EU Referendum


Energy: making the weather


17/10/2014



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Dozens of small nuclear reactors could be built to help Britain meet its emissions targets, says Ben Webster of The Times.

This was the view of the government's Committee on Climate Change, responding to a proposal from Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, who said small reactors built 20 miles from cities could be an alternative to putting up thousands more wind turbines.

The committee said: "There are large uncertainties over price and public acceptability, but they might have a role in future", after Mr Paterson had said that small nuclear plants had been running successfully in Britain for the past 30 years, including one in Derby at the Rolls-Royce site that supports Britain's nuclear submarines.

"Nine have been working on and off without incident and the technology is proven", he said. "Factory built units at the rate of one a month could add to the capacity at a rate of 1.8 GW per year [enough to power a million homes]".

Mr Paterson said many small reactors built around the country would provide more reliable power than the "behemoths", or giant power stations such as the £25 billion nuclear plant planned for Hinkley Point in Somerset. Much of the heat produced by large stations was wasted but heat from small reactors could be piped to cities to heat homes.

This was supported by Andrew Sherry, director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, who said that small nuclear reactors could be built within three years, compared with the nine years it will take to build Hinkley Point C.

He said that they could also be far cheaper to build per unit of capacity than large reactors because of mass-production. "You can daisy-chain these small reactors and have ten together".

DECC is shortly to publish a feasibility study on the commercial and technical potential of small reactors. Matthew Hancock, the energy minister, says: "Small modular reactors have huge potential, but the technology is at an early stage. I want us to do the work to make the most of that potential".

The government has certainly taken its time. We first wrote about mini-nukes in 2006, and then again in 2010, before returing to the subject in 2013 followed by Booker four months later.

UKIP offered what passes for an energy policy a year earlier, but had nothing to say about Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), so it was left to a Conservative, former Secretary of State to put the issue on the public agenda.

Several times over the last few days, I have been told that the wave of publicity over the Paterson energy speech has stemmed directly from the unusual situation of a politician actually producing detailed, worked-out policy ideas – and there is more to come.

Thus, it would appear, if you come up with sound policy ideas, you make the weather. And that is a lesson Mr Cameron could learn about the EU.

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