Nuclear power is being backed as a reliable way of keeping the lights on while cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the UK’s power sector.
But many environmentalists believe nuclear reactors are expensive and potentially dangerous, and want investment in renewables, more localised energy systems and power storage technology to cut carbon while securing electricity supplies.
The UK’s legally-binding targets to tackle climate change by 2050 require slashing carbon pollution from the power sector by 2030.
At the same time, electricity demand will be pushed up by switching much of the country’s transport and heating to electric vehicles and heat pumps to cut emissions.
One of the attractions of nuclear is that its “lifecycle emissions” – the total amount of greenhouse gas caused by building and running the technology – are very low compared with coal and gas-fired power stations and in the same range as wind power.
The Government says new nuclear is “the only proven low-carbon technology“ that can provide power continuously, as wind and solar are intermittent.
With ministers pledging to phase out polluting coal-fired electricity, and many old power plants closing down, an estimated 20 gigawatts of new capacity is needed in the 2020s.
While nuclear power supplied just under a fifth of the UK’s electricity demand in the first quarter of 2016, compared with 25% from renewables, 16% from coal and 38% from gas, most of the existing reactors will have closed by 2030.
A new 3.2 gigawatt reactor at Hinkley Point, Somerset, would power almost six million homes for nearly 60 years, providing 7% of UK electricity. French energy giant EDF says it will save nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
With the price of power from the new reactor set at £92.50 per megawatt hour, the Government also argues it would be cost competitive.
The latest prices for new offshore wind farms were £110 per megawatt hour in the last auction for subsidies for renewables, it said, though onshore wind and solar farms are cheaper.
The Government’s climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, say delivering nuclear at £92.50/MWh would be “valuable” given limits to available sites for onshore wind and solar, and as the technology is not intermittent.
The price offered for Hinkley Point C would be cheaper than gas power if it had to pay the full cost of its carbon pollution.
But green campaigners say the costs of renewables are lower, or falling, while nuclear remains expensive.
Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, said: “Hinkley is not needed to keep the lights on and cut carbon emissions.
“A combination of renewable energy, smarter grid technologies, and cutting energy waste can deliver a clean and reliable power system without having to worry about hazardous nuclear waste for the next two centuries.
“And with clean energy costs coming down fast, it looks like this option will be cheaper than Hinkley too.”
While the plans for Hinkley Point C include covering the eventual decommissioning costs, there is still no progress on dealing with the legacy of nuclear waste for the UK’s existing fleet of reactors.
Costs of decommissioning Sellafield, where nuclear waste is stored, had hit £67 billion by early 2013, when Cumbria County Council decided not to consider a deep geological storage site, throwing efforts to find a long-term solution back into doubt.
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