UK firm in vanguard of companies arguing SMRs are quicker and cheaper option than large Hinkley-sized nuclear plants
The Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant has ballooned to a reported £48bn and delayed by at least five years.The Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant has ballooned to a reported £48bn and delayed by at least five years.The Hinkley Point C power plant in Somerset is gargantuan. The 176-hectare plant will provide 3.2 gigawatts of power, enough for 6m homes. It is not just the project that is huge: the cost is as well.
The government in November put Rolls-Royce SMR plus American-owned rivals Holtec and GE Hitachi, and Canadian-owned Westinghouse on its shortlist. Two are expected to be chosen at chancellor Rachel Reeves’s spring statement. Lovegrove, 58, joined the civil service in 2004, after working for investment banks Morgan Grenfell and Deutsche Bank. He rose through the ranks, including seven years on the board of the London 2012 Olympic Games, before becoming permanent secretary, the highest civil service rank, of the energy department in 2013.
“Despite the relentless hype, a closer look at the progress of SMRs shows that they don’t seem to be solving any of the problems suffered by larger reactors,” he said. He cited the experience of America’s Nuscale, which, in Idaho, after costs soared. SMRs will be “vastly more expensive than renewables, and they’re just as slow to bring online, which makes them too slow to be much use decarbonising the grid”, Parr said.
It is an opportune time for nuclear advocates, even with unproven technology. Lovegrove was Boris Johnson’s national security adviser in February 2022 when Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered a global energy crisis, with Europe scrambling to replace Russian gas.
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