Last week’s surprise revelation that the UK Government is planning to build a new nuclear station in Scotland is perhaps not as unlikely as it seems. Despite nuclear power making no economic or environmental sense.
When Alister Jack said that the 2026 Scottish election could mean that the political climate for building new nuclear reactors in Scotland could be positive he was widely condemned, however things have changed since Labour First Minister Jack McConnell said his government would block new nuclear back in 2005.
Since then we have had SNP governments who of course have been firmly against any new nuclear station in Scotland, and currently, with the Green MSPs, there is a majority in the Scottish Parliament against any new nuclear power.
However, the Labour and LibDem parties have changed their positions. When Anas Sarwar became leader of Scottish Labour he started to talk about a ‘diverse energy supply’ and the need for a role for nuclear – words straight from the nuclear enthusiasts in the unions.
The Lib Dems were firmly against nuclear power until 2013 when Ed Davey persuaded the party’s UK conference in Glasgow that they must vote to become pro-nuclear and pro-fracking or he couldn’t do his job as a minister in the Tory-LibDem coalition government.
The Scottish LibDems have been rather quiet on nuclear, but the UK announcement, prompted Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP Jamie Stone to immediately call for a new reactor at the Dounreay site in his constituency.
Many immediately focused on the current operational or closed nuclear sites in Scotland as a potential future location of any new reactor, but Alister Jack was talking about the misleadingly-named small modular reactors. Ineos have already said that they might like to have one of these at Grangemouth. So the potential number of sites is much larger than just Dounreay, Hunterston and Torness.
Of course, there may never be small (about the size of two football pitches) modular reactors. Many designs are competing for approval but they will be very expensive, create more radioactive waste for the equivalent power output as a big reactor and they won’t be built until the middle of next decade, if at all.
US company NuScale, the poster child for the SMR industry, cancelled its flagship deal to build 6 reactors last year amid rising costs.
Meanwhile the new reactors at Hinkley Point are now expected to start operating 12 years late at nearly double the original cost, or nearly six times the first estimates, and the UK Government is struggling to find investors willing to fund its other large nuclear project at Sizewell.
Alister Jack’s announcement follows the remarkable admission from the UK Government, after decades of denying it, that the civil nuclear power reactor programme is essential for nuclear weapons.
Anti-nuclear groups, the Chernobyl disaster and changing politics in Scotland made sure the Torness reactors were the last built here. For two decades, despite the industry’s continuing lobbying, new nuclear has been politically unthinkable in Scotland with the focus instead on cheaper and faster to deploy renewables. But Labour, LibDems and Tories votes could put new nuclear straight back on the agenda after the Scottish election if they are returned in sufficient numbers.
A version of this article appeared in the Scotsman newspaper on 22nd May 2024.
Image: CND