The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy () (Con):...With construction
of Hinkley Point C under way, the Government are aiming to bring
at least one large-scale nuclear project to a final investment
decision by the end of this Parliament, subject to value for
money and all relevant approvals. The recent spending review
provided up to £1.7 billion of direct government funding to
support this objective. The Government have also provided further
funding to support the development of future nuclear projects,
including small modular reactors, led by Rolls-Royce...
(Con):...We have discussed
today the other sources—wind and solar power, which the
Government have very successfully promoted and will continue to
promote—but as we have seen, they are very much victims of the
weather from time to time. Oil and gas currently provide a very
large proportion of our electricity and will continue to do so,
on a diminishing basis. I entirely agree that they should be
sourced locally and domestically, rather than being imported, so
far as is possible; I only wish more of my compatriots north of
the border saw it that way. The Government are rightly supporting
investment in small modular reactors—good luck to
Rolls-Royce—but that is down the line, as are
hydrogen and fusion, which are well down the line...
(Con):...The Government
have committed to provide £385 million towards advanced nuclear
research and development. I welcome their decision to support
Rolls-Royce’s SMR programme. The 10-point plan
committed the remaining £175 million to research and development
of AMR technologies. My right honourable friend the Energy
Minister confirmed on 2 December that the Government had decided
to focus on high-temperature gas-cooled reactors as their
technology choice moving forwards, with the objective of building
a demonstrator by the early 2030s. I suggest that this is too
modest an objective. As my noble friend said, we do not have the
luxury of time.
The HTGR technology developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency
is based on an early British design, the Dragon reactor,
developed at Winfrith in Dorset in 1965. The 21st century version
has been licensed and operating in Japan for more than 10 years.
It is inherently safe and would complement
Rolls-Royce’s SMRs well as HTGRs produce heat up
to 950 degrees centigrade and would serve a different but
essential sector of the UK economy, such as replacing fossil
fuels in industrial processes, manufacturing and the production
of green hydrogen. The reactors are much smaller than the
relatively large Rolls-Royce SMRs,
producing around 50 megawatts thermal or 22 megawatts electrical,
ideal for embedding in industrial clusters...
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