Labour embraces nuclear in search for growth

The competition is hotting up to develop a "fleet" of mini nuclear reactors for the UK.

Keir Starmer plans "to make a nuclear 'moment'" when he announces a new generation of small modular reactors – and the firms chosen to build them – alongside his government's formal approval of the funding for the construction of the large Sizewell C nuclear power plant, said The Times.

What are they?

Small modular reactors generate heat through nuclear fission but are smaller than conventional plants. Sometimes known as SMRs, they don't need to be on the coast, so they can be built on smaller sites across the country, closer to where electricity is needed.

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They're "thought to be less expensive to build" than traditional nuclear power plants because of their smaller size, said the BBC.

Industry figures and government ministers say that SMRs offer "wider multibillion-pound economic benefits by promising to kickstart a new manufacturing industry", creating many thousands of jobs by 2050, said The Guardian.

Are they safe?

Some people will have concerns about the possibility of nuclear accidents near areas of "dense populations", because although the risk is "very low", the impact would be "catastrophic".

But the UK's rules on nuclear safety are "some of the most stringent in the world" and the last "serious" nuclear accident in the UK was in 1957.

What would they mean for energy bills?

The answer might depend on where you live. Starmer has "hinted", said The Guardian, that the government could offer households lower energy bills if they lived close to "new obtrusive" nuclear construction, as part of the government’s wider comprehensive community benefits plan.

Ministers are also considering dividing the UK into different wholesale electricity markets, which could mean costs are lower in areas where power generation is higher than demand, and higher in areas of high demand where power generation is lower.

But "overall", an electricity system that "relies less on gas power" should be "better protected" from "surging" fossil fuel prices.

What do experts say?

Ten years after the Conservative government announced plans for the UK to be a global leader in this affordable, low-carbon energy, net zero targets and volatile energy prices have made it "an opportunity that the country must seize with both hands", said Dave Philp in New Civil Engineer.

But Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist and a director at Greenpeace UK, told The Guardian that the government had "swallowed nuclear industry spin whole", which he described as "courageous – or stupid". On the "unsolved problem of nuclear waste management", the government "don't see the need to mention it at all".