Gordon Morgan and Bill Ramsay call for Labour to reconsider its commitment to nuclear power on the grounds of cost, safety, environmental priorities, national security and climate change.
The Labour Government was elected on a pro nuclear power manifesto which stated:
“Sizewell C, and Small Modular Reactors will play an important role in helping the UK achieve energy security and clean power while securing thousands of good, skilled jobs”.
The Budget followed up by committing enough funds to allow Sizewell C (SZC) to reach the Financial Investment Decision point (FID) around 2026, when a decision will be made whether to build or not.Separately Rolls Royce’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) has reached the final four in a competition to choose which SMR if any will be built in the UK. Again, a decision is expected next year.
Nuclear power is far more expensive than wind and solar power. The Hinkley Point C (HPC) nuclear plant is the only plant having passed the FID and it is agreed it will charge electricity at £128/MWh at current prices when it produces electricity around 2030/31. By contrast, according to the Systems Operator (NESO) in its Clean Power 2030 report, Wind and Solar costs £71-£83/MWh. Moreover the cost of HPC has risen from a projected £18 Billion to £31-35 Billion in 2015 prices (£41-48 Billion today). A fresh contract negotiated now could cost £220/MWh, around three times the cost per MWh of wind and solar.
Sizewell C will be no different. As SZC is built to the same design as HPC we may expect similar cost rises and delays in its development. EDF have essentially stated that they will not accept further exposure to cost overruns in the UK. The UK Government bought a 50% stake in the project in 2022 and has so far spent £2.5 Billion.
In the Budget Rachel Reeves stated that “£2.7 Billion was allocated to continue Sizewell C through to 2025/26”. The full allocation or subsidy granted ahead of any decision being taken whether or not to proceed with actual construction was £5.5 billion. Should SZC not proceed, this £5.5 billion plus the £2.5 billion spent so far will have gone down the drain! If it does proceed, it is expected to cost between £25 billion and £40 billion more before it delivers power in the late 2030s.
As there are unlikely to be other investors, any delays and cost increases will have to be borne by the Government. Under the financing model proposed, the Regulated Asset Base (RAB), electricity consumers will start paying for the plant from the day of FID, long before they receive any power from the plant. This will risk breaching Labour’s promise to lower electricity bills. It is essential that the full cost estimates are presented to committees of the Commons before a decision is taken whether to construct or not.
Small Modular Reactors (SMR)
An SMR is a reactor that produces at most 300MW of electricity, less than 10% of HPC. Their claimed advantage is that they can be manufactured off site and transported almost anywhere. There are over 80 designs across the world and Rolls Royce are on the UK and EU shortlists as candidates to produce them. The build costs are uncertain, but the cost of the power produced per MWh will be much more than wind or solar. Some studies say they will be equivalent to the cost of power produced by normal nuclear plants. There are only three demonstration plants operating worldwide – including a Russian floating SMR, the Akademic Lomorosov – although if nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers are included there are many more.
It is estimated that it will take over ten years for SMR manufacturing to ramp up to enable the production of a standard plant and the reduction of costs through economies of scale. Several hundred SMRs would be required to achieve this. Whilst it is claimed that SMRs need less supervision and carry less risk of accident than traditional nuclear reactors, this is unproven. If they are built successfully, they will largely be for export, which will be an additional driver of nuclear proliferation. Once again, the full cost of the proposed programme should be presented to Parliament and discussed before approval.
Nuclear Jobs
One of the main reasons that Labour conference supported more nuclear power, and SZC in particular, was to protect the 5,000 jobs that may be lost when HPC finishes. However, NESO’s 2030 report lists its concern that 100,000 skilled job are required in the offshore wind sector alone. It states that “securing engineers, digital specialists and construction workers is increasingly difficult due to the high demand for these skills across the economy”. Most nuclear jobs would be transferable immediately to other critical roles in the energy sector to ensure the 2030 decarbonisation target is met.
