The Government has proposed £18 million investment in the creation of innovative mini nuclear power stations – smaller and less expensive to build than traditional plants.

In a boost to the UK nuclear power sector, a consortium led by Rolls-Royce proposed a significant joint investment of more than £500 million focused on designing a first-of-a-kind small modular reactor (SMR).

The consortium expects to more than match any Government funding both by direct investment and by raising funds from third party organisations.

A working model is expected to be up and running in the early 2030s, creating 40,000 jobs at its peak, with each power station producing enough clean energy to power 750,000 homes.

Additionally, we are providing up to £40 million through the Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) programme and are currently considering project bids. Up to £5 million will also be provided to the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency to build readiness for SMRs and AMRs.

The government has committed £170 million towards deploying technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen networks in industrial clusters to support our mission to establish the world’s first net zero industrial cluster by 2040.

Additionally, industry will consider investing up to £261 million into new technologies to reduce emissions from heartlands of heavy industry such as steel, chemical and refineries in the North East, North West, South Wales and Scotland.

Plans have also been announced to make it easier to recycle oil and gas infrastructure for use in CCUS projects, including using some of the 20,000 km of pipelines and depleted oil and gas reservoirs to transport and store carbon dioxide. This could drive down costs of construction by over £100 million in some cases.

Reusing existing oil and gas infrastructure for CCUS will help to tackle emissions from industry and support people working in the oil and gas industry to move into the green economy, as the UK transitions away from fossil fuels.

Today’s consultations follow sustained support for carbon capture technologies from the government, which includes recently investing £26 million into 9 schemes. One of these, in Cheshire, will soon become the UK’s largest carbon capture project, with the captured carbon dioxide potentially being used to make a range of products, from eye drops to instant noodles.

Great Britain has already gone more than 2,500 hours without using coal for power this year – around 4 times more than the whole of 2017.

We will continue to phase out coal and will no longer be used to keep Great Britain’s lights on during the height of winter, under new proposals. Limits to the carbon emissions that electricity generators can produce when operating within the capacity market could be introduced to support the government’s ambition to phase coal out of the energy system entirely by 2025.

Michael Tyrrell Author Michael Tyrrell Digital Coordinator

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