Interesting gamble the government is taking here. Unusually the environmentalists are right to be cautious, SMRs have been designed since the 90s and not a one of them has ever come to anything.
Also not completely sure why we’d need it. By the governments own plans we can expect our wind power to jump from 10gw to 50gw by 2035, which would mean being 100% renewable powered for months at a time.
Which will make it very very expensive, the research I’ve seen recently says nations that manage that transition can expect electric price falls of a quarter to a half, and that Hinckley plant is already going to be selling at over twice the unit price of any other source. I would expect SMR plans to collapse for that reason by itself.
The rest of the world are about to go all in on geothermal and we’re just about to start going in on the stop-gap solution. I wish Starmer had more imagination, we could be world leaders in geothermal and that would generate revenue for decades.
The rest of the world is going all in on geothermal?
Do you have a source for that?
I don’t, but we’re seeing growing investment in geothermal. Admittedly, it could just be the RSS feeds I’m subscribed to. Nuclear only shifts problems down the line.
If we are talking mononuclear renewables, I understand that the UK is in an enviable position regarding wind, being one of, if not, the windiest nations in Europe. If I haven’t misremembered maybe we should prioritise wind generation. Leave geothermal to places like Iceland, or maybe the nations around the Pacific Rim.
On a good day wind produces ~50% of our electricity at the moment, and there’s a new offshore development as part of the Dogger Bank wind farm
Geothermal doesn’t need unstable crust conditions anymore.
So on both points:
Recent studies have shown that the intermitency of wind and solar means countries with a high reliance on it are especially prone to gas price shocks, that issue dissapears if the country has a good amount of nuclear or hydroelectric in the mix.
Regarding geothermal the UK, particularly parts of Scotland, are actually rather suited to more modern types of geothermal with a lot of hot dense rock at depths we previously couldn’t drill too but are now much more able to.
There’s new geothermal being implemented in the southwest too for what it’s worth - so it’s not like it’s not happening in the UK, it’s just going to be at the extreme south and north.
Wind is intermittent. Why can’t we go all in on wind AND geothermal?
How dare you. Think of the poor nuclear lobbyist. How are they supposed to exploit a country with people like you meddling in their pitch.
Why is it stop-gap?
Because nuclear isn’t a long-term solution. It shifts problems down the line. Geothermal on the other hand is a clean and neverending resource.
Right, but you haven’t really answered the question. Why isn’t it a long term solution? Sure geothermal is great, but there’s space for both, amongst others.
Uranium supplies aren’t particularly abundant, and make you reliant on the same old superpowers.
Nuclear creates waste that we can’t dispose of
Sure nuclear waste is a problem, but there are ways to dispose of it. I can’t see why it can’t be a long term solution.
There’s problems and solutions for every type of energy production.
Dumping nuclear waste off the coast of Somalia is not a solution.
Edit: as this seemed to upset people. Read Roberto Saviano’s book Gomorrah where he talks about the mafia controlled companies that did exactly this, because it was the cheapest way they found to dispose nuclear waste.