Miliband to boost Britain's nuclear power as blackout fears rise

Telegraph

2 days ago

Ed Miliband is to pump billions of pounds into a nuclear power renaissance to keep Britain's lights on.
The Energy Secretary will on Tuesday commit £14.2bn to building two giant reactors at Sizewell, Suffolk, capable of providing 6m homes with electricity regardless of low winds and dark winter days.
The heavy investment comes as fears rise that Mr Miliband's rush to build wind and solar farms is leaving the grid too exposed to the weather and vulnerable to outages.
Over-reliance on intermittent renewables could even threaten blackouts of the kind that hit Spain in April, say experts.
Nuclear generation is a reliable source of so-called baseload power, the minimum amount of demand on the grid.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Miliband said the announcement marked a new 'golden age' for the British nuclear industry.
He said: 'This challenge of energy security and the demands of the climate crisis mean that it is in our interests to shift as fast as possible to clean, home-grown power.
'The demand for that power is expected to at least double by 2050. That's why we need all the clean, home-grown sources that we can to meet the demands we face. New nuclear is a crucial source of firm, baseload power.'
The money is in addition to the £3.6bn pledged by the previous Conservative government. It means Sizewell C is to receive a total of £17.8bn in public money between 2022 and 2029, with more to follow.
Spending package
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor is set to confirm the funding at the GMB Congress later on Tuesday ahead of the Government's spending review.
Ms Reeves is to hand out £300bn more in public spending than was proposed by the Tories, following a record £40bn tax raid last year.
The NHS is expected to receive an additional £30bn, meaning it will be among the biggest winners. An extra £113bn is also earmarked for infrastructure projects.
However, day-to-day spending will be squeezed, with a real terms rise of 1.2pc in the next three years – down from 2.5pc in the last two years. Unprotected departments will face real terms cuts.
A post-Brexit farming fund is expected to be reduced in size. There have also been clashes over police funding and social housing.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, became the last Cabinet minister to settle with the Treasury on Monday, following heated discussions that sources said had raised fears she might resign.
Reports on Monday night suggested that the Chancellor refused to meet the Home Secretary's demands and imposed a settlement on her.
As well as billions for Sizewell C, it is also expected that one of Europe's first programmes building small modular reactors (SMRs) will be confirmed.
Partly built on production lines by engineering giants including Rolls-Royce, it is hoped these smaller and much cheaper nuclear power stations will allow Britain to more quickly replace the older plants that must be decommissioned in the coming years.
Taxpayers will also contribute £2.5bn to a five-year investment in fusion research, which aims to unlock the nuclear reaction which powers the sun as a source of clean and cheap power on Earth.
Nuclear power is seen as increasingly vital to protect Britain's power grids after the shutdowns of all its coal-fired power stations and the looming closures of many of the nation's 35 or so large gas-fired power stations.
Such traditional 'thermal' power stations generate electricity by making steam that spins turbines. The rotating masses of metal are vital to stabilise the voltage and frequency of the power supplied to the grid – which is highly sensitive to even tiny fluctuations.
In the UK, however, nuclear has always proved to be far more expensive than other sources of electricity. This is why, despite the UK opening the world's first commercial nuclear power station in the 1950s, no new nuclear plant has opened in the UK since 1995, with all of the existing fleet except Sizewell B likely to be phased out by the early 2030s.
Energy analyst Kathryn Porter warned the UK was committing itself to an outdated and expensive reactor design at Sizewell C.
She said: 'It's hard to imagine a 'golden age' of nuclear power with EDF's outdated and troubled reactor design. EDF in France is already looking to the next generation – building another of these older versions is a retrograde step.
'It's also highly unlikely that Sizewell C would be built faster than Hinkley given the lengthening of supply chains.'
The costs for Hinkley Point C, under construction in Somerset, have risen from around £20bn to at least £42bn with some experts warning the final bill will come close to £50bn when it starts operating around 2031.
Investment struggles
Such unpredictable construction costs have made it difficult for the Government to find any companies willing to invest in Sizewell C.
EDF, the French state energy company which is building Hinkley, has progressively reduced its stake in Sizewell C leaving the Government holding 84pc.
Officials have been seeking foreign state investment including from the United Arab Emirates.
Mr Miliband still refuses to divulge the estimated final cost of Sizewell C and negotiations with prospective partners are thought to still be under way. The best estimates to date suggest the power station will cost about £40bn.
The money will come initially from the Treasury but it and other investors will recover the construction costs via a new levy, known as the Regulated Asset Base, to be added to consumer and business energy bills.
The Government has claimed that this will initially cost only £12 per household per year, but experts say this would raise far less than needed – so the amounts are likely to increase, driving up energy bills.
Andrew Bowie, Conservative shadow energy spokesman, said nuclear power offered a reliable and continuous source of electricity essential to balance the intermittency of renewables like wind and solar.
'We need to move to a lower-carbon electricity system that includes wind and solar.
'But we do not have the electricity storage capacity needed for times when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Nuclear will give us reliable baseload electricity to stabilise the system.'
Richard Tice, Reform's energy spokesman, was also broadly supportive but criticised Mr Miliband for delays around commissioning SMRs as well.