Britain Prepares To Go All-In On Nuclear Power - After Years of Dither (politico.eu) 112
Britain is moving toward major nuclear power commitments after years of delays, as government officials acknowledge they can no longer postpone critical energy infrastructure decisions. The U.K. Treasury has exhausted options for delaying nuclear power choices, Politico reported this week, citing sources within Whitehall and the nuclear industry.
The urgency stems from Britain's aging nuclear infrastructure, where five power plants currently supply 15% of the country's total energy needs but face shutdown by 2030. This timeline has created significant pressure on policymakers to secure replacement capacity or risk substantial gaps in the nation's electricity supply.
The urgency stems from Britain's aging nuclear infrastructure, where five power plants currently supply 15% of the country's total energy needs but face shutdown by 2030. This timeline has created significant pressure on policymakers to secure replacement capacity or risk substantial gaps in the nation's electricity supply.
Or... (Score:1)
They could keep those plants running.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's not like they can just rename a horribly unsafe plant that's spread iodine-131 and strontium-90 across Europe and suddenly have it safe again under a new name.
Oh, wait....
Re:Or... (Score:4, Informative)
What case do you think you're taking about? It surely cannot be the Windscale fire, where they shut down the sibling reactor and built no more of the design -- describing that as "just rename a horribly unsafe plant" would be rank dishonesty.
Re: (Score:3)
Also Windscale has nothing to do with nuclear power, it was a crash nuclear weapons program by a desperate country on the back end of a devastating war with almost no resources. It's also rank dishonesty to link them together at all.
Re: (Score:2)
What's that got to do with nuclear power?
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. When you live in a fantasy world where you believe end of life is not a real concept that exists then you could keep those plants running.
By 2030 4 of the 5 plants will be close to retirement age. I mean real retirement age, there will be people born after these plants started construction going into retirement with these plants.
Sizewell B on the other hand will be relatively young but that one isn't scheduled for decommissioning until 2055 at which point it will be close to 70 years since it started construction.
Re:Or... (Score:4, Interesting)
The oldest equipment in the London Underground line has rolling stock from 2001 and a safety and control system from 2014. And that line is being upgraded now meaning by the end of this year the oldest London Underground will have equipment from 2006 (different line). And rails are repairable on an as needs basis, unlike a nuclear reactor.
No the London underground doesn't keep going until gods know when. They also suffer from the concept of end of life, and it only has about half the life of a nuclear power plant.
Re: (Score:2)
The entire Bakerloo line fleet has been refurbished twice since then. The only thing from 1972 on that line is the frame and maybe some of the glass on the rolling stock.
Also that line is part of the 2024 rolling stock replacement, so welcome to my point: The London Underground's old stuff is periodically replaced.
bahaha kid here thinks everything made in his wee lifespan.
Also what's my lifespan? Certainly it predates 1972. Not much of an insult there buddy.
Re: Or... (Score:2)
I think youâ(TM)re overstating what a refurb is. The rolling stock isnâ(TM)t due for replacement until after the Piccadilly Line trains (also from 1973), but funding shortfalls might mean that doesnâ(TM)t happen until later 2030s or 2040s, putting the trains at twice their design age of about 70 years old.
So I have an alternative (Score:2)
For me there are two major takeaways from the Fukushima disaster.
The first is that an entire city had to be evacuated
Re: (Score:2)
You can't run safe nuclear power plants in a society that does dumb shit like that. No matter how good the tech is.
Indeed. Not that the tech is good, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because there's absolutely no issues with running these things beyond their designed lifetime.
Hint: engineers declared a "lifetime" based on actual things like math, physics, and materials science experience; not because they were checking a box on a form.
Will Net Zero Strategy in Limbo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Took them long enough. Honestly, at this rate, they’ll probably end up delaying—or possibly quietly scrapping—the whole net zero push. They need to sort out their own economic mess first before chasing big ideological targets. Fix the balance sheet, then talk ambition.
Re: (Score:1)
The more things heat up with Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, Israel and the rest aronud about the Red Sea, and the Panama Canal and other issues in Central and South America, there's going to be threats to international trade that brings in vital energy to the British Isles. They are going to have to "fix the balance sheet" in parallel with their efforts on nuclear fission.
