Britain has an energy problem. It faces ever-growing demand for electricity from domestic consumers, businesses and data centres, but must find a way to wean itself off fossil fuels to meet its net zero commitments by 2050 while maintaining a secure power supply.
Recent US-Israeli attacks in the Middle East have also lead to soaring fossil fuel prices and added a new element of energy insecurity.
For its advocates, nuclear power is the solution, providing plentiful, dependable energy and eliminating the need to burn harmful coal or gas.
Nuclear plays a significant role in electricity generation in many parts of the world. The USA and China lead the field in terms of numbers of nuclear reactors and total power generated by them, but France has the largest proportion of nuclear in its power generation mix – about 67% of the total.
The UK currently has nine operational nuclear reactors at five plants, with four more due to come online in the 2030s – two at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and two planned at Sizewell C in Suffolk – demonstrating Government commitment to this energy source (devolved Scotland has no nuclear plans).
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“Nuclear will play a central role in meeting the UK’s future energy needs as we deliver our net zero target,” says the current minister for nuclear Lord Patrick Vallance. “As set out in our clean power mission, while our future electricity system will be dominated by renewables, we still need firm, low-carbon power to ensure the system is stable, secure and affordable. Nuclear provides that essential backbone – delivering clean power for millions of homes while underpinning a safe, resilient and cheaper system for the decades ahead.”
Not everyone is convinced, especially those concerned about safety issues; the shadows of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters, in 1986 and 2011 respectively, still dog the industry. Nuclear power creates vast amounts of potentially lethal radioactive waste, which must be contained and stored securely for thousands of years. Then there are questions of cost. Nuclear reactors are massive infrastructure projects and hugely expensive, not least because of the requirements of mitigating safety risks. Is it worth the investment – or could we power the UK through other means?
How do nuclear power stations work?
First, it’s helpful to understand how nuclear reactors create electricity – and how this technology has come to be adopted in the UK. Power stations are like large kettles: they use a heat source (from nuclear fission, or in conventional power stations from burning coal or gas) to boil water and create steam. Under pressure, this steam drives a turbine, which converts rotational energy into electricity via a generator.
Nuclear power generates heat from fission – splitting the nuclei of atoms. Typically, the fuel used is uranium-235 in the form of an oxide, which is processed into small ceramic pellets stacked into rods. Deep in the reactor, the fuel rods are bombarded with neutrons. These make the uranium nuclei unstable, causing them to split, releasing heat, radiation and more neutrons. These additional neutrons hit and split other uranium nuclei, creating a chain reaction and releasing plentiful heat-generating energy.
What is the history of nuclear power?
Nuclear fission was discovered in 1938 in Germany, with the first nuclear chain reaction achieved in the USA in 1942. By 1945, nuclear weapons had been developed and deployed. And while the Soviet Union constructed the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity, it was the UK that built the first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale in 1956. Since then, Britain’s love affair with nuclear has waxed, waned and waxed again. At its peak in 1997, nuclear supplied about a quarter of Britain’s electricity needs but this has declined to less than a fifth as older plants have been scaled down and closed.
Who controls our nuclear power stations?
The two new nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point and Sizewell are being built by EDF, France’s state-owned energy company. EDF manages eight nuclear sites in the UK – seven Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) sites and one Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR). It says it’s driving the transition towards “an Electric Britain – a secure, affordable, low-carbon future for everyone. As Britain’s biggest generator of zero-carbon electricity, we are investing more than £100 million weekly in Britain’s electricity infrastructure.”
In addition to providing power, EDF points to wider economic benefits – “around 31,000 jobs a year and more than £123 billion in economic value [as at the end of 2024] to the UK so far”.
As to having a foreign energy company providing such critical infrastructure, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) says: “We welcome international investment and participation in our national infrastructure but investment will never come at the expense of national security. Staff with access to critical systems on a UK nuclear site have to be UK nationals with a particular level of security vetting.”
Who opposes nuclear power?
Some of the strongest voices against nuclear power in the UK come from groups protesting against the new reactors at Hinkley and Sizewell. Former science teacher Allan Jeffrey has been voicing concerns for over 40 years as part of campaign group Stop Hinkley, which works closely with TASC (Together Against Sizewell C). He doesn’t mince words: “Nuclear power stations are toxic radioactive waste factories” and argues that nuclear is “neither clean nor green” saying “large amounts of greenhouse gasses are produced in the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining and fuel processing to the building of power stations and waste storage sites and decommissioning old reactors.”
Jeffrey dismisses the idea that nuclear is more ethical than the gas or coal supplies the UK buys from unstable or openly hostile foreign states. “Uranium is not a renewable fuel,” he says, “and is mined in countries such as Australia, Canada, Niger and Kazakhstan. The miners frequently get lung cancer from the Radon gas, and much environmental pollution is left locally by the mining tailings and river water pollution.”
Jeffrey also points at the cost of nuclear: “Nuclear reactors take too long to build and pay back their greenhouse gas emissions.” He has a point with Hinkley Point C, which has been a building site since being approved by the Conservative Government in 2016.
Stop Hinkley and TASC are supported by statistics from CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and many prominent anti-nuclear voices, including the environmentalist and friend of King Charles, Jonathan Porritt. In a recent blog post he claimed: “The Treasury’s financial modelling for the new power station at Sizewell C (seen by the Financial Times) gives a range of roughly £80 billion to £100 billion, far higher than the official estimate of £47 billion from the DESNZ – which in itself was already nearly double the original cost of £20 billion!”
