Some 260 years ago, James Watt created the world’s first truly efficient steam engine – a cost-effective, abundant source of energy that went on to power the industrial revolution and all the subsequent growth that came with it.
In his autobiography, Watts said his motivation was to make engines ‘cheap as well as good’. The lesson is as true in 2024 as it was in 1764: affordable, reliable energy is essential to economic growth.
But the situation has changed in two ways. Today our energy also needs to be secure and clean: homegrown to reduce exposure to volatile markets, and free of the fossil fuels that exacerbate climate breakdown.
The new generation of nuclear energy, in the form of small modular reactors (SMR), can tick all these boxes.
After decades of stop-start policymaking on nuclear, the technology behind SMRs has led to their resurgence into UK energy policy. Last year it was clear that a new ‘nuclear moment’ had arrived, as the previous government outlined their roadmap to reach 24GW by 2050 – largely based on the rollout of SMRs.
Despite a change of government, the rollout of SMRs still has official support, but Labour has not yet backed the previous target of 24GW. Our new report with the Entrepreneurs Network, authored by Eamonn Ives, sets out that if we want to match the expected increase in energy demand, ensuring the efficient rollout of SMRs is essential.
The potential of SMRs is huge. Their modular nature allows for iterative learning and improvement, which means less risk of cost overruns. There is also export potential for SMRs made in the UK, especially for pressurised water reactors, which are the global standard and the only technology currently used in the UK. SMR reactors may even be able to be delivered on a ‘turnkey’ basis – where a reactor site is built for an agreed price, then turned over to the owner for operation – which in recent years is much too risky for gigawatt scale but may be viable for SMRs.
But without comprehensive policy changes to how we build nuclear, we will be locked into an expensive and prolonged transition that will needlessly delay our progress to Net Zero and energy security.
First, to get the most from this emerging technology, we need to designate more sites for SMR development. More sites will bring with them compounding economic benefits. The US nuclear giant Holtec has committed to build a new SMR factory in the UK that is expected to generate 3,000 skilled engineering jobs, and economic analysis from Bradshaw Advisory estimates it will contribute £1.5bn of gross value added to the wider region. This underscores the potential for SMRs to not repeat the mistakes of wind power rollout, where the UK simply became a buyer – this time, SMR production can become a vital part of the UK’s industrial base.
Second, although nuclear is one of the safest energy sources out there, people worry about things going wrong. Reassuring people with the right regulation is key. That’s why we need to give our nuclear regulators more resources, to speed up their decision-making. Addressing the pay disparity between nuclear regulators is also something that has previously been cited by the Science, Technology and Innovation Committee’s 2023 report Delivering Nuclear Power.
Third, regulation should be streamlined where possible. One simple step to safely fast-track approvals for nuclear designs would be to mutually recognise the work of regulators in other countries that we trust.
We already do this in the medical world. In 2023, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency announced that new regulatory recognition routes for medicines will use approvals from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore and the United States. Pending specific local factors, if an SMR design has been approved in the US or in Korea, for example, work should not be needlessly duplicated to reach the same outcome.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all, planning reform is needed: both to shorten the consent timelines faced by all clean energy projects, and to introduce ‘clean power acceleration areas’, that would exempt clean energy assets from having environmental impact assessments. If a site is outside of an area of outstanding natural beauty, for example, rules around biodiversity should not prevent the construction of infrastructure vital to Net Zero.
As Britain battles with its own energy crisis, and the world grapples with the cascading impacts of climate breakdown, the need for cheap and reliable energy is becoming ever more urgent. SMRs can help get the country humming with energy that is cheap, clean and secure. And excitingly, the plants that power this future can be made in Britain. But none of this is guaranteed. Bureaucratic torpor, underfunding and a lack of vision could still see other countries taking the lead, while the UK suffers yet another missed opportunity for growth. SMRs will only flourish if we ramp up the pace and cut the costs.
Our nuclear moment has arrived – let’s seize it while we can.
‘Small Wonders: How SMRs can power a clean, competitive and secure economy’ is published by the Entrepreneurs Network.
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