The UK government is looking to ‘a new golden age of nuclear’, committing £17 billion to ‘the most ambitious programme of new plants for a generation’. As its new Advanced Nuclear Frameworks plan says, in the 2025 Spending Review, it committed £14.2 billion to Sizewell C and over £2.5 billion to the Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE N) Small Modular Reactor (SMR) project at Wylfa. And it says ‘together with Hinkley Point C, these projects will add almost 8 GW of capacity in the 2030s’.
However, it also wants to do more, with plans for advanced nuclear, some based on US Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) developments. As it notes, some major commercial deals have been concluded between UK and US companies, including ‘plans for X-Energy and Centrica to build 12 advanced modular reactors in Hartlepool, supporting 2,500 jobs, as well as plans for Holtec, EDF, and Tritax to build small modular reactors at the former coal-fired power station Cottam in Nottinghamshire, providing clean, secure power to data centres on the site’.
Meanwhile it says ‘TerraPower is working with engineering firm KBR to explore the potential deployment of its Natrium advanced reactor technology in the UK & beyond’. It also noted that ‘Last Energy & DP World intend to create one of the world’s first micro modular nuclear plants at London Gateway, backed by £80m in private money’. These MMRs are meant to be under 20MW.
Not everyone is convinced that these new SMR/AMR/MMR projects will be viable technologically or economically, but DESNZ is optimistic: ‘Britain could see some of the world’s first advanced nuclear power stations powering factories and AI data centres, as part of the government’s “golden age” of nuclear to support jobs, drive growth & protect billpayers with homegrown clean energy’.
To help with that, it is investing in ‘fuel cycle capabilities such as High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU)’ which some of the new plants will need- if they go forward. HALEU is enriched to below 20%, compared to under 5% for the uranium used in most conventional plants and DESNZ says that it ‘is essential for fuelling AMRs’. But the UK doesn’t have a plant for making it. £300m has been allocated for one, with the aim being to establish a UK domestic HALEU capability that ‘reduces global reliance on Russian supply chains, which currently dominate the global market, and mitigates strategic vulnerabilities for the UK and its allies. By investing early, the UK is ready to be a trusted supplier of HALEU to international partners’ this also ensuring ‘uninterrupted fuel supply for domestic AMR deployment’.
To progress all this, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero says it is setting up a ‘UK Advanced Nuclear Pipeline’, a new government managed process through which private sector projects submit detailed plans across 5 core areas: technology & supply chain; developer capability; finance/funding/investment; siting; and operator/end user arrangements. DESNZ and GBE N will conduct eligibility checks /Project Readiness Assessment, with successful projects then being invited to join the Pipeline, subject to ministerial approval.
DESNZ says ‘Pipeline projects may engage with DESNZ on potential revenue support, e.g., a Contracts for Difference (CfD) style mechanism that stabilises future revenues, and High Impact, Low Probability (HILP) risk protections where private markets cannot efficiently bear residual risks.’ It adds ‘In parallel, all companies can approach the National Wealth Fund (NWF), who bring £27.8 billion of capital, a dedicated nuclear team, and a full suite of debt, equity and hybrid instruments, to explore investment opportunities aligned with strategic priorities’. DESNZ also look at the ‘wider enablers that the government is putting in place to support nuclear deployment, reforming the planning system, grid connection process, and regulatory process, to ease and accelerate deployment of new plants’.
DESNZ says that while ‘the Framework aims to support private projects that use advanced nuclear technologies for civil energy purposes,’ with the focus on electricity, it also includes ‘projects that supply energy as heat and/or electricity & where the energy is supplied to the National Grid and/or to private energy users.’ But it adds, given possibly unique regulatory, legal, safety, and/or strategic challenges, the new framework ‘specifically excludes offshore or floating nuclear platforms, civil nuclear propulsion, space based reactors and transportable nuclear solutions.’
Even so, it still feels quite breath-takingly pro-nuclear, a very big shift from earlier Labour and indeed Tory views on nuclear as economically unattractive. And the government seems keen to go even further, with revamps to basic regulatory approaches to nuclear safety – to speed thing up and, presumably, try to improve its economics. The new approach could have significant undesirable impacts and has not gone unopposed. But the nuclear lobby is clearly keen to press ahead, with a new perspective on risks being pushed: ‘Routine reactor emissions, both activated material (made radioactive by neutron bombardment) and fission by-products, pose no meaningful health risk. Even if some vanishingly small effect existed, it would be statistically indistinguishable from the background cancer rate and would be lost in the noise of lifestyle, environmental, and biological risk factors.’ So said two pro-nuclear Breakthrough campaign members in a recent edition of the usually very critical Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. No risk? Really? There is no shortage of contrary evidence on human health impacts, both occupational and residential, including a recent US national study, although there are still debates on their overall significance and implications.
However, while debates like that, and also on waste costs, continue, DESNZ seems keen to press ahead with nuclear expansion. And they are pretty ‘gung ho’ about that, backing a ‘Destination Nuclear’ staff recruitment campaign, part of their Nuclear Skills plan, which aims to support both civil and defence related nuclear jobs. DESNZ says that nearly 3,500 early careers starters entered the sector in 24/25, with ‘73 new nuclear fission PhDs added in academic years 24/25 and 25/26’.
Is all this wise? Can we really have a golden nuclear future? Well, the latest update from the World Nuclear Industry Status team says that, in Jan 2026 ‘404 nuclear power reactors were operating in the world – 5 units less than one year earlier - maintaining however a stable combined operating capacity. Construction of new nuclear plants was underway in 11countries, five fewer host nations than just two years earlier’. It noted that 2025 saw the lowest number of new start-ups since 2017, while 7 plants totalling 2.8 GW were closed - 3 each in Belgium & Russia, and 1 in Taiwan, completing its nuclear phaseout. So it doesn’t sound too sure about overall nuclear growth- indeed some portray nuclear as fizzling out .
That may be overstating the case, depending on location, but the renewables by contrast are really booming globally - led by China. Indeed Stanford University’s Prof Mark Jacobson says China could reach 100% renewable energy (nearly all power, heat & transport) by 2050. While, he notes that sadly, at the current rate of progress, the USA would only reach that point roughly 100 years later. China may still end having a little fossil and nuclear by 2050/60, but mostly, DNV suggests, it will be green energy. Is the USA’s big fossil and nuclear emphasis really the way to go for anyone? The UK is doing well on replacing fossil with low cost renewables, but, after having its financial fingers burnt by EDF’s high cost EPRs, it still seems strangely locked into uncertain and likely to be high cost new nuclear, increasingly from the USA.…
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