In 2007, Vincent de Rivaz, the then EDF chief executive, said Britain would be “cooking our Christmas turkeys” with electricity from Hinkley Point C nuclear station by 2017. Instead the first concrete was poured that year and the turkey is now scheduled for late 2026.
In the race against time to avert dangerous global heating, the UK government has decided to back an untried reactor from Rolls Royce. The first of these could be “plugged into the grid by 2031”, according to Nuclear Industry Association.
Internationally average planning time for reactor proposals is 10 years, plus another decade for building, and that is for already proven designs. The 16 planned Rolls Royce reactors are still on the drawing board. The arguments about where they could be sited are beginning. Apart from other possible objections the favoured UK coastal locations are vulnerable to sea level rise, erosion and storms.
Faced with the well-documented delays and drawbacks to nuclear programmes it is perhaps not surprising that there is no other country taking part in the Cop26 process in Glasgow relying on multiple new nuclear reactors to get to net zero carbon targets by 2050. Even without our plentiful opportunities to exploit wind, solar, wave and tidal power many countries feel they do not need nuclear power to reach their goals.