Maybe they can "scrap the whole net zero push" but I don't see that as impacting their decision to build more nuclear power plant
Re: (Score:2)
and synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels
Because this has no precursors or inputs that come from outside the UK all of a sudden? For example, the industrial-scale catalyst beds that they would need to run carbon and hydrogen through, in order to make hydrocarbon chains? And where's the carbon coming from, when your own argument talks about how vulnerable their oil and gas production and importation is? Do you know of some industrial-scale carbon capture and sequestration facility that has completely escaped mention in the news which would suppl
Re: (Score:1)
I didn't claim the technologies existed on industrial scales, I pointed out that the technologies could be developed in the future.
As to where the carbon is coming from... are you serious? There's carbon everywhere, it's not hard to find. CO2 can be extracted from the air or seawater (because CO2 dissolves in water), or carbon could be from varied waste products out of industrial, agricultural, or municipal waste streams.
None of this requires new technology, this has been done before many times over the l
Re: (Score:2)
So more magical thinking that someone else will instantly figure out how to scale processes that work in a lab, but have never worked on the scale you're talking about.
You do know that takes time to figure out, and equipment and materials that aren't manufactured in the UK, yeah? So by the time "people are desperate enough to implement it" it's too late because that desperation was caused by the very things that will make all of this impossible unless you started 5 years ago.
Please don't try to say that I'
Re: (Score:1)
You are arguing with a straw man now. At least that's what I'm seeing.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, a geological question.
There are small deposits of uranium minerals in both the Lake District and Cornwall, but the net amount is somewhere between fuck-all and two-tenths of that.
I can't think of any reported uranium mineralisation at all from Scotland. There are pegmatite-y areas which were evaluated for various minerals in WW2 (and rocks are not renowned for getting up and wandering the landscape) but I don't recall a uranium report At
Re:Will Net Zero Strategy in Limbo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately the legacy of the anti-nuclear anything ideology from the CND clowns, green hippies and their ilk has taken FAR too long to purge from the establishment. This should have been done 20 years ago.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, most of the anti-nuclear ideology was funded by fossil fuel competitors
Re: Will Net Zero Strategy in Limbo? (Score:1)
And now it's the pro solar/wind folks.
Re:Will Net Zero Strategy in Limbo? (Score:4, Insightful)
I share some of your skepticism, but...
Took them long enough.
No argument there. The UK’s nuclear program has moved at a glacial pace, and it’s fair to call out both parties for years of dithering. But delay doesn’t equal failure—it magnifies the cost of inaction. That’s why urgency now isn’t ideological posturing—it’s belated damage control.
Honestly, at this rate, they’ll probably end up delaying—or possibly quietly scrapping—the whole net zero push.
Possible, yes. But increasingly unlikely. Net zero is now hardwired into multiple levels of UK law, finance, and international credibility. Backing out would require not just economic cowardice, but diplomatic self-harm. Even Sunak’s tepid rollback faced backlash—not just from climate activists, but from investors and insurers who’ve already priced in the transition.
They need to sort out their own economic mess first before chasing big ideological targets.
Here’s where I push back. Net zero isn’t a vanity project—it’s an industrial strategy. Countries that delay now will be importing energy tech from those that didn’t. The “mess” isn’t just fiscal—it’s structural. And part of sorting it out means building resilient energy systems that don’t collapse when gas prices spike or geopolitical tensions flare.
Fix the balance sheet, then talk ambition.
I get the impulse. But if we wait for the fiscal books to be perfect, we’ll be building desalination plants in Kent while bidding against Saudi Arabia for solar panels. The net zero transition is the balance sheet fix—done right, it creates jobs, modernizes infrastructure, and reduces volatility. The real risk is treating the future as a luxury.
Re:Will Net Zero Strategy in Limbo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here’s where I push back. Net zero isn’t a vanity project—it’s an industrial strategy. Countries that delay now will be importing energy tech from those that didn’t. The “mess” isn’t just fiscal—it’s structural. And part of sorting it out means building resilient energy systems that don’t collapse when gas prices spike or geopolitical tensions flare.
This is a completely underrated take that a lot of people never consider. Saudi Arabia is a rich nation because they are sitting on an ocean of the energy source that powered the last 50+ years of progress.
A country that figures out energy sustainability at scale will be selling that technology to the world and become the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century.
All in on what? (Score:3)
France won't start up EPR2 till 2038 and they unlikely have the capacity to do the same in Britain. SMRs are toys.
