Nuclear power in the United Kingdom
Nuclear power in the United Kingdom generated 16.1% of the country's electricity in 2020., the UK has nine operational nuclear reactors at four locations and one pressurised water reactor ), producing 5.9GWe.
It also has nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield and the Tails Management Facility operated by Urenco in Capenhurst.
The United Kingdom established the world's first civil nuclear programme, opening a nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England, in 1956. The British installed base of nuclear reactors used to be dominated by domestically developed Magnox and their successor AGR reactors with graphite moderator and coolant but the last of those are nearing the end of their useful life and will be replaced with "international" PWR designs. At the peak in 1997, 26% of the nation's electricity was generated from nuclear power. Since then several reactors have closed and by 2012 the share had declined to 19%. The older AGR reactors have been life-extended, but they are now towards the end of their life.
In October 2010, the Cameron–Clegg coalition took forward the previous Labour government's plans for private suppliers to construct up to eight new nuclear power plants. The Scottish Government, with the backing of the Scottish Parliament, has stated that no new nuclear power stations will be constructed in Scotland. E.ON UK, RWE npower and Horizon Nuclear Power have been pulling out of their initial plans for developing new nuclear power plants, placing the future of nuclear power in the UK in some doubt. Despite this, EDF Energy is still planning to build four new reactors at two sites, with construction ongoing at Hinkley Point in Somerset. In light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the government of Boris Johnson announced a renewed commitment to nuclear power in order to increase energy independence, as Britain has long relied on imported Russian oil. The EPR and potentially other PWR designs would be used, as well as yet-to-be-developed small modular reactors, in a push towards and decarbonisation while replacing the ageing AGR reactors and phasing out gas and coal for electricity generation. While there is a de facto nuclear power phaseout underway in Scotland and there are plans to replace existing reactors with newly built ones in England and Wales, no nuclear power plant has ever been built in Northern Ireland.
EDF Energy owns and manages the five currently operating and three de-fuelling reactor sites. Four new plants are proposed to be built in the next few decades. All nuclear installations in the UK are overseen by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.
History
20th century
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was established in 1954 as a statutory corporation to oversee and pioneer the development of nuclear energy within the United Kingdom.The first station to be connected to the grid, on 27 August 1956, was Calder Hall, although the production of weapons-grade plutonium was the main reason behind this power station. Calder Hall was the world's first nuclear power station to deliver electricity in commercial quantities.
In February 1966, it was announced that the first prototype fast breeder reactor in the United Kingdom would be constructed in Dounreay, Scotland, at a cost of £30million.
British Nuclear Fuels Limited was established in February 1971 from the demerger of the production division of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. In 1984 BNFL became a public limited company, British Nuclear Fuels plc, wholly owned by the UK government.
In December 1979, in the wake of the industrial disputes of the Winter of Discontent and the 1979 oil crisis, the new Thatcher government announced a new long-term nuclear power programme. The existing state National Nuclear Corporation would complete its existing planned second generation AGR builds, and would develop a new programme of building one Westinghouse designed pressurised water reactor per year for at least a decade from 1982. However, in 1981 the Select Committee on Energy and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission produced reports criticising the CEGB and government's demand forecasting and investment assessment justifying the programme. From 1982, after Nigel Lawson replaced David Howell as Secretary of State for Energy, the government began rowing back from this large proposal, in part because the government were beginning to consider privatising the electricity industry. The Electricity Act 1989 provided for the privatisation of the electricity industry, introducing the Fossil Fuel Levy to support the nuclear power industry which was exempted from privatisation and vested in Nuclear Electric.
In the end, only the Sizewell B nuclear power plant from the PWR programme was built, between 1987 and 1995. It began producing power for the national grid in February 1995. Its construction followed a four-year, 16million-word public inquiry. As of 2019, it is the most recent nuclear plant to be constructed in the United Kingdom. Sizewell B was intended to be the first of a smaller series of four new identical power stations, but the rest were dropped as uneconomic in the early 1990s when it was decided to privatise the electric power industry so low interest rate government finance would no longer be available.
A Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant was opened at Sellafield in 1994. Construction had begun in the 1970s and cost £2.4billion.
