Tom Greatrex, Nuclear Industry Association Chief Executive
The government’s record £17 billion investment for new nuclear in the spending review is confirmation that we are entering a new era for British nuclear energy.
Not since 1978 has Britain given backing to two new nuclear projects on the same day. Back then, it was Torness and Heysham 2 – both of which are still generating vital power to the grid – and today we have Sizewell C and Rolls-Royce SMR.
These projects – long-promised and finally given the go-ahead – will kick-start a programme of new nuclear building not seen in this country for decades, helping to build the nuclear workforce of the future and revitalise Britain’s industrial might.
In a passionate address to MPs in the Commons championing our nuclear industry, the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, said: “We need new nuclear to meet our climate obligations… we need it for energy security and the good, skilled jobs nuclear provides.”
The record £14.2 billion backing for Sizewell C is the biggest public investment in a nuclear project ever in the UK, confirming nuclear’s central role in the government’s growth agenda. “We understand that energy security is national security,” the Chancellor said, “it is the right choice for bills, the right choice for jobs and the right choice for growth, this government is investing in the biggest rollout of nuclear power for half a century.” Cue a very happy cohort of MPs – over 65 who have welcomed the news so far, from across the political spectrum.
It is no accident that the Prime Minister chose to be at Suffolk New College in Ipswich to welcome the Sizewell C news, surrounded by young people all eager to be involved with a project that will create 70,000 jobs across the country, 10,000 of them locally and 1,500 apprentices. The project will be a badge of pride for them, as it is in every nuclear community in the country, because they know what it offers: immense opportunity, certainty and a chance to live and work where they grew up, building a good future.
A replica of Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C will carry on the good work being done on site at Somerset, with the added advantage of a skilled-up workforce, familiar supply chain, a finalised design ready to go and all the learnings which have enabled major efficiency savings from activity on Unit 1 to Unit 2. We have built multiple reactors before and we can do it again, this time with a mix of large and small plants.
In Rolls-Royce SMR we have a UK technology aiming to become Europe’s first operational small modular reactor. It too will create jobs – 3,000 of them – with the £2.5 billion earmarked for the project supporting three units, opening up even more opportunities for the supply chain and significant export potential. Lots of countries are looking at what we do here, especially with the growing interest in power hungry AI and data centres and the need for 24/7/365 clean power.
We at the NIA will continue to work with all SMR and AMR vendors, including those who also ran in the Great British Nuclear (or Great British Energy – Nuclear to give its new name) selection-process, and we welcome the government’s intention to provide a route for private sector-led advanced nuclear projects to be deployed.
There was even more good news, including a record £2.5 billion for R&D in fusion energy, to support the STEP programme and its world-leading fusion plant in West Burton in Nottinghamshire, with even more jobs promised for the coal to fusion project, boosting UK innovation and expertise. And alongside the world leading decommissioning expertise at Sellafield, there came the very welcome news that new nuclear capacity could come to West Cumbria with the potential for some of the land at Moorside being freed up for new low carbon capacity.
As many of those working in and around the nuclear sector know, much of the current commercial opportunity comes through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Estate where a largely UK supply chain is doing vital and integral work contributing to the decommissioning mission. Keeping sites, facilities and the waste safe and secure, and making progress on the GDF, have billions of pounds of public money committed to them during the spending review period. While it is subject to the efficiency savings that most revenue budgets across the public sector are having to find – and there will inevitably be some hard decisions to be made – it remains a very significant part of our industry even if it does not grab the headlines in the same way.
Over the past few years much of the work of the NIA, our members and those we ally with has been to make the case for, and seek confirmation of, the projects that help to make high level targets real – providing jobs, growth, secure power and weaning the country off an over-reliance on imported gas as the basis for our energy mix. While the announcements in the spending review may be the fruits of hard work by many people over a long time period, the reality is also that the impetus shifts now to industry – delivering those projects, helping build and expand the supply chain, attracting people into the sector from education or other industries, and above all demonstrating to the public that this is an industry with a golden future.
Much as we can take some fleeting satisfaction from the spending review, it is from here that much of the hard work now begins. I am confident that as a sector we are more than capable of proving that worth – but it is a challenge we must now focus on meeting together.
Tom Greatrex is the Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association