UK will dedicate some paltry funds to SMRs for show and wait some more till EPR2 can start construction. There is nothing good to go all in on at the moment ...
Re:All in on what? (Score:4, Interesting)
The far more likely scenario is just building more gas turbines, with more renewables to keep the yearly natural gas consumption steady or declining.
It's not cheap, but unlike EPR2 it's available.
Re:All in on what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Today the UK is about 40% renewables, averaged over the year. It varies depending on the weather, and the percentage is increasing. There are still some huge opportunities, like a tidal system for the Severn, and massive off-shore wind farms, as well as big storage projects. All low hanging fruit, all much cheaper than the alternatives.
Gas will use the excuse that it is a placeholder for nuclear. Nuclear is already the most expensive source of electricity, and takes in excess of 20 years for us to build. By the time the first of the new generation, Hinkley Point C, comes online, it will already be obsolete and unnecessary due to the expansion of renewables and storage. Unfortunately, despite it being complete unviable, we will still have to pay for it because to get anyone to build it they had to promise a guaranteed high price for ever watt produced, no matter if anyone actually wants to buy it.
Re: (Score:1)
The recent Spanish blackouts have demonstrated that without proper storage or grid inertia renewables alone are not going to be a full solution.
While I'm all for renewables myself long term its going to take time to adapt to all the problems and costs that will impact the implementation.
There's cost factor to the end user will be the biggest one, not everyone can afford expensive power just because it's saving the planet, in which case it needs to be cheap in order to be practical.
Re: (Score:3)
The blackout in Spain was not caused by lack of inertia. Besides, there are better and cheaper ways to add inertia, if that is what is needed. For example, in Ireland they have converted old coal power stations to large spinning mass generators that provide that inertia.
Re:All in on what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nuclear is already the most expensive source of electricity, and takes in excess of 20 years for us to build
In the U.S., the levelized cost of nuclear per megawatt hour over 20 years is 3/4 that of gas. Nuclear has a higher up-front cost, not a higher total cost. And the longer you run the nuclear plant, the better that number gets. France's EPR2 reactors looks like they will be operational in about 11 years from the start of construction.
Re: (Score:2)
We are talking about the UK, not the US.
The only people who will build nuclear in the UK are EDF, who are French. They are currently quoting a minimum of 20 years, but their current 20 year projects here are delayed. No legal issues, they are just crap at building nuclear plants.
Re: (Score:3)
We are talking about the UK, not the US.
The only people who will build nuclear in the UK are EDF, who are French. They are currently quoting a minimum of 20 years, but their current 20 year projects here are delayed. No legal issues, they are just crap at building nuclear plants.
If the EDF are such crap at building a machine that should have a "failure is not an option" (because failures at a nuke plant can easily become life-threatening) operating concept, then the UK folks that selected EDF are just as incompetent as the EDF itself.
Re: (Score:3)
They didn't have any choice. They tried for years to get someone to build new nuclear in the UK, but even with the massive subsidies and guaranteed profits, nobody wanted to.
In the end only EDF, with Chinese investment in the project, were willing to do it.
Re:All in on what? (Score:4, Interesting)
SMRs are toys.
I'm confused as to why you are dismissing SMRs as mere toys. There are a diverse number of SMRs designs that generate between 20 MW and 300 MW. Depending on how you want to deploy, you can have many sites (greater redundancy and fewer substations) or you can put several in a central location and be generate power on par with a normal large-scale reactor. They are also designed to be far simpler to manage.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess is because most pro-fission people have been making economies-of-scale arguments for a decade+ and forgot that horizontal scaling is an effective form of scaling as well. It's like they learned nothing of the transition from big huge mainframe systems to clusters of smaller systems working as one large distributed system with built in redundancy and failover.
Who gives a shit if you build a big-dick 1500MW reactor or pop 8 200MW modular reactors on the same site, if the cost and output is the same?
Re: (Score:2)
As with all things, the entire solution should be evaluated on it's merits and value, rather than pre-conceived notions and yester-year thinking.
And you just expect me to put aside my preconceived notions and biases in favor of objective analysis? How rude! /s
Re: (Score:3)
It’s fair to be skeptical. But for most Britons, it’s not just about the electrons showing up when they put the kettle on—it’s about whether they can trust the system delivering them to make sense in ten years, not just tomorrow’s news cycle.
