Nuclear Technology

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I should make it clear that I am speaking in an entirely personal capacity, neither as chair of the EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee nor as a spokesman for my party. Energy policy clearly needs to be based on three pillars, the so-called energy trilemma: the balance of security of supply, affordability and environmental considerations. As my committee’s 2013 report made clear, the interests of all those are best served by having diversity in sources of supply. Unlike the noble Viscount, I am a fan of renewables and I should like to see much more emphasis on energy efficiency, but I believe that non-renewables will have to provide the baseload for our electricity supply well into the foreseeable future.

As a councillor in Suffolk in the 1990s, I opposed new capacity at Sizewell but in the intervening years I have changed my view. I am far more worried now about the threat of climate change, and I cannot see a decarbonised future for this country which does not involve nuclear. For me, Fukushima and the subsequent stress tests which were carried out across Europe have made me more confident about UK capacity in nuclear, not less.

Despite the fanfare of recent days, I am not at all convinced that Hinkley Point C will ever lead to new plant at Sizewell and Bradwell. I think that they are too large, too expensive and too uncertain. Similar designs in France and Finland are now years overdue. There are also questions around whether it is sensible to put all your energy security eggs into one foreign country’s basket. It is a questionable policy, particularly in a country that is lacking in transparency. It seems that, in this as in a number of other things, we have become beguiled by size. Projects on this scale require huge capital investment and are difficult to control in terms of their costs. Local people have to endure an enormously disruptive period while construction takes place.

Last week the Institution of Mechanical Engineers published the results of some polling. It was encouraging from our perspective to note that 56% expressed themselves as being in favour of nuclear energy, but 44% said that they would protest if anything was built within 10 miles of their homes. I have often wondered whether people would feel quite so strongly if we could think about these things on a rather smaller scale. So, like other noble Lords, this has brought me back to the question of small modular reactors, which have already been mentioned. The 2015 World Nuclear Association report describes how SMRs are built in factory settings in modular forms, and I think that that is where the real economies of scale come in; they are economies of volume rather than of size. The Nuclear Industry Association describes the delivery of 16 gigawatts of new build as its key priority. The fact that SMRs can be co-located with existing nuclear structures is a huge advantage in terms of working with communities that are used to nuclear facilities; there is a local and regional supply chain and skills base; and of course there are big cost advantages in being able to connect to the grid. As a win-win, the significant amount of heat that is generated can be used to supply local district heating for the community. Moreover, the “passive safety” features, which mean that little human intervention is required in the case of an accident, are a real plus.

For decarbonisation, particularly as our coal-fired stations come out of commission, light water reactors have the potential to be a really important replacement. I note key developments in the United States from Babcock and Wilcox with a 180 megawatt pressurised water reactor and Holtec with a 140 megawatt plant. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments about integral fast reactors, which in effect reprocess existing waste not just from plants but also from weapons. Hitachi has told the Government that it could have a plant up and running in Sellafield within five years, and I would like to hear a little more about that. I am also very interested to learn how the Government are moving forward with regard to small modular reactors. The chief scientific officer at Rolls-Royce believes that they could come onstream in five to seven years. The Chancellor recently announced a £50 million research programme and I would like some more detail about that, particularly with regard to the development of a robust regulatory framework and design assessment. There really is no need for us all to keep reinventing the wheel.