Is nuclear the future of energy… again?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

The Fukushima nuclear incident of 2011 drew a decade-long shadow over the future use of nuclear energy. In Germany, then chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to phase out nuclear power, under pressure from the Green Party and large public demonstrations. The final reactor closed in April 2023, with decommissioning recently symbolised by the demolition of the cooling towers at Grafenrheinfeld. Ironically, Japan itself has actually restarted many of its reactors and has two plants under construction.

For the rest of the world, the use of nuclear fission – the only commercially available form of nuclear power generation – has seen a slight renaissance in its planned use after flat-lining for years. In the USA and Europe, the lifetime of reactors has mostly just been extended to meet Net Zero targets while keeping the lights on, but new plants have been built or are under construction in the UK, France and Finland. Meanwhile, China is racing ahead with nuclear and India has ambitious plans, using both existing technology and developing new technology based on thorium, which India has in abundance.

The UK is among a group of countries working on the commercial development of so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) which promise to be safe, with simpler designs that can be produced off site, in the hope that they can avoid many of the cost overruns of the large-scale designs. Nuclear fusion, the alternative to nuclear fission, has yet to reach commercial levels of electricity production, although several commercial companies with alternative approaches have found investment.

Many leading environmentalists have accepted that nuclear must be part of the drive to Net Zero. But there are often confusing claims made over the economics of nuclear versus renewables such as wind and solar.

Is nuclear power the grand solution to our problems or just one part of the energy mix? Is nuclear just too slow and too expensive to build – or are the costs of renewables being understated? How will we cope with all the extra demands for electricity in the future, from heating to transport? Is the aim of generating unlimited energy that is ‘too cheap to meter’ – as we were promised in the Fifties – now off the agenda completely?

SPEAKERS
Emma Bateman
environmental campaigner; founding member, Together Against Sizewell C; organiser, Green Women's Declaration for Sex Based Rights

Robert Reid
policy development officer, ALBA Party

Dr Dominic Standish
writer and commentator on energy; professor, University of Iowa; author, Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and reality

CHAIR
Dr Paul Reeves
developer of manufacturing simulation technology