France won't start up EPR2 till 2038 and they unlikely have the capacity to do the same in Britain.
Fair. The EPR2 schedule is long, conservative, and shaped by France's need to rebuild public trust after Flamanville. But the UK's problem isn't whether EDF can replicate EPR2 builds in France—it's that Miliband and Starmer are still
Re: (Score:2)
SMRs are toys.
I'm good with grown up toys for grown ups.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
Re:All in on what? (Score:4, Insightful)
SMRs are toys.
Spoken like an 80 mainframe guy talking about PCs, and just about as insightful.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? You might want to ask the USN what they think of them before getting too locked into your opinion. All of their current aircraft carriers today use reactors for their power, along with submarines. Clearly, they don't consider SMRs to be toys!
There are lots of questions (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, where will they get the money from to do so? Nuclear energy is extremely expensive, both in upfront investment costs and in running the plants.
Second, where will they get the nuclear fuel from? Yes, Belarus and Russia are big exporters, but what if the political situation worsens and it's no longer a good idea to import fuel from there?
Third there's the reliability. Nuclear power plants are complex machines which rely on things like a steady source of cooling as well as regular maintenance. However Nuclear power plants are also rather large and a country typically just has a few of them. How does one deal with things like heat-waves where, for example in France, regularly large portions of the power plants need to be turned off.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense.
Current strategy is to encourage as much legal immigration as possible (about 10 times the current level of illegal immigration), and process the immigrants into SoylentCrete for building the nuclear plants (and a new palace for King BigEars the Second, whichever one survives the duel)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah well that must be why they excluded the hoards of foreign students who used to make up for the financial shortfall in the education system: the soylentcrete is substandard.
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking of similar issues, how did this age [slashdot.org]?
Re: (Score:2)
US politics is getting madder, and is probably more likely to get us all killed now than it was last month. Situation "normal", for insane values of "normal".
You've got to hand it to Putin - he's bossed the "getting an agent into US politics" achievement. One of these days, I really should watch the "Manchurian Candidate". That's the original - there was a re-make recently, I think, and they're never worth watching.
Re:There are lots of questions (Score:4, Informative)
You are talking like these aren't solved problems. If they really were showstoppers, well... the show would stop.
Number 2 and 4 for uranium production are Canada and Australia. Kazakhstan is the big dog, of course.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only solutions are incredibly expensive. You can solve almost anything by throwing unlimited amounts of money at it, but that's probably not a good idea.
We don't really have a decent solution for waste storage either.
Speaking of solved problems, we have incredibly cheap renewable options. Big old fusion reactor with billions of years of life left on it. Super reliable tides that can provide base load.
Re: (Score:2)
The gap in cost is not as large as talking points suggest. There has been tons of analysis on this, and the answer is... complicated. Including the question of waste management. If you think anybody is building nuclear plants without a decent cost benefit analysis you're mistaken.
Too many people work backwards from the conclusion that nuclear plants don't make sense, and build their case to suit. And yet there is still activity in that industry. Must be some reason, right?
Re: (Score:2)
I am curious why you think the tides are readily plundered. Do you not think they are doing things? Things that are environmentally important, and that will collapse when energy is removed at scale? Think like the footprint of dams, but with even greater reach.
Re: (Score:3)
The tides will be minimally affected by what is being proposed for the Severn. For example, Friends of the Earth proposed tidal lagoons, which have the additional advantage of being able to be sub-divided to make the power output constant and consistent. The lagoons would themselves be beneficial to local wildlife.
The bottom line is that anything we do to generate energy is going to cause some disruption to nature, but there are also clearly some options that are much better than others. Using tidal power i
Re: (Score:2)
You are talking like these aren't solved problems.
No, you're talking out of ignorance. There's nothing "solved" about this issue. Canada and Australia can't supply much of the world (the latter doesn't even want to as opening more uranium mining is politically toxic in Australia). For countries who see Russia and the -stans as a threat, the security of nuclear fuel is a big topic on their risk management agenda.
If they really were showstoppers, well... the show would stop.
No, this is politics. Showstoppers doesn't stop anything. It merely fuels a marketing campaign leading to spectacularly stupid ideas being taken to
One answer (Re:There are lots of questions) (Score:1)
You believe cooling nuclear power plants in the UK is a problem? I checked a map and they sit in the middle of the North Atlantic. Even in the worst heat wave the sea around the islands are likely to be near freezing. A quick search of the web tells me that the water is unlikely to get above 60F in the peak summer heat. Just how cool does the cooling water need to be?
