The UK government has said it plans to quadruple its nuclear capacity by 2050 to 24GW- see my last post. That is pretty ambitious. Approval will be given for one or two new plants every five years from 2030 to 2044, and backing given to another large-scale plant in addition to Hinkley C & the planned Sizewell C. So that’s a third large multi GW plant- maybe at Wylfa (in North Wales), or Moorside (in Cumbria).
However, although none yet exist, small modular reactors (500MW or less) might be seen as providing a way to top up- there could a lot of them. To make that more credible, UK Planning rules are to be relaxed for small nuclear reactors. As Utility Week reported ‘the government is keen to relax planning rules to allow nuclear power stations to be built on more sites than are currently permitted’ . According to the government’s new Civil Nuclear Roadmap to 2050, it says ‘having more freedom over siting for new nuclear plants is required for the rollout of small and advanced modular reactors.’
In response, the Times ran with a provocative headline ‘Mini nuclear plants to be built almost anywhere in UK’. It based this on the proposal in the government planning consultation to set up a new market based system: ‘To enable a thriving modern nuclear power generation programme, we are proposing to empower developers to put forward sites in a market-led approach to take advantage of new nuclear technologies’. So, rather than ministers specifying sites, developers will be asked to identify locations for such reactors, ‘employing a criteria-based approach’. However, although leaving developers to take on the role of selecting sites, may sound dangerous, the consultation paper says ‘the crucial role of the regulators and planning authorities remains in providing advice concerning the potential suitability of sites for nuclear energy generation against the siting criteria’.
Even so there is plenty of room for concern for example over how the discretionary criteria are conceived and used . The issues are often very sensitive and topical - for example flood risks and ground water protection, and the consultation report’s approach isn’t too comforting on possible trade-offs. It says ‘sites may still be considered suitable for nuclear deployment even where they fail to fully meet individual discretionary criteria’. Who by and on what basis?
And of course, all of this is based on the assumption that nuclear reactors of whatever type are the best option. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit cautioned that the proposed changes were unlikely to bring significant carbon or cost savings in the near term. Well yes. There are arguably better technologies. But they won’t get a look in, with the SMR competition set up as a nuclear-only game. However, the rules are a bit vague at present: there is not much indication of how funding would be organised and of course developers may not want to play and may opt for other technologies. Given some of the uncertainties about the new SMR technology, who would blame them?
The government has however tried to minimize some of the bureaucratic/regulatory issues in the way it proposes to set out the revised planning rules and criteria- in general adopting over-reaching approaches, treating all the nuclear fission options, large and small, similarly. So it offers a new planning policy ‘that applies to sites for both GW-scale nuclear projects (exceeding 1000 Megawatts (MW) of nuclear capacity) and SMRs, which typically have a generation capacity below 500 MW’.
Lumping everything together could lead to some problems. As the report admits, some issues (e.g. access to cooling water) may need to be looked at in a local context, and multiple reactor sites may need special attention. But, wherever possible, the main drive seems to be to limit differentiation and adopt a streamlined unified approach. For example, on the crucial issue of active wastes, it says whilst these new technologies like SMRs and advanced modular reactors (AMRs), ‘may give rise to new or different waste streams, the underlying requirement remains that developers are required to demonstrate that they have considered and accounted for the long- term management of nuclear waste and spent fuel, including conditioning, packaging, storage, transportation, and disposal methods’. So nothing new to see here- it all gets covered by existing nuclear policies and rules, and by developers responsibilities to meet them.
Clearly the government is pushing SMRs hard, and, with there being political pressures to get the paperwork done fast, the initial consultation on the revised planning rules and discretionary criteria ends on March 10. And the whole thing will then be looked at again with a consultation on a final version completed this year. It could get bogged down given how controversial much of it is, but the government is evidently keen: there has even been talk of providing cash compensation as an acceptance incentive for residents near proposed SMRs.
Does that mean we might see SMRs near some of us soon? That seems unlikely. The technology is in its infancy, with still unknown costs and, judging by experience so far, a propensity to fail. Given all the technical and economic uncertainties, nothing is likely to happen fast, but existing nuclear sites are the most likely targets for initial test units. The consultation report also sticks with current safety ruling that no plants should be considered where the population density exceeds 5000 persons per square kilometre. So even, if more tests follow, maybe in the early/mid 2030s, they can’t be located in major urban areas. The report admits that this may constrain new SMR/AMR technologies with possibly better safety records, and local urban heat supply options too, but it says that ‘once there is operational experience and further underpinning evidence around these advanced nuclear technologies, there may be a case for modifying the criterion’. That at least seems wise. But do we really need any of them when there are arguably many better, safer, cheaper, faster to install green alternatives?
*Interestingly, the proposed plan said that SMRs and the like would not be allowed to be sited near military facilities/activities. But ironically the new Nuclear Roadmap says that, in terms of mutual technical support, the government will ‘address the commonalities across the civil and defence supply chains’ and ‘will proactively look for opportunities to align delivery of the civil and nuclear defence enterprises, whilst maintaining the highest standards of non-proliferation’. Like many heretical critics, and more recently SPRU, have said, nuclear weapons and civil nuclear, co-joined at birth, remain twinned in supportive practice.
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