In a major report ou today, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee calls on the Government to develop and publish a Nuclear Strategic Plan to turn high level aspirations into concrete steps to deliver new nuclear power
The Committee says that the Government is right to look to nuclear power to meet our future electricity needs and that this requires a substantial programme of nuclear new build.
But the Report warns that the Government target of 24 GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2050 and the aspiration to deploy a new nuclear reactor every year are more of a ‘wish list’ than the comprehensive detailed and specific strategy that is required to ensure such capacity is built.
The Government’s stated aim of 24 GW of nuclear capacity is ambitious: it is almost double the highest installed nuclear capacity the UK has ever achieved. It could involve new gigawatt-scale nuclear power, small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced modular reactors (AMRs), and further development of nuclear fusion. It would require substantial progress on technologies, financing, skills, regulation, decommissioning and waste management.
The repeated requirement from witnesses across the nuclear industry was for a much clearer and more concrete strategic plan than currently exists: one which integrates commitments from a wide range of stakeholders and which is designed to go beyond the lifetime of any single government if it is to break out of the decades-long intermittency of UK nuclear energy policy. The Committee recommends that such a comprehensive Nuclear Strategic Plan should be drawn up, consulted upon and agreed before the end of the current Parliament.
Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Greg Clark MP, said:
“The Government is right to identify nuclear power as an important contributor to meeting our future electricity needs. It has stretching ambitions to achieve 24 GW of nuclear power by 2050. This 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.
“Done right, the UK can be in the vanguard of delivering nuclear innovation, jobs and clean, affordable and reliable energy. But there is now an urgent need to turn hopes into actions.”
