NIC’s nuclear advice ‘outdated’ in net-zero era

The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC)’s conclusion that the UK only requires one more large new nuclear power station by 2025 has been “fundamentally” undermined by the government’s adoption of the net-zero target.

This is the view of the chief executive of the Nuclear Industries Association (NIA), Tom Greatrex, who said that trying to achieve the stretching target without significant input from nuclear was self-defeating.

In its National Infrastructure Assessment, published just over a year ago, the NIC stated that the plunging costs of renewable energy means that only one new nuclear power station should be approved before 2025 in order to meet the UK’s decarbonisation target

But Greatrex told a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference that the net-zero target adopted this summer means that the energy section of the NIA is now out of date because it entails deeper and more rapid decarbonisation than hitherto anticipated.

He said: “The NIC report was pretty much out of date as soon as it was published because it was published in a pre-net zero context. Net zero changes the dynamic and debate about how we decarbonise electricity.

“It doesn’t just change it a little bit, it fundamentally undermines the basis of the argument by the NIC in the energy section.”

The net-zero 2050 target is “probably” achievable but will require a single minded focus from the government, Greatrex said: “If you look at what we are trying to do to minimise the amount of fossil fuel, trying to do it without nuclear becomes much more difficult and significantly more expensive and therefore self-defeating.

“To achieve this requires the most important and significant policy driver for government over the next 20 years. Without that we will start to fall very short very quickly.”

Julia Pyke, nuclear development director at EDF Energy, said that parties competing over different dates for achieving net zero was “silly.”

She added that it would probably take ten years to get the framework up and running for new renewable technologies, like wave and tidal power.

Conservative backbench MP Bim Afolami expressed concern at the same meeting about the extent of behavioural change that will be required to deliver the net-zero target.

“I think there is a political will to get quite a long way there but I worry about how easy that will be politically to do.

“It will require significant action by governments of the centre right to put in place structures and incentives.”