The United Kingdom get about twenty percent of their electricity from eight nuclear power reactors. Seven of these reactors are scheduled to be shut down and decommissioned by 2030. Coal fired power plants provide more than twenty percent of the U.K.'s electricity. Concerns over climate change were part of the decision to close all of the coal power plants by 2025. All this means that by 2030, the U.K. will lose almost fifty percent of their currently power generation.
I have written several articles about the massive Hinkley Point C nuclear power project in the U.K. There are serious problems impeding progress on the project but if the plant gets built, it will be able to supply about seven percent of the U.K. power needs. However, the cost of the electricity will be much higher than current prices.
The U.K. could undertake a major program to develop sustainable alternative energy sources such as hydro, solar, wind, biogas, and tidal generations systems. However, the most likely replacement for the retiring power generation systems will be Combined Gas Cycle Turbines burning natural gas. Unfortunately, although these plants can be quickly built and natural gas is cheap, they still contribute to climate change.
The Alvin Weinberg Foundation is a U.K. charity that operates under the name "Weinberg Next Nuclear." It promotes research and development of next generation nuclear power reactors. A primary focus of the Foundation is liquid fluoride thorium reactors and other reactors that make use of molten salt technologies. It is named for an early Director of the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Alvin M. Weinberg. The Foundation issued a report titled "Next Steps for Nuclear Innovation in the UK" in November of 2015. Later in November, the U.K. government announced a five year nuclear research and development program worth three hundred and seventy seven million dollars.
One part of the program is a competition to choose the best small modular reactor design (SMR) for use in the U.K. The first part of this competition will be to develop an SMR "Roadmap" which will analyze development programs for SMRs and develop a policy framework to support the best designs. This stage of the program will run through 2016.
The report laid out recommended criteria for selecting the best designs that will have government support in stage two. Safety and non-proliferation were identified as being of critical importance. Other criteria included cost, waste management, past experience with related designs, the ability to use alternative nuclear fuels, the ability to reuse used nuclear fuel and plutonium, load-following to allow backup of intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, and the potential to supply low-carbon heat and hydrogen. The report suggests that SMRs and "micro reactors" with less than twenty megawatt capacity should be much cheaper to build than huge gigawatt reactors.
The report criticized the U.K. Office for Nuclear Regulation. The ONR generic design assessment is very thorough and takes up to five years to complete. With its current staff and capabilities, the ONR can only carry out two of these assessments at a time. It is currently assessing two Generation III+ reactor designs, the AP1000 and the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor. The report suggested that the ONR needs additional resources in order to carry out more assessments simultaneously so research and development of new reactors designs can be proceed more quickly. The report called for the establishment of international standards for the safety of advanced reactor designs.