In 1996, the UK's eight most advanced nuclear plants, seven AGR and one PWR, were privatised as British Energy, raising £2.1billion. The remaining Magnox reactors remained in public ownership as Magnox Electric. On 30 January 1998, Magnox Electric was merged into BNFL as BNFL Magnox Generation.
21st century
The 2000s and 2010s: deciding on expansion and financing difficulty
2002 energy review
as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rejected demands for an expansion of nuclear power from a lobby including energy minister Brian Wilson and Downing Street staff. She argued there was no need for new nuclear for at least 15 years given current energy prices and generation capacity.In relation to nuclear power, the conclusion of the Government's 2002 energy review was that:
The practical measures identified were: continuing to participate in international research; ensuring that the nuclear skill-base is maintained, and that the regulators are adequately staffed to assess any new investment proposals; shortening the lead-time to commissioning, should new nuclear power be chosen in future; permitting nuclear power to benefit from the development of carbon taxes and similar market mechanisms; and addressing the problems of long-term nuclear waste disposal. It went on to state that "Because nuclear is a mature technology within a well-established global industry, there is no current case for further government support" and that "the decision whether to bring forward proposals for new nuclear build is a matter for the private sector".
2003 Energy White Paper
The Government's Energy White Paper, published in 2003 and titled "Our Energy Future – Creating a Low Carbon Economy" concluded that:2006 energy review
In April 2005, advisers to Prime Minister Tony Blair were suggesting that constructing new nuclear power stations would be the best way to meet the country's targets on reducing emissions of gases responsible for global warming. The energy policy of the United Kingdom has a near-term target of cutting emissions below 1997 levels by 20%, and a more ambitious target of an 80% cut by 2050. In November 2005, the Government announced an energy review, subsequently launched in January 2006, to "review the UK's progress against the medium and long-term Energy White Paper goals and the options for further steps to achieve them".Following the 2006 review the Office for Nuclear Regulation, an agency of Health and Safety Executive, developed the Generic Design Assessment process to assess new nuclear reactor designs ahead of site-specific proposals. The GDA started assessing four designs: Westinghouse AP1000; Areva EPR; AECL ACR-1000; and GE-Hitachi ESBWR. However the ACR-1000 and ESBWR were subsequently withdrawn from the assessment for commercial reasons, leaving the EPR and AP1000 as contenders for new nuclear builds.
2007 High Court ruling
On 15 February 2007, environmental group Greenpeace won a High Court ruling that threw out the government's 2006 Energy Review. Justice Sullivan presiding held that the government's review was "seriously flawed", in particular in that key details of the economics of the argument were only published after the review was completed. Justice Sullivan held that the review's wording on nuclear waste disposal was "not merely inadequate but also misleading", and held the decision to proceed to be "unlawful".Responding to the news, Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling said that there would be a fresh consultation, but that a decision was required before the end of 2007. He stated that the government remains convinced that new nuclear power plants are needed to help combat climate change and over-reliance on imported oil and gas. Attention was drawn in the media to numerous connections to nuclear industry lobbyists within the Labour Party.
2007 consultation
The 2007 Energy White Paper: Meeting the Energy Challenge was published on 23 May 2007. It contained a "preliminary view... that it is in the public interest to give the private sector the option of investing in new nuclear power stations". Alongside the White Paper the Government published a consultation document, The Future of Nuclear Power, together with a number of supporting documents. One of these, a report by Jackson Consulting, suggested that it would be preferable to site new power stations on existing nuclear power stations sites that are owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority or British Energy. Greenpeace responded to the release of the consultation document by repeating its position that replacing the nuclear fleet rather than decommissioning would only reduce the UK's total carbon emissions by four per cent.On 7 September 2007, several anti-nuclear groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, CND, and the WWF, announced that they had pulled out of the consultation process. They stated that it appeared as if the Government had already made up its mind regarding the future of nuclear power. The business and enterprise secretary, John Hutton, responded in a Radio 4 interview "It is not the government that has got a closed view on these issues, I think it is organisations like Greenpeace that have got a closed mind. There is only one outcome that Greenpeace and other organisations want from this consultation."