policy

Plans for a clean economic recovery and therefore the goal of ‘Net Zero by 2050’ need commitment to new atomic power plants, the UK’’s Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) said today. before the global climate change Committee’s annual progress update due in the week , the NIA has released Forty by ’50: A Nuclear Roadmap, an assessment produced for the govt and industry body, the Nuclear Industry Council (NIC).

The NIC-endorsed report says that, additionally to helping meet future goals, prompt decisions on a replacement nuclear power programme could “unlock mega-projects” delivering immediate benefits to help tackle the impact of COVID-19, the NIA said. An “ambitious programme” could provide up to 40% of unpolluted power by 2050 and “drive deeper decarbonisation” through the creation of hydrogen and other clean fuels, in conjunction with district heating, and eventually bring as many as 300,000 jobs and GBP 33 billion of “added annual economic value”, it said. nuclear energy provides 40% of the UK’s clean electricity, but demand is predicted to quadruple from the replacement of fossil fuels and a boom within the electric vehicles and heating sectors, according to the NIA.

NIA Chief Executive Tom Greatrex, said: “Net Zero needs nuclear, and thus the world is developing fast. subsequent large-scale projects are now deliverable much more cheaply by building on repeat and tried and tested designs, capturing learnings from our new build programme, and making important changes to the way projects are financed. We’re confident the price of nuclear power will fall from the GBP92.50 per megawatt hour for the first plant, closer to GBP60/MWh for subsequent wave of power stations reducing to around GBP40/MWh for further reactors.” The country has the potential to treble its nuclear power capacity and add heat and hydrogen specific plants “over and above that”, he said.

The Forty by ’50 Nuclear Roadmap report sets out six steps to be taken in 2020 “to turn aspiration into reality”:

The nuclear industry must still drive down costs of latest build projects (30% by 2030) and “establish delivery excellence”;
The government should “articulate a transparent , long-term commitment to new nuclear power”;
Progress must even be made on an “appropriate funding model” for nuclear new build to stimulate investment in new capacity and reduce the worth of capital;
A National Policy Statement and ‘facilitative’ programme including siting and licensing proposals should be developed for small reactors;
The 2030 targets of the Nuclear Sector Deal (part of the government’s industrial strategy) should be maintained, including cost reduction targets for brand fresh build and decommissioning, a 40% female workforce, and GBP2 billion of domestic and international contracts for the uk supply chain;
Industry and government should agree a framework and commitments, focused on cross-sector collaboration outside traditional electricity production including: the assembly of medical isotopes, hydrogen, and artificial fuels for transport, in conjunction with heat applications including district heating and agriculture and storage technologies.
The NIA represents quite 250 companies across the UK’s nuclear supply chain.

EDF Energy and China General Nuclear said their project to make Hinkley Point C in Somerset has spent GBP 1.7 billion with quite 1100 companies across the south-west, quite 10,000 jobs are created, with around 25,000 roles by the highest of construction. Spending on contracts within the Midlands and thus the North of England has reached almost GBP 1.1 billion and thus the project has engaged around 2500 companies across its whole supply chain. Their planned Sizewell C project in Suffolk could create up to 3000 new roles over subsequent few years, the NIA said. Their Bradwell B twin HPR1000 reactor project would create “tens of thousands of jobs and deliver billions of pounds of investment within the local and regional economies”, it added.

Construction of the concrete basemat for the nuclear island of the second unit at Hinkley Point C was completed earlier this month. Publication of the NIA report comes on the same day that the planning Inspectorate has had the required 28 days to believe the event consent order from EDF for Sizewell C. EDF had been aiming to submit the appliance to the planning Inspectorate by the highest of March but this was pushed back by the coronavirus. the appliance was eventually entered at the highest of May.

Today, the planning Inspectorate announced the appliance had been accepted for examination, adding it’ll publish the date by which interested parties can register on this application shortly. Once the applicant has published and notified people of an accepted application, the planning Inspectorate has about three months to arrange for the examination.

Company support

In response to NIA’s report, EDF Energy CEO Simone Rossi,said that, with 64% of contract values spent with UK firms, the Hinkley Point C project had established a “thriving nuclear supply chain across the country with the facility to export its world-leading expertise internationally”. He added: “Approving a nuclear pipeline, including Hinkley Point C’s follow-on project, Sizewell C, would unlock thousands more high-quality jobs and investment in towns and regions that are badly affected by the crisis.”

Zheng Dongshan, chief executive of CGN UK, said: “CGN strongly supports the role that new nuclear is already playing within the united kingdom , and particularly the Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and Bradwell B projects, a programme of latest nuclear power stations that was agreed between the uk and China in 2016. Through these three projects we’ve already invested quite GBP3.6 billion within the united kingdom economy, helping to form many thousands of jobs, which we even have quite 100 engineers and technical experts working on Hinkley Point C, bringing their experience of building the first two operational EPR reactors within the planet . We are proud that our involvement in new nuclear supports the uk economy and thus the government’s goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.”

Horizon nuclear power , the uk subsidiary of Japan’s Hitachi, suspended its new-build projects early last year albeit it had made progress with its plans to provide a minimum of 5.4 GWe of latest capacity across two sites – Wylfa Newydd, in north Wales, and Oldbury-on-Severn, in southwest England – by deploying Hitachi-GE UK advanced boiling reactors.

Horizon CEO Duncan Hawthorne said: “A sustainable recovery needs nuclear at its heart to help us hit our Net Zero challenge during how that spreads the benefits across the whole of the uk . Wylfa Newydd features an excellent site, a tried and tested technology, strong local and national support, and enormous progress already made. We still exerting to form sure it is a neighborhood of the exciting vision began within the Roadmap.”