DESNZ argues that there will be a big saving with Sizewell C because it is a replica of Hinkley and will be “built at a cost of £38bn in 2024 real terms. This would represent around 20% saving on the capital cost of the project compared with Hinkley C”.
That said, the Government’s own review, led by Sir John Fingleton, found that Britain was the most expensive place in the world to build nuclear facilities due largely to a “fragmented” regulatory system that had led to “conservative and costly decisions not proportionate to the actual risk being managed”.
What are the wildlife costs of nuclear power?
One very public reason for rising costs – and one the press have leapt on – is mitigation measures to prevent deaths of wildlife, especially fish. Nuclear power stations are located on the coast so they can draw seawater to cool the reactors. But they also suck in large numbers of fish; the Environment Agency has estimated 4.6 million per year at Hinkley, a figure EDF strongly contests.
EDF says it has spent £700 million in mitigation measures, including sonic fish deterrents developed with Swansea University. These use ultrasound to drive fish from the water intakes and have been dubbed ‘fish discos’ in the press.
However, Matt Browne, head of public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, disputes EDF’s claims. “The developers of Hinkley C continue to misrepresent the impact that the nuclear plant will have on nature… This is highly misleading and allows EDF to pretend that £700 million is being spent to protect nature, when the real figure is closer to £50 million. It also misrepresents the number of fish affected by the proposed plant.”
Browne goes on to say: “On the basis of these false claims, the Government is now considering progressing recommendations which will lead to nature protections being severely compromised.”
Both Hinkley and Sizewell projects stress their positive environmental impacts, including the creation of three nature reserves at Sizewell C that are “already three times the size of what Sizewell C’s permanent footprint will be,” says EDF. As for safety, DESNZ quotes the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which says nuclear power plants “are among the safest and most secure facilities in the world,” and nuclear power is one of the safest forms of energy generation. “For context,” it continues, “the annual radiation dose to an adult living beside a new nuclear plant is much less than taking one trans-Atlantic flight or eating 100g of Brazil nuts – neither of which have heavy radiation.”
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is an independent body that oversees nuclear safety in the UK. It says it has "consistently found that the industry maintains high standards of safety, security and safeguards that we expect across the nuclear sector in Great Britain, with most of our inspections confirming good levels of compliance.”
What happens to nuclear waste?
One area where there is a gap in the Government and EDF’s positive messaging – and one that tallies with Stop Hinkley and Porritt’s deeper fears – is just how and where to store nuclear waste.
Even after it’s no longer useful for generating heat, it continues to emit radiation, which breaks molecular bonds and causes severe damage to cell tissues in all organisms, leading to cancers and other severe health issues. And, as it breaks down very slowly, the waste emits this harmful radiation for tens of thousands of years.
The ONR says “Nuclear waste is primarily transferred to specialised, secure and regulated facilities for storage pending long-term disposal. Current Government policy is that UK higher activity radioactive waste will be managed in the long-term through geological disposal facilities (GDF)”.
GDF means burying the waste in deep subterranean vaults and leaving it alone till its radiation cools.
For Allan Jeffrey, this is simply an “unsolved environmental problem for future generations… a heavy burden to lay on our children and their children’s, children.” Porritt is aghast: “This is a truly extraordinary development – confirming that the UK still has NO idea what to do about its legacy nuclear waste.” And there is, of course, a huge cost involved, firstly with decommissioning a nuclear reactor and then storing the waste.
Currently, most high-level nuclear waste is being stored at Sellafield. Once at the forefront of the UK’s nuclear programme, Sellafield stopped generating electricity in 2003 and is now in the process of being decommissioned. As well as dealing with Sellafield’s own waste – spent fuel rods and other debris stored in silos and artificial ponds – it holds waste from other plants.
High level waste usually occurs in liquid form, a byproduct of processing spent fuel. This is mixed with crushed glass in a furnace and the molten product is poured into steel cannisters where it cools and solidifies, making it stable and safe for storage. But it is temporary storage only and Sellafield is almost full. Communities in Cumbria and Lincolnshire have been identified as potential nuclear waste sites.
What do other countries do?
The decommissioning of Sellafield is a massive project that may take over 100 years, with spiralling costs – but that’s a blink of an eye in terms of nuclear radiation. Those looking for a longer-term solution may take some heart from Finland, which has successfully developed deep geological disposal of nuclear waste using technology developed by Swedish nuclear fuel management company SKB.
After much research, Finland’s Olkiluoto Island was identified as having the ideal layers of bedrock to contain radiation; the Finns have excavated a series of shafts up to 500m below ground where, sealed in copper cannisters and clay, 6,500 tonnes of nuclear waste can be left safe and untouched for 100,000 years.
France is expected to build a similar facility in its north-east. According to DESNZ, “A process is underway to identify a suitable site for a GDF in England and Wales.”
Such gigantic periods of time, when all current decision makers and hundreds of generations of their descendants will be long dead, are hard to comprehend. Opponents of nuclear, such as Stop Hinkley and TASC, urge policymakers not to take the risk and to invest instead in renewables such as wind, solar and hydro power. In 2025, wind provided approximately 30% of the UK’s electricity needs compared to just 11–17% provided by nuclear. The UN’s International Energy Agency predicts renewables will generate 90% of all new power in the coming years. And yet you’ll find protest groups opposing almost every new wind or solar farm with the same vigour as those who are anti-nuclear.
For now, until more renewables are developed and we as a nation are prepared to accept them in our landscapes, the Government is committed to that “backbone” of nuclear power for the foreseeable future. It may not be the whole answer to Britain’s energy problem, but it’s here to stay.
Main image: Sizewell B nuclear power station Suffolk (Photo: Alamy)