Even in France they reduce power at nuclear power plants in summer heat not for lack of cooling, it is to avoid raising the temperature of
Re: One answer (Re:There are lots of questions) (Score:1)
Re: One answer (Re:There are lots of questions) (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Not wanting to cause an environmental disaster by cooking rivers does literally mean a lack of available cooling.
Did you miss the part on how the use of river water for cooling than a cooling tower was an engineering decision? There's nothing inherent to nuclear power that boils the local rivers, it is simply that people in France decided to save money on cooling towers by expecting to be able to dump heat into the river. That was a bad PR move so we can expect future nuclear power plants in France to have bigger and better cooling towers so they don't have to choose between lowering power output or cooking fish in
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss the part on how the use of river water for cooling than a cooling tower was an engineering decision?
No, I didn't miss it. I don't understand why you think not agreeing with you somehow suggests people didn't read what you wrote.
There's nothing inherent to nuclear power that boils the local rivers, it is simply that people in France decided to save money on cooling towers by expecting to be able to dump heat into the river.
And given that decision, then cooling is limited. That you think that they should have made a different decision doesn't change the facts on the ground.
And you seem to be almost entirely clueless about the UK's climate.
Sure, whatever. If you want to make an issue out of waste heat from a nuclear power plant then you need to do better. We know how to cool nuclear power plants without killing fish
My issue here was that you made statements about t
Re: (Score:2)
As to cost, simple: They will continue to impoverish their population. Apparently voters in the UK like that.
As to nuclear being really bad technologically? Also simple: Just do mindless cheerleading and simply lie and claim that the other options are worse.
Re: (Score:2)
where will they get the nuclear fuel from? Yes, Belarus and Russia are big exporters, but what if the political situation worsens and it's no longer a good idea to import fuel from there?
Probably from an allied nation, most likely one that is part of the Commonwealth. E.g, Canada (2nd biggest uranium exporter) or Australia (4th biggest uranium exporter)
Re: There are lots of questions (Score:2)
WWII policies ending (Score:2)
Question:
Are these large shifts in public policy, politics, and beyond just happening because the WWII generation and their boomer children have exited the public sphere?
Those two generations had a vested interest in preserving the status quo for as long as possible, especially in their 60s and later years.
The youngest boomer is 60 and likely want stability for a couple years until they exit the labor force.
Re: WWII policies ending (Score:2)
UK finally listening to Dr. David JC MacKay (Score:1)
Dr. David JC MacKay was the Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2009 to 2014, a position he was appointed to after his book/paper/website called "Without Hot Air" that went over the math and physics of varied options for energy: http://withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]
For much of his career as an educator on math, physics, and energy policy he avoided making any recommendations on what should be done to meet the energy needs in the UK and around the world. He preferred to give peo
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong McKay
They should talk to Dr. Rodney McKay
A couple of Zed Pee Emms should be enough.
Re: (Score:1)
Too bad Dr. Rodney McKay is fictional. And Canadian.
Dr. Rodney McKay: [talking about the ZPM] Zed-P.M.
Brigadier General Jack O'Neill: What?
Dr. Daniel Jackson: Zee-P.M. He's Canadian.
Brigadier General Jack O'Neill: I'm sorry.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There are four arguments against investment in nuclear power: Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, and Vogtle. These are the four major latest-generation plants completed or near completion in Finland, the United States, the United Kingdom and France respectively.
Cost overruns at these recent plants average over 300%, with more increases to come. The cost of Vogtle, for example, soared from US$14 billion to $34 billion (A$22-53 billion), Flamanville from €3.3 billion to €19 billion (A$5-31
Re: (Score:1)
There are four arguments against investment in nuclear power: Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, and Vogtle.
You picked four outliers from 400+ operating nuclear power reactors on this planet to make your point? How about you look at some kind of average than cherry picking the worst to make your case? I could pick a handful of failed wind and solar project to prove those are bad options. If you don't like nuclear power then what is the alternative?
Too expensive to build run and decommision, too slow to build, unsolved waste problem.Thats why nobody wants nukes.
Right, nobody wants nuclear power, which is why you are posting that comment in a thread about the UK Treasury stating they've run out of options and will have to bu
Re: (Score:3)
You picked four outliers from 400+ operating nuclear power reactors on this planet to make your point? How about you look at some kind of average than cherry picking the worst to make your case? I could pick a handful of failed wind and solar project to prove those are bad options. If you don't like nuclear power then what is the alternative?
So you expect someone to figure in an "average" that includes projects from decades ago, and that's somehow NOT skewing data?
They clearly said the rationale behind the selection of the projects they selected. It wasn't cherry picking, it was looking at the three latest examples of the trend in easily observed reality.
Maybe instead of telling them how to form their argument, you should counter it with an argument of your own. If they cherry-picked bad examples, then why don't you cherry-pick all the good e
Re: (Score:1)
Here's an example of a success in nuclear power plant construction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Construction started on the first unit in 2012, and it comes online in 2021. The fourth unit comes online in 2024. That's a bit above average on construction time but this was a first-of-a-kind for UAE. The build time on nuclear power will not get shorter if there's no real world construction to gain experience and build up the infrastructure that produces the required parts and materials.
You are asking f
Re: UK finally listening to Dr. David JC MacKay (Score:2)
Re: UK finally listening to Dr. David JC MacKay (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Was Mackay an expert in the area? No.
Did you miss this part of my earlier comment? "Dr. David JC MacKay was the Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2009 to 2014..."
Dr. MacKay was believed to be the best person in all of the UK to advise the government on the science of energy and "climate change". I hate the term "climate change" as it is so nonspecific and clearly ignores the matter that the climate will change naturally regardless of our best efforts. The issue is global warming, specifically warmi
Re: (Score:2)
Was Mackay an expert in the area? No.
Did you miss this part of my earlier comment? "Dr. David JC MacKay was the Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2009 to 2014..."
No, I didn't miss it. He had no prior experience in the area. Being appointed to a post doesn't necessarily mean you are experienced.
Dr. MacKay was believed to be the best person in all of the UK to advise the government on the science of energy and "climate change". I hate the term "climate change" as it is so nonspecific and clearly ignores the matter that the climate will change naturally regardless of our best efforts.
Your denialism is showing.
It's just AI (Score:3)
So we're going to have even worse water shortages and we're going to have a fuck ton of poorly maintained nuclear power plants all over our cities also that we can have a shitload of white collar workers replaced by chatbots.
I am pretty sure this is why the Fermi paradox happens. A species this dumb can't possibly survive long enough to make it to the stars. Carl Sagan is rolling in his grave...
Re:It's just AI (Score:4, Insightful)
This wasn’t an argument. It was a vibe dump. And the vibe is “I skim headlines and call it insight.” Threads like this deserve better.
Everybody's going to be building nuclear power plants everywhere to power AI.
No, they're not. But thank you for opening with a reheated Black Mirror premise masquerading as energy policy analysis. Nuclear buildout is being driven by retiring plants, climate commitments, and energy security, not because Sam Altman has a GPU fetish. The UK isn't deploying fission reactors like WiFi routers—it’s racing to avoid a 2030 capacity collapse. AI is incidental. The crisis is structural.
AI also guzzles water. Yes there are ways to avoid that but they are pricey and AI is already unprofitable.
Please pick a lane. First it’s nuclear reactors choking rivers dry, now it’s datacenters. The reality: every major industrial process uses water, and datacenters are trivial compared to agriculture, mining, and fossil fuel cooling. Also, calling AI “already unprofitable” is laughable—it’s being subsidized, like every transformative technology. By your logic, we should’ve shut down the internet in 1996 because Pets.com wasn’t cashflow-positive.
So we're going to have even worse water shortages and we're going to have a fuck ton of poorly maintained nuclear power plants all over our cities
This is a techno-dystopian Mad Lib, not an argument. Nuclear plants in cities? Really? Please show us on the map where the UK is dropping SMRs in the middle of Manchester. Poorly maintained? That’s a projection—the UK’s regulatory bottlenecks are precisely because they over-index on risk aversion. Maintenance isn’t the problem. Your grasp of siting policy is.
...so that we can have a shitload of white collar workers replaced by chatbots.
Ah, there it is: the Luddite crescendo, where vague resentment gets stapled to energy infrastructure policy. If you think the goal of modern civilization is to keep you employed doing inbox triage instead of automating boilerplate, I have bad news. Progress doesn't wait for your comfort zone. And AI isn’t stealing jobs because of power plants—it’s doing it because people like you are easier to replace than you think.
I am pretty sure this is why the Fermi paradox happens. A species this dumb can't possibly survive long enough to make it to the stars. Carl Sagan is rolling in his grave...
You don’t get to cite Sagan while ignoring the actual science. Sagan supported nuclear power as part of climate mitigation. He also understood nuance—something your Reddit-flavored nihilism sorely lacks. The Fermi Paradox isn’t about species being “dumb.” It’s about civilizations that become too noisy, too fragile, or too late to matter. Exactly the kind of future we court when trolls hijack serious policy debates with cosmic doomposting.
Re: (Score:1)
Everybody's going to be building nuclear power plants everywhere to power ai.
Trump is going with coal. [whitehouse.gov]
It's already working Coal is up 23% and nuclear is at best flat to slightly down [eia.gov]
The planet is going nuclear. (Score:2)
Re: The planet is going nuclear. (Score:2)
What a stupid decision (Score:1)
Just look at the extreme prices they have to guaranee for Hinkley Point in order to make it somewhat ecconomically viable. Nuclear power is the choice of the stupid.
Re: (Score:3)
I mean it is if you do it the way Hinkley Point was done.
Anyhoo, I think you could re title the article "After years of dither, Britain changes its mind".
Re: (Score:1)
I mean it is if you do it the way Hinkley Point was done.
And are there any indications they will do things fundamentally different? Because all civilian nuclear installations have eiother been done this way, or too cheap to be safe (see Tchernobil, Fukyshima, TMI), or both.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think that's the case. Hinckley point has been a spectacular shit show from the hey go.
As for TMI... It's funny the rap the nuclear industry gets. Was it good... No... Not some rando falsetto of hist roof installing solar panels and that's already more people deadv than TMI. The were name design flaws, but the design also had also many failsafes points which is why a meltdown didn't go like Chernobyl.
Re: (Score:2)
Excuses, excuses, excuses. And when it goes spectacularly and hugely expensively wrong, it is always just an isolated indicent. NO. Nuclear is fundamentally flawed and so are the people doing it. There is no other rational conclusion at this time. There is a lot of delulus with their heads in the clouds though. Maybe, maybe we can run nuclear safely and cost-effectively in 100 years. But it may take far longer than that.
Re: (Score:2)
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
It was spectacularly, expensively wrong and no one died. In other fields, something goes a bit wrong and someone dies, but it's not news. Nuclear has among the lowest deaths per TWh of any power generation source.
Is "actually being rather safe" an excuse?
There is no other rational conclusion at this time.
Except you know it works. You have on the one hand Germany who have been trumpeting their green credentials very loudly and suckered in quite a few people into repeating them and F
Re: (Score:2)
I really expect better from you. While you cannot understand everything, you should at least be able to tell where your insights are limited in quality.
Re: What a stupid decision (Score:2)
Nuclearis Quondam,et Futurus si non fuisset Brexit (Score:2)
The UK’s nuclear energy program is in trouble—badly behind schedule, wildly over budget, and staring down a 2030 cliff when most of its existing reactors go offline. These are known problems: nuclear is slow, expensive, and politically fraught everywhere. But Britain’s real failure wasn’t in struggling with those challenges. It was in choosing to face them alone.
Brexit didn’t invent the flaws in Hinkley Point C or the delays around Sizewell C. But it amplified them, then multip
Squandered an early lead (Score:2)
I recently read An Atomic Empire, by C.N. Hill. This is a history of the British nuclear power program.
Britain was the first country to exploit atomic energy on a large scale, and at its peak in the mid-1960s, it had generated more electricity from nuclear power than the rest of the world combined.
They invested massive amounts of money in both initial R&D and in a series of commercial reactors. The path they chose was a bit unusual (the Magnox reactors were gas-cooled), but they ended up with standardized designs that were built in decent numbers and provided up to 26% of the nation's power needs.
That changed in the 1980s, when the power generation industry was privatized. This scuttled investme
Good luck with that (Score:2)
They don't even have money enough to dismantle Sellafield, £243 billions over 100 years, I kid you not.
Better late than never (Score:2)
About d*mn time! (Score:1)
Re: About d*mn time! (Score:2)
uranium (Score:2)
Where does UK get their uranium?
Re: Advanced standardized 4th+ Gen Nuclear (Score:2)