When Harold Wilson stood on the stage at Labour’s 1963 party conference to open a debate on science, he pledged to harness the ‘white heat of technology’, but Britain was already a global scientific superpower in a critical field – nuclear energy.
In 1917, Rutherford split the atom in Manchester. In 1932, Cockcroft and Walton smashed atoms with a particle accelerator for the first time. In 1956, Calder Hall opened as the world’s first full-scale commercial nuclear reactor. Less than a decade later, Britain had built 23 more. And by 1965, Britain had more nuclear reactors than the rest of the world combined.
Sadly, the global nuclear lead that Britain once enjoyed is long gone. Britain hasn’t completed a new nuclear power station in almost 30 years, and the remaining Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs), which account for eight of the nine British nuclear reactors, are set to be taken offline within the next few years.
Only Sizewell B, which opened in 1995, is planned to stay online beyond 2028 and it is scheduled to be taken offline for maintenance for two months in 2029. If one reactor at Hinkley Point C is not completed by then, Britain will produce no nuclear power for the first time in more than 70 years.
To ensure energy security, lower household bills and if the Government is to achieve their stretching Net Zero targets, this cannot be allowed to happen. We need to extend the life of two of our existing fleet of AGRs.
Without nuclear on the grid, renewables such as wind and solar, alongside batteries charged during periods of high wind and sunlight, will pick up some of the slack. However, more often than not, the grid will fall back on expensive, carbon-emitting gas, resulting in the inevitable knock-on effects of higher emissions and increased electricity prices.
The planned phase-out of Britain’s remaining AGRs therefore threatens to derail the Government’s Clean Power by 2030 target.
National Energy System Operator’s Clean Power 2030 report makes it clear that, to meet the Government’s target for a clean power grid by the end of the decade, we need between 3.6 GW and 4.1 GW of nuclear power online.
If we fail to keep even one of our remaining AGRs operational, we will be left with just 2.7 GW of nuclear capacity. This would increase the amount of unabated gas we burn by as much as 11 TWh, breaching NESO’s ‘less than 5% unabated gas in a normal year’ definition of Clean Power.
This is why Britain Remade, the organisation I run, is calling on the Government to back the process of extending the life of Heysham 2 and Torness.
Built in the 1980s, these nuclear power stations are home to some of the youngest AGRs in the country, making them ideal candidates for safe operation beyond their originally planned lifespan.
Extending the life of these power stations, along with getting one of Hinkley Point C’s reactors online by the end of the decade and keeping Sizewell B running, would deliver 5.3GW of clean nuclear power annually.
This would reduce Britain’s reliance on gas by 5.8 billion cubic metres and cut CO2 emissions by 8.8 million tonnes – enough to fill 4,300 Wembley Stadiums. Households would also benefit from lower energy bills, with potential savings of up to £95 per year.
Extending the operational life of nuclear power stations beyond initial expectations is incredibly common. Sizewell B, the last nuclear power station Britain built, was initially expected to operate for 40 years. That was 29 years ago, yet EDF now plans for it to stay operational until 2055.
In France, EDF’s reactors have already received licences to continue operating for up to 50 years, and senior executives believe extending them to 80 years is achievable.
Britain’s AGRs have also been extended before. Originally planned to operate for 30 years, many have lasted longer.
Torness, Scotland’s most productive clean power asset of all time, will have provided 40 years of service if it closes as scheduled in 2028. Hunterston B, which held that crown until recently, operated for 46 years.
Under the current system, politicians have outsourced decision-making to regulators. The Office for Nuclear Regulation not only assesses the risks of nuclear accidents but also determines how those risks are addressed.
Without democratic oversight, there is a danger of defaulting to rigid regulatory principles that lead to unnecessary costs. For example, one reason Sizewell B undergoes frequent maintenance is the countless safety features insisted upon by the regulator.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty repeatedly emphasised that their role was to advise and present the science. It was up to the elected Government to decide what to do with that information.
We need a similar approach for AGR extension. Expert regulators should present their best assessment of the risks involved, but it should be up to the Government to decide whether the benefits – delivering Clean Power by 2030, reducing gas use by six billion cubic metres, and reducing household bills—outweigh those risks.
New polling we have done shows that a majority of people (54%) think nuclear power should play an important part in the UK’s energy mix, a quarter (25%) said it was not important and just under a quarter (21%) saying they didn’t know.
If you want to help send a message to the Government that they should make the obvious, sensible and safe decision to extend Heysham 2 and Torness then you can sign our petition here.
Britain Remade petition: Don’t Switch Off Clean Power
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