Energy White Paper

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know the noble Lord is a sceptic as regards large-scale nuclear power; we have said that we will enter negotiations with EDF on the Sizewell C project but it will be subject to full government regulatory and other approval. Of course, value for money will be crucial. In addition, as I said earlier, we will be advancing support for SMRs at the same time.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

Like my noble friend, and like the previous speaker, I am mystified by the Government’s obsession with large nuclear, which is going to be neither clean, safe, secure nor value for money. However, I want to ask about small modular reactors, which are the latest flavour of the month. How many does the Minister expect to be operating throughout the world within the next five years? What is the timescale for actual, practical design of a British version, and when would he expect manufacturing to start?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course, AMRs have not yet been commercially deployed anywhere in the world and we are at the earliest stages of research and development, but we recognise their potential for decarbonisation. The Government have ambitions to deploy an AMR demonstrator, a prototype reactor, by the early 2030s. Additionally, we will be allocating £385 million to support the development of both SMRs and AMRs.