Nuclear Energy

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, for tabling this really important debate and for his very balanced introduction. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I may not agree with his support for nuclear, but I now understand where it is coming from.

When I looked down the list of speakers for this debate, I feared that I would be in a minority of those urging caution before taking costly, long-term decisions that would lock us into a new generation of nuclear power plants—whether they be large gigawatt plants, such as EDF’s Sizewell C; the as-yet unproven at scale small modular reactors; or the more exotic advanced modular reactors. So it has proved to be: I am in the minority.

I hope that all speakers in this debate will acknowledge my very firm belief that we must act with extreme urgency to tackle the existential crisis of climate change. Let me assure noble Lords that I would grab with both hands any solution that proponents say could deliver 25% of our clean energy needs by 2050.

However, it is highly questionable whether those claims for nuclear energy are deliverable at a speed dictated by accelerating climate change, cost effectively and at scale, to meet our 2030 target for decarbonised electricity. Often it is a case of jam tomorrow, and nuclear is very expensive jam. It is eye-wateringly expensive, and investment from the private sector is proving to be a challenge. Let us take the example of Sizewell C, the overall cost of which remains shrouded in secrecy. The last published figure, circa £20 billion, dates back to May 2020. I ask the Minister to tell your Lordships’ House how much the Government estimate that it will cost now. He should know, because a capital raise was expected to begin in 2023, with a final investment decision due in 2024.

As I understand it, UK pension funds are not enthused, with Legal and General, NEST, BT and NatWest ruling Sizewell C out. The Government’s plan to include nuclear in the UK’s green taxonomy is unlikely to be a game-changer. The House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee in its July 2023 report on nuclear energy has called for greater transparency on Sizewell C’s costs, its value for money and level of risk, as well as its impact on households, which already face an escalating cost of living crisis. The regulated asset base model, replacing the failed contracts for difference deal struck for Hinkley Point C to pay for nuclear, really is deplorable; it leaves the British taxpayer on the hook for undefined costs as a sweetener for commercial interests.

The optimism of the British energy security strategy in backing new large nuclear projects has failed to generate commensurate enthusiasm from commercial operators. I am afraid that the legacy of nuclear disasters such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima still loom large in people’s memories. Will Sizewell C happen? Who knows? It is beset with problems. French state-owned EDF alone can deliver the European pressurised water reactor. However, it is committed to urgent expansion of French nuclear power, raising serious questions about EDF’s priority in delivering Sizewell C for the UK at the speed required.

Hinkley Point C may or may not open in 2027, so the Government are banking on small modular reactors, smaller versions of conventional water-cooled nuclear reactors. Many different designs are being worked on around the world—about 50, at the last count—yet there is no clear winner. For the moment, our Government are backing the Rolls-Royce choice of design. But here is the rub: these SMRs are proving to be ferociously difficult to standardise for their stated USP, modular assembly. It turns out that nuclear power is site-specific and does not lend itself easily to repetitive design.

The July 2023 Commons Select Committee report on nuclear says:

“Neither SMRs nor AMRs are ready for commercial deployment”.


These are not technologies that will be deployable in the necessary timescale. Another fundamental issue with nuclear is that it is not indigenous in the way that our renewables, such as wind and solar, are. It relies on supplies of enriched uranium. We used to import enriched uranium for Sizewell B from Russia. Could the Minister say where we get it from now?

Even if we were to resurrect our own enrichment capabilities, we would nevertheless be dependent on the import of the mined raw material. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has already talked about some of the geopolitical issues surrounding this. There are those who speak about the reuse of spent fuel, but that technology is not yet deliverable.

The Commons Select Committee report also points out that there is strong competition for resources and minerals, both within the UK and internationally. For example, large domestic infrastructure projects such as HS2 and the nuclear programmes in France for six new nuclear reactors draw on the same skills and resources supply chain that will be needed for our nuclear new build. There is also the fundamental question of whether nuclear reactors are suitable for providing flexible energy to fill gaps left by the intermittency of renewables such as wind and sun, when we need power that can be readily turned on and off. Nuclear reactors do not take kindly to this. Fission is a chain reaction. Once it is going, it is much cheaper and safer to let it continue than to stop-start it. Its inflexibility makes it unsuitable for the role envisaged for it in a net zero future. Not only is it eye-wateringly costly, historically it has been beset by delivery problems, has a complex supply chain and a lack of skilled UK workers. Nuclear does not even solve the baseload problem.

I have not even touched on decommissioning. I know a little about it, as the international maritime transport of spent nuclear fuel was the subject of my master’s dissertation at Imperial College. Decommissioning deserves a debate of its own, so big and intractable is the problem. Stanford University’s recent research on the huge amount of additional toxic nuclear waste generated by SMRs that will be added to piles of legacy waste is a frightening read. There is no depository for it anywhere in the world, despite decades of trying. I assure the Minister that if these fairly substantial barriers to nuclear energy could be overcome, I would wholeheartedly support it. Otherwise, I am much more minded to solve the intermittency problems with maybe boring but pragmatic and quickly deliverable additional renewables. Energy efficiency, interconnectors and storage, both short and long term, also have a vital part to play and are achievable today.

In conclusion, my view is that the better, flexible baseload option would be to invest in tidal power, where the billions spent on nuclear would bear better fruit and be truly green—and British—in the way that nuclear never could be.