Climate crisis: UK government considers £2bn plan to build 16 mini nuclear power stations by 2050

Discussion of £2bn for nuclear power comes as Boris Johnson pledges £160m to boost wind turbine production

The nuclear power station at Dungeness on the south east coast of England (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

At the Conservative Party conference this week, Boris Johnson announced his desire for every home in the UK to be powered “cleanly and without guilt” by wind within just 10 years, and said the government would invest £160m into upgrading ports and factories building wind turbines.

He mentioned nothing about nuclear power. However, the UK government is reportedly considering spending £2bn of taxpayers money on as many as 16 small nuclear reactors which would also contribute to the national grid.

“Government and industry figures” told the Financial Times a pledge of £1.5bn-£2bn is being discussed and said the government could even commission the first mini power station, giving confidence to suppliers and investors.

The plans for the power stations have been put together by a consortium of nine companies and organisations, including Rolls-Royce, Laing O’Rourke, Atkins and the National Nuclear Laboratory.

In the plans they have set out to the government, they envision building the modular power stations on a central production line, before they are then transported to sites across the country for assembly. This would help speed up the production process and keep costs down.

They would then be functional for a maximum length of 60 years, providing 440MW of electricity per year — enough to power a city the size of Leeds.

The government's investment would need to be matched with a further £2bn, including from private investors and the capital markets, to get the project rolling.

However, the taxpayers’ contribution “should deliver sufficient cash to get the consortium through building the factories and well on the way to construction of power stations prior to finding more money from other sources,” one person “with knowledge of the situation”, was quoted as saying by the FT.

The sums are considerably smaller than the enormous £22.5bn the controversial Hinkley Point C power station in Somerset is set to cost.

The report indicates the government still has significant desire to throw its support behind nuclear power despite six recent attempts to build large nuclear power stations leading to just the one at Hinkley Point going ahead, and that one has run over budget and last year warned of delays.

Despite the serious risks generating nuclear power necessitates, due to the extreme toxicity of the waste products, the possibility of dependable, fossil-fuel-free energy generation has remained attractive to governments.

It is thought the UK government’s support for the new generation of smaller modular stations could drive demand for the technology abroad.

Earlier this year a government report found the 178-acre nuclear power facility site at Dounreay in Scotland will only be safe for other uses in 313 years’ time.

The site on the north coast of Scotland was only home to functioning nuclear reactors for 39 years, but the clean-up will take roughly ten times as long, with efforts already underway to clean up hazardous radioactive material.

A BEIS spokesperson told The Independent: “Nuclear power will play a key role in the UK’s future energy mix as we transition to a low-carbon economy, including through our investments in small and advanced modular reactors.”