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New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
Small is beautiful: UK plans for small modular nuclear reactors
27/3/2024
10 min read
As momentum gathers under the UK government’s Nuclear Roadmap, Great British Nuclear (GBN) has selected six companies to advance to the next phase of the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Competition. What’s on offer and how do the technology options differ here and worldwide? asks New Energy World Features Editor Brian Davis.
The SMR Competition is part of the UK government’s plan to revive nuclear power in the face of a global race to deliver cleaner and more secure energy. Though debate continues whether nuclear can be considered ‘clean’ or be defined as ‘renewable energy’ in certain countries (such as Austria), there is a lot of confidence in the sector about the potential of SMRs, designs which are based on well-established technology with a high safety factor.
Currently there are no SMRs operating anywhere in the world, but plenty of R&D programmes are underway.
The UK government’s ambition is to ensure that up to 25% of all UK electricity capacity (about 24 GW) will be generated by nuclear power by 2050 – quadruple the country’s current nuclear energy capacity.