The Wylfa Newydd project is expecting a choice on its main planning consent in September. Starting the build will trigger a programme of civil, mechanical and electrical supply chain opportunities for UK companies worth GBP5bn, the NIA said. the first two years of construction will deliver supply chain opportunities worth around GBP875million and construction would require over 20,000 roles and operations around 900 permanent jobs for 60+ years, it added.

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The OECD / Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) today launched a series of policy briefs examining the role of nuclear energy in the post-COVID economic recovery. The policy briefs contributed by the World Nuclear Association have four themes: building resilience; creating jobs; cost-effective decarbonisation; and unlocking finance.

“The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had huge influences on the worldwide economy and power sector,” the NEA stated. “It has additionally underlined the importance of strength reliability and resilience for the duration of important disruptions. With governments considering a broad range of options for economic restoration and job introduction, it’s miles becoming increasingly clean that stimulus applications have the opportunity to support power systems that each satisfy these criteria while assembly long-term environmental desires and electricity security.”

The NEA said countries must invest in the advent of a modern, resilient infrastructure that promotes stable high fee jobs for equitable and sustainable monetary development. The new coverage briefs spotlight that funding in nuclear power is demonstrated to create a massive number of relatively professional jobs, deliver substantial growth alongside with strength independence and security of supply, and facilitates build resilience in opposition to geopolitical shocks.

The 4 policy briefs are:

Nuclear strength and the price-effective decarbonisation of power systems: This paper says that post-pandemic recovery plans to reconcile weather objectives with economic goals need to put gadget charges at the heart of electricity policy. Moving to a carbon neutral electricity system with out nuclear energy would drastically increase machine fees and threaten security of supply. Achieving value-powerful decarbonisation calls for structural reform of the electricity marketplace.
Creating high-fee jobs in the post-COVID-19 recuperation with nuclear strength tasks: The post-COVID-19 financial recovery is a perfect opportunity to create jobs and financial improvement whilst persevering with to move ahead with the electricity transition. Investing in nuclear strength creates a big number of excessive-skilled jobs, quickens the transition to a low-carbon economy, and increases power resilience. Nuclear electricity initiatives, it says, are a proven way to create huge numbers of long-term, high-skilled domestic jobs that pay top class wages. Such tasks additionally provide excessive spill-over funding into the neighborhood and local economy.

Unlocking financing for nuclear strength infrastructure inside the COVID-19 economic recuperation: This says governments should incentivise investments in resilient low-carbon strength infrastructure, which includes nuclear power, inside the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Proper coverage and market frameworks to incentivise investment in important infrastructure that supports low-carbon power security and economic development are needed. Transitional, centered authorities assist for nuclear power projects might be fundamental to release the advantages of nuclear power in the post-COVID-19 monetary healing. Government help can and have to be leveraged to attract cost-powerful private investment to supply nuclear power infrastructure projects. It says there may be presently a window of possibility for governments to support sustained value discounts in nuclear electricity projects through timely new construct decisions – thus reinforcing the system of gaining knowledge of by doing and permitting these designs to transport alongside their gaining knowledge of and price curves.
Building low-carbon resilient electricity infrastructures with nuclear electricity inside the post-COVID-19 era: Electricity safety is an vital public necessity, at the identical stage as meals protection and access to healthcare. Nuclear energy is a key contributor to energy protection and already contributes positively to building a low-carbon resilient infrastructure at the plant and gadget levels. Nuclear energy, each new nuclear projects and the long-term operation of present reactors, can play a key role within the post-COVID-19 financial recovery efforts by way of boosting monetary increase inside the quick term, even as helping, in a fee-effective manner, the improvement of a low-carbon resilient electricity infrastructure in the long time period.
“We should work together, via each character and country wide movements across the arena, to look the contemporary pandemic disaster concluded,” stated NEA Director General William Magwood. “Similarly, we should paintings collectively to permit new energy technologies to be brought ahead and used around the sector, for safety to remain excessive and the general public and people to be protected, and to guide economic increase, prosperity and improvements within the best of lifestyles in each OECD international locations and emerging economies with out sacrificing the global environment.”

Agneta Rising, Director General of World Nuclear Association, welcomed the “timely publication” of the coverage briefs “on what will be a defining issue for years to come”.

“Nuclear power is a pillar of stability; nuclear reactors are the low-carbon backbone of many economies around the sector, quietly operating within the background, providing brilliant quantities of electricity so that we will awareness on defensive lives and livelihoods at some stage in these unsure and unsettling times,” Rising said.

“Nuclear strength can play a key role inside the post-COVID recovery via boosting economic increase, developing jobs and supporting the development of a value-powerful, low-carbon and resilient strength infrastructure. There is a window of possibility for governments to help sustained cost discounts in nuclear power initiatives, via timely new-construct decisions. The global nuclear industry is prepared to do its part to make certain the sector that follows this pandemic is stronger, cleanser and greater resilient than ever before.”

Read the Policy Briefs in detail here

The nuclear industry, led through World Nuclear Association, has set the Harmony intention for nuclear energy to provide at least 25% of worldwide energy by 2050. This would require trebling nuclear technology from its present level. Some 1000 GWe of new nuclear generating potential will want to be constructed by means of then to achieve that intention. The Association has diagnosed three requirements to acquire this: a stage gambling discipline that values reliability and energy safety; a harmonised nuclear regulatory environment; and a holistic protection paradigm for the entire electricity system.

Tag: policy

UK Industry Presents Nuclear Roadmap to Net-Zero

NEA Releases Post-Pandemic Recovery Plans