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.
Are we just hearing / seeing the emotional headline of “nuclear”, but actually it just creates busy work for everyone for the next ~19 years.
By that time the other solutions (wind, geothermal, solar, sea, etc) have proven themselves and the gov just take the credit and show themselves as saving our planet by another 10 years of busy work decommissioning the power stations before the nuclear fuel is actually brought in…?
Keynsian economics? Kenyan economics?
something like that