Is it time to look again at nuclear power?

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February this year marked a watershed moment in the debate on energy security. How we heat our homes, power our businesses, and what needs to be done to protect those energy sources was thrust once again to the top of each European country’s agenda.

The fallout from war in Ukraine has also led to a question being asked: is it time to look again at nuclear power? This was the topic of discussion at a Spectator panel at Tory conference. Robert Buckland, Secretary of State for Wales thought so: ‘We cannot afford to lose any time in investment in nuclear.’

This was proved most painfully when rocketing energy prices quickly began to expose how vulnerable Europe’s dependence on gas made it. Germany found its long-standing strategy of buying gas from Russia, including through the Nord Stream pipeline, a huge political and economic liability. It took it several months to succumb to Western pressure to finally pull the plug on the Nord Stream 2 pipe and now faces the real possibility of winter blackouts as a result.

France, which gets only 10 per cent of its energy from gas, has fared better: consumer energy bills have stayed comparatively low. Britain, whic,h as of this year generates more power from renewables than fossil fuels, has found itself somewhere between Germany and France.

For Buckland, the debate is not so much about which specific energy source is best. It boils down to one word, he said: ‘Security’. But, setting up power generators takes time – and nuclear is no exception. In 2007, the chief of energy company EDF predicted that customers would be cooking their Christmas turkeys using nuclear power from the new reactor at Hinkley Point by 2017. The power station’s opening has been repeatedly pushed back and isn’t expected to open until 2027: 10 years late.

‘The issues of energy security were not as writ large as they are now, but they should have been,’ said Buckland. This is a sentiment Tom Greatrex, CEO of the Nuclear Industry Association, agreed with. ‘Had we prepared about a decade ago, we would have been in a much, much better position.’ So, there’s no time like the present.

Energy security, Greatex argued, can be found through a so-called ‘robust energy mix’ – using multiple power sources to generate the UK’s energy. Currently, nuclear accounts for just 15 per cent of the UK’s energy production – unless new investment is committed, that percentage is due to drop even further in 2024 when the nuclear power stations in Hartlepool and Heysham close.

But, there’s more to achieving a robust energy mix than just focussing on nuclear, Dhara Vyas, acting CEO of trade association EnergyUK, said. ‘It’s much more nuanced than that. We need to increase the rollout of nuclear, just as we need to increase the rollout of carbon capture storage, offshore wind – we need to increase the mix.’

Added to this is the question of cost. ‘Nuclear is an expensive project,’ said Andy Mayer, of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Its cost as an investment risks being passed on to the customer: while nuclear energy is currently cheaper than the astronomical costs of gas, that won’t always be the case. But, Mayer said, the signs are there that Truss’s government is willing to commit the time and money to developing the industry.

‘Fear not, we are taking this very seriously,’ were Buckland’s words of reassurance. Hundreds of thousands of pounds will, he said, be used to fund research and development, creating new technology and training up employees. This could, according to Vyas, create more than a million jobs in the nuclear industry over the coming years.

The consensus, then, is that nuclear energy is something we should have started taking seriously long ago. But, better late than never, the question at hand now is how we invest in and develop the energy sector in a way that cushions the UK from fluctuations in supply – including from unpredictable foreign dictators.