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Outgoing UK Prime Minister backs nuclear
7/9/2022
News
Speaking at the Sizewell nuclear facility in Suffolk on 1 September in what was his last significant policy speech as UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson called on the UK to ‘pull our national finger out and get on with’ developing nuclear power further in a bid to protect the country’s energy supplies and cut household bills.
Talking ahead of the announcement of Liz Truss* as his successor, Johnson confirmed £700mn of funding for the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk and called on the next Prime Minister to ‘go nuclear and go large’.
Highlighting how the project, once finance is arranged and the plant is built, could save £3bn/y in energy bills and power about a fifth of all UK homes, Johnson said he was ‘absolutely confident’ the funding would ‘get over the line’ in the next few weeks because it would be ‘madness’ not to.
Stating that the new reactor was ‘just a part of our Great British nuclear campaign’, Johnson said – perhaps optimistically – that at least eight more ‘large ones and small modular reactors’ would be built across the country.
He also pointed out that nuclear was ‘not the entire solution to our energy needs – far from it’, highlighting that the UK had produced 26% more gas from the North Sea this year and that the government was ‘putting a big bet on hydrogen and on carbon capture and storage’. He also noted that offshore wind was the cheapest form of electricity in the country, now ‘nine times cheaper than gas because of the insanity of what Putin has done’ and said he was confident the UK would hit the government’s target of 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
Further funding boost for UK nuclear
The day after Johnson’s speech, the UK government unveiled £3.3mn funding to support development of the next generation of nuclear technology, particularly research into advanced modular reactors.
The funding will support the early-stage innovation for six projects, helping attract private investment and supporting the creation of new, highly-skilled green jobs.
The innovative projects include National Nuclear Laboratory in Cheshire, who are coordinating a UK-Japan team to design an innovative high temperature gas reactor (HTGR); and U-Battery Developments in Slough, for a study to determine the optimum size, type, cost and delivery method for a U-battery advanced modular reactor (AMR) suitable for demonstration in the UK.
*Following Liz Truss' appointment as Prime Minister, the newly appointed Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg will likely reassess the UK's forthcoming nuclear development plans.