More Nuclear is Not Required to Meet Climate Targets
Solar plants take two years to build, wind plants take around four years, and nuclear plants such as SZC take over ten years once an FID has been reached. By 2030, according to NESO’s 2030 Report, solar and wind will generate around 120GW, up from 43GW at present, compared with HPC’s 3.2GW if it is completed by then. If these outputs are achieved, the amount of gas used in generating electricity will have reduced to under 5% of total generation, and gas will only be required to generate electricity at peak winter times. Hydrogen can replace natural gas, but not till after 2030.
The power system can be decarbonised by 2030 without more nuclear. Indeed, seeking to add more nuclear will increase the cost of decarbonising. What is being built by 2030 is a demand-based network based on intermittent power from wind and solar, supported by batteries, hydro, and other storage plant and by a small amount of gas generation when required. According to NESO’s 2030 report:
“Including 1.8 GW of additional firm capacity in 2030, such as from nuclear small modular reactors, would provide around 13 TWh of generation and reduce the share of unabated gas by 0.9 percentage points (3 TWh). Much of the remaining 10 TWh would be lost to curtailment or exported at low cost, implying an increase to overall costs of the power system [i.e. higher costs per Kwh for electricity in bills.]”
The build time for the new network is very short and the investment cost unprecedened: over £40 billion a year for five years compared to £5 billion a year in the last five years. It will, however, deliver cheaper and cleaner electricity. Diverting resources, cash and workforce to SZC risks missing our climate targets.
Alongside considerations about energy costs and targets, concerns remain about the harms of nuclear waste and the risks of nuclear accidents.Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) are all nuclear disasters that have had lasting impact. Sheep farms in Scotland were affected by the radioactive rain from Chernobyl for 24 years. Dounreay fast breeder reactor produced power in Scotland from 1974-94, however in 1977 an explosion contaminated the beach and surrounding area with debris that was still being found eighteen years later. Nuclear waste has not fully been removed and the Dounreay site will not be available for re-use till 2300. The prevention of nuclear accident from earthquake or part failure has greatly added to the cost of traditional nuclear plants. Radioactive waste from old reactors will cause problems for hundreds of years. Nuclear production also brings grave risks relating to conflict and war. The war in Ukraine has thrown the presence of nuclear plants on the battlefield to the top of nuclear risks. Fortunately both Ukraine and Russia have allowed the IAEA into the war zone and there are teams of observers in all of Ukraine’s nucler plants. This has not prevented the siting of weapons and other military infrastructure in or close to the plants they “protected”.
Would the same facility be able to be offered by the IAEA in war zones in regions of climate breakdown? Future conflicts with irregular or less scrupulous forces may directly target nuclear plants risking enormous environmental damage. It is notable that all states with nuclear weapons have nuclear power plants. Indeed, acquiring a nuclear power plant is an essential step towards becoming a nuclear weapons power. Consider the hostility of Israel and the US towards Iran’s civilian nuclear power programme and its enrichment facility, and Israel’s desire to target Iranian nuclear facilities supposedly to prevent Iran getting a nuclear bomb. Israel already has a nuclear weapons arsenal, and who can say when Iran might retaliate against Israel’s nuclear infrastructure, civilian or military.Do we want to export SMRs to more countries and facilitate the development of nuclear weapons in countries that currently do not have them?
Whether or not they advance the development of nuclear weapons, the production and export of SMRs will weaken systems of regulation and control globally. Whilst great care is taken regarding nuclear safety in the UK and most EU countries, SMRs built in the UK will be exported to countries without such infrastructure and regulation. Installing them in locations without existing power networks presents targeting opportunities for terrorist or hostile state attacks. Maintaining “factory production” means a continual flow of export licenses. Mistakes will be made and political scrutiny of export licenses will inevitably weaken.
The arguments against new nuclear power plants have never been stronger. Alongside the old arguments about safety and weapons, we now have the government’s own energy operator saying that not only is new nuclear not needed to decarbonise the grid, but it will increase the cost of electricity to households. The Government is due to decide whether to go ahead with SZC before 2026 and in 2025 is set to decide whether to award Rolls Royce a contract to build SMRs. The full costs of both projects must be published and openly debated.
For background information on many issues including SMRs, see M.V. Ramana’s book (Nuclear is Not the Solution Verso £20).
Gordon Morgan and Bill Ramsay are members of the Scottish Left Review editorial committee.