Letters: To achieve net zero, we need to go nuclear

Nuclear future

Sir: It is refreshing to see Martin Vander Weyer note that, properly and fully costed, nuclear power is cheaper than power from wind and solar sources (Any other business, 26 March). That is because, as he says, ‘wind and solar require excess capacity and battery storage to compensate for periods of low output’. It cannot be predicted when those periods of low output will occur, and the proportion of our electricity provided by wind at any one time can be anywhere between 2 per cent and 40 per cent.

Martin supports the aim to meet 25 per cent of UK energy needs using nuclear by the net-zero deadline of 2050. However, he has not yet asked the crucial question of where the non-nuclear portion of our energy might come from in 2050. Today, the despatchable fuel which comes to our rescue when the wind stops blowing is gas. But gas is a fossil fuel, so is barred by net-zero rules. Battery storage is massively expensive, with little prospect of a technical breakthrough to significantly reduce its cost. Sufficient batteries to provide 75 per cent of the UK’s power needs during a week-long winter anticyclone would cost trillions. Hydroelectricity is a niche which cannot be readily expanded due to our topography. Burning biomass creates CO2 – indeed the Drax power station is our single biggest creator of it. Hydrogen, tidal and/or carbon capture might come good, but all those technologies are in their infancy and several years away from being proven to work at scale and reasonable cost. It may turn out that none of them does.

The only zero-carbon power source that we know works is nuclear. Given the long lead time on construction of nuclear power stations, if we are serious about achieving net zero, we must prepare ourselves now for 100 per cent nuclear by 2050.