Boris Johnson goes nuclear: UK plans EIGHT new reactors

Written by Climate Change Dispatch on April 8, 2022. Posted in Current News

The British government will seek to construct eight nuclear power plants and expand domestic oil production to ensure energy security amid the global crisis.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s long-awaited energy strategy will include a major shift towards nuclear power and open up oil exploration in the North Sea in a tacit admission that so-called green energy sources will not be enough to secure energy security. [bold, links added]

The government said that it wants to see a “significant acceleration of nuclear” to produce 24 GW of energy from nuclear by the year 2050, or about a quarter of the nation’s projected electricity demand.

The strategy said that it will come with the creation of a new governmental body, dubbed “Great British Nuclear”, and will see an investment of a £120 million ‘Future Nuclear Enabling Fund’ launched later this month to facilitate the “safe, clean, and reliable source of power.”

The government said that it will plan to open up eight reactors this decade, saying that the accelerated pace will see the equivalent of one new reactor per year compared to the previous one per decade rate.

A new round of licensing for oil and gas projects in the North Sea is also set to be launched in the Autumn, with the government saying it is important to recognize “the importance of these fuels to the transition and our energy security, and that producing gas in the UK has a lower carbon footprint than imported from abroad.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We’re setting out bold plans to scale up and accelerate affordable, clean, and secure energy made in Britain, for Britain – from new nuclear to offshore wind – in the decade ahead.

“This will reduce our dependence on power sources exposed to volatile international prices we cannot control, so we can enjoy greater energy self-sufficiency with cheaper bills.”

However, the green-minded Conservative government said that it hopes that 95 percent of electricity in Britain will be “low carbon” by the year 2030 through new investments in solar power, which it said hopes to increase five-fold by 2035.

The strategy called for a “new ambition” of attaining 50 GW in energy from offshore wind farms by the end of the decade, which the government said would be enough to “power every home in the UK.”

The plan includes floating wind farms in deep-sea areas and cuts to regulations to speed up approval time from the four-year average to one year.

The government will also look to bribe Britons to allow the construction of onshore wind farms in their communities “in return for guaranteed lower energy bills,” however it did not stipulate how exactly this would be achieved.

To the disappointment of economic conservatives, including Reform UK leader Richard Tice, the energy strategy did not lift the ban on fracking, merely stating that an “impartial technical review” will be conducted on shale gas extraction.

Criticizing the move, Richard Tice said that the energy plan “will result in much higher electricity prices as it relies on much more expensive, subsidized renewables that caused electricity prices to soar over the last 15 years. Our shale gas treasure saves CO2 [and] cuts prices.”

Indeed, the government has even admitted that the announcements today will do little to curb the soaring fuel and electricity prices currently facing the nation.

”You are right to say that the strategy is more of a medium-term, three-, four-, or five-year answer, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t address this,” Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News.

“It’s really important that we get an energy strategy, an energy policy that means we can have more security and independence in the year ahead,” he added.

See more here: climatechangedispatch.com

Header image: Snape Village

Editor’s note: The UK can currently produce 15gw from wind farms, so attempting to build another 35gw capacity in eight years is rather a tall order, and unlikely to be achieved.

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