministers and government departments. Within this the government should clearly define what the role for GBN will be on supporting new nuclear projects beyond the initial SMR competition. The Committee said that although GBN had been tasked
to run an exercise to choose between alternative SMR propositions (as detailed above), “At this stage it is unclear what contribution the government expects SMRs to make to its 24 GW target”. It called for the Nuclear Strategic Plan to
answer key questions on: ● What deployment of SMRs it wants to see, if any? ● What technologies and vendors it intends to deploy, and
whether they will be from a single supplier or multiple suppliers?
● What sites should SMRs be located at? ● What financial model would be used to pay for the contribution of SMRs to electricity supply?
It said, “Each of these questions will require a clear answer if vendors are to be able to take decisions on whether and when to take the next steps towards eventually deploying SMRs.” ■
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