Government should examine costs of small nuclear power, say MPs

The government should work with industry to better understand the commercial viability of small modular reactors (SMRs) the Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) has said in a report released today.

The committee said it will be important to know the future cost comparison of SMRs with large-scale nuclear reactors as well as other small-scale energy generation.

SMRs are designed so that they can be manufactured at a plant and brought to site fully constructed. Useful applications of SMRs include industrial process heat, desalination or water purification and other cogeneration applications.

The ECCC said it would like to see the deployment of a demonstrator SMR in the UK and for government to support the regulator in bringing forward approvals in the UK; a process that may take six years.

The committee is also calling on the Department of Energy and Climate Change to ensure that the Office for Nuclear Regulation is adequately resourced to support SMR developers in the early stages of preparing their designs for approval.

The committee said it would also like to see government ensuring UK companies are in a position to compete with companies abroad for opportunities in the development of future SMR designs as most current models have been developed outside of the UK.

The ECCC said: “Small Modular Reactors could potentially have a key role to play in delivering low carbon energy at lower upfront capital cost compared to large conventional nuclear reactors. That said, the commercial viability of SMRs remains unclear.

“The government should support the use of existing nuclear sites for the deployment of SMRs. These sites could potentially host a demonstrator module with minimal additional infrastructure requirements and with the support of a skilled local workforce